Via geology.com: Scientists have discovered a new type of hot spring along the banks of a volcanic lake in the Philippines. These “terrestrial smokers” are cousins to submarine black smokers, hydrothermal vents on the seafloor that spew plumes of hot, nutrient-rich water and often support rich communities of life.  

Via PhysOrg: In the past year, Allison has been using a Microsoft Research-developed tool called Layerscape. Based on the popular WorldWide Telescope, also developed by Microsoft Research, Layerscape is a cloud-based instrument that enables earth scientists to analyze and visualize massive amounts of data. With Layerscape, scientists can create three-dimensional virtual tours of the Earth; explore new ways of looking at Earth and oceanic data; and build predictive models in areas such as climate change, health epidemics, and oceanic shifts….

Always interesting to talk about the oil supply – video. “The former president of Shell Oil Company debated Tad Patzek, Chair, Dept. of Petroleum Engineering, University of Texas on Feb 14 at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. The subject was: “The World Oil Supply: Looming Crisis or New Abundance?””

The Paleobiology Database now has over a million occurences of fossils. 

From Sci-News.com: … In the study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers reveal that this prehistoric species of bushcricket radiated musical songs using a resonant mechanism tuned at a specific frequency… The article includes a lovely animation with the sound of the imagined call of a Juraasic bushcricket. 

From PhysOrg: Researchers have now been able to sequence the entire Denisova genome using 10 milligram of a finger bone fragment that was found in the Denisova-Cave in Southern Sibiria…

Update to a post from January –  The Society for Cenozoic Research is now accepting abstracts for their 2012 annual meeting. Topics related to any aspect of Cenozoic research will be considered.  Abstract Deadline is March 15, 2012 Registration details can be found on their website – http://www.wix.com/societycenozresearch/terqua-2012.   

Interesting article from ScienceDaily: … Now, an experimental study – in which a modern-day flintknapper replicated hundreds of Levallois artifacts – supports the notion that Levallois flakes were indeed engineered by prehistoric hominins….

Recent article about the La Brea Tar Pits in the NYTimes:  … The tar pits have so many fossils precisely because of the tar, which one can still see bubbling to the surface in spots throughout Hancock Park. The gooey asphalt that trapped and entombed the animals turns out to be a great preservative. Thousands of perfect skulls and nearly complete skeletons representing more than 200 vertebrate species have been retrieved from the death trap. Among them are many giant beasts, including mammoths, mastodons and the short-faced bear. (Only its snout was short; the bear stood more than 11 feet…