Tag: paleontology
-
Palaeocast Episode 68: Fossil plants and the Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum
Palaeocast has an interesting episode on the Paleocene/Eocene Global Thermal Maximum. This was a very warm period in earth’s history. It happened around 56 million years ago. The Bighorn Basin in Wyoming has been an important area for research into terrestrial ecosystems for decades. The basin formed as part of the uprising of the Rocky…
-
Field Trip: Starved Rock Clay Products Quarry, Saturday, Sept 24, 2016
There will be a field trip to the Starved Rock Clay Pit on Saturday, September 24, 2016. The trip is organized by the Lincoln Orbit Earth Science Society (LOESS) of Springfield, but ESCONI members are welcome. The clay pit is located just south of Starved Rock State Park. Other than the glacial overburden, everything…
-
A Fossil Freak Show – On the Rocks
The On The Rocks blog has an interesting post on strange trilobites. Trilobites come in all shapes and sizes. Many are “weird”, but probably not any weirder than what is found in the modern, natural world. The discussion is on both natural deformities from when the animal was alive and deformities caused by the fossilization…
-
Kickstarter: The Paleozoic: a series about life before the dinosaurs
Here’s an interesting project on Kickstarter. It consists of 5 accordion books covering the 280 million years of prehistoric life. $25 for 1 book and a t-shirt or $50 for all 5 books. It covers the Cambrian Explosion, the Permian Mass Extinction, the Devonian transition to land, and much more… Check it out! “The Paleozoic”…
-
Science News: Paleontologists discover major T. rex fossil
A T. rex tooth discovered by UW Burke Museum paleontologists in Montana.Tom Wolken/Burke Museum Science News has an interesting item about the discovery of a new Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. The skeleton includes the skull, ribs, vertebrae, and parts of the jaw and pelvis. It was discovered this summer by two University of Washington Burke Museum…
-
September 2106 General Meeting Title Change: Paul Mayer “How Digitization Helped Tame the Tully Monster”
September’s General Meeting will feature a presentation by Paul Mayer of the Field Museum. He is one of the co-authors of the paper “The Tully monster is a vertebrate“, which appeared in Nature back in March. It should be a very interesting presentation. It starts at 8:00 in room 1038B of the Tech Ed (TEC)…
-
Island’s Mammoths May Have Been Thirsty at Their Extinction – 5,600 Years Ago
The NY Times has a story about the last Mammoths on a small island in the Bering Sea. Using a variety of data, researchers, led by a team from Penn State University, have shown that the Woolly Mammoths on St. Paul Island went extinct about 5,600 years ago. The cause seems to be due to…
-
Rare Dinosaur-Era Bird Wings Found Trapped in Amber
National Geographic has an amazing story about the discovery of a 100 million year old bird wing preserved in Burmese amber. The amber dates to the mid-Cretaceous. There’s bone, soft tissue, and feathers and it’s very similar to modern birds. The tiny pair of wings have been nicknamed “Angel”, because it was originally intended to…
-
Why Big Dinosaurs Steered Clear of the Tropics
GeologyPage has a story about why large dinosaurs were somewhat rare in the tropics. There were small bodied meat-eaters, but the absence of large plant-eaters in the low-latitudes is one of the great, unanswered questions about the reign of the dinosaurs. There may now be an answer. Researchers from various institutions worked to create a…
-
June Paleontology Meeting – Canceled
The June 2016 Paleontology Study Group meeting has been canceled. Have a great summer! See you in September for "Show and Tell"!
-
Archaeologists in Greece Think They Found Aristotle’s Tomb
AtlasObscura has a post about the possible discovery of the tomb of Aristotle. A group of archaeologists have been digging at a site in the ancient northern Greek city of Stageira, where Aristotle was born in 384 BCE. He died 62 years later in Chalcis, which is about 50 miles north of Athens. The Greek…
-
New Frilly-Necked Dinosaur Identified
Spiclypeus shipporum (shown here in an artist’s illustration) would have plodded along a 76 million years ago in what is now the Judith River Formation of Montana.Credit: copyright Mike Skrepnick Livescience has yet another story about a new ceratopsian dinosaur. That’s two on the same day. This one is called Spiclypeus shipporum, and lived around…
-
Dinosaur with ‘Bent Sword’ Head Spikes Unearthed in Utah
An artist’s interpretation of Machairoceratops cronusi, a newly identified horned dinosaur discovered in southern Utah.Credit: Mark Witton Livescience has a story about a new ceratopsid dinosaur. It’s named Machairoceratops cronusi and lived about 77 million years ago in prehistoric Utah. Pieces of it’s skull were first discovered in 2006. At 1 to 2 tons, it…
-
CBC Quirks & Quarks – Dung beetles diversified by dining on dinosaur droppings
CBC’s Quicks & Quarks has a segment on the evolutionary connection between dung beetles and dinosaurs. Dung beetles first appeared in the lower Cretaceous, 115 to 130 million years ago. The timing of their emergence and diversification coincides with the rise of the flowering plants, or angiosperms. In a new study by Dr. Nicole Gunter,…
-
Milwaukee Public Museum May 10th: Coal, Shale, and Ironstone: the Geology and Paleontology of Mazon Creek
Annularia stellata plant found in the Mazon River strata, Morris, Illinois. Collection Marie Angkuw ESCONI member Andrew Young will be giving what is sure to be an interesting lecture at the Milwaukee Public Museum’s “Lunch & Lecture” on May 10, 2016. May 10, 2016 – Coal, Shale, and Ironstone: the Geology and Paleontology of Mazon Creek…
-
Trilobites.info: April 2016 Trilobite of the Month
Over at Trilobites.info, the Trilobite of the Month for April 2016 is Stummiana arkonensis. It’s a Middle Devonian trilobite from the Widder Formation, Hamilton Group of Arkona, Ontario, Canada. Check it out on the trilobites.info website. The trilobites.info website is invaluable for everything trilobite. Check it out today! The Trilobite of the Month for the…
-
AMNH Trilobite of the Week – Paradoxides davidis trapezopyge
The AMNH’s Trilobite of the Week is Paradoxides davidis trapezopyge. Paradoxides davidis trapezopyge Bergström & Levi-Setti 1978Middle CambrianManuels River FormationManuels River, Newfoundland, Canada22 cm
-
Found: A Magnificent Roman Villa, Hiding Under a British Backyard
AtlasObscura has a fascinating story about a recent Roman villa discovered hiding under a British backyard. The villa dates back to 175 to 220 C.E. And, it probably still stood up to around 1400 years ago. The villa was probably 3 stories tall and had 20 or more rooms. Sometimes there really is a secret…
-
myFOSSIL Project Newsletter for March 2016
There’s a new myFOSSIL Project Newsletter for March 2016. You can download it from here. Highlights:
-
305-Million-Year-Old ‘Almost Spider’ Unlocks Arachnid History
A computed tomography image reveals the 305-million-year-old arachnid that is almost, but not quite, a spider.Credit: Garwood et al 2016/Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris livescience has a story about an “Almost Spider”. The new animal, from France, was found locked in iron carbonate and hails from about 305 million years ago (Carboniferous Period). It has…
-
Caveman’s best friends? Preserved Ice Age puppies awe scientists
A scientist performs an autopsy of the remains of a puppy, which died 12,460 years ago and was discovered in Russia’s northern Yakutia, at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk Phys.org has a story about frozen ice age puppies found in Russia. The puppies were found in Yakutia and date to 12,460 year before present. The…
-
Laelaps – Most Dinosaur Species Are Still Undiscovered
Visitors passing by the skeletons of dinosaurs in the Humboldt Museum fur Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. Photograph by VPC Photo, Alamy Laelaps has an interesting post about the discovery of new dinosaur species over on the Phenomena blog at National Geographic. We don’t know how many different dinosaur species existed during the reign of…
-
CBC Quirks & Quarks – Pregnant T rex!
Tyrannosaurs Rex fossil cast at the Royal Tyrell Museum (Pierre Camateros, cc-by-sa-3.0) CBC Radio’s Quicks & Quarks has a segment on the first pregnant Tyrannosaurus rex. Dr. Mary Higby Schweitzer, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University, has confirmed that a 68 million year old T-rex, found in 2005,…
-
Palaeocast Episode 62: The Tully Monster
Palaeocast has a new episode on the Tully Monster! Dave interviews the principal author on the Nature paper, that was published earlier this week. There’s quite a bit of information in the podcast. The coverage on the this Tully Monster paper has been truly amazing. Tullimonstrum gregarium, better known as the ‘Tully Monster’ is a…
-
The “Tully Monster” is a vertebrate!
A new paper, co-authored by Paul Mayer of the Field Museum, in Nature sheds light on an age-old mystery. Tullymonstrum gregarium, commonly known as the Tully Monster, is the official state fossil of Illinois, designated in 1989. It’s a soft bodied animal found in the late Carboniferous Mazon Creek biota (approximately 309-307 million years…
-
Science: Most species that disappear today will leave no trace in the fossil record
The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, went extinct in 1936 and is known both from fossils and human documentation. © The Lighthouse/Visuals Unlimited/Corbis Science Magazine has an interesting article about a study co-authored by UIC professor (and ESCONI member) Roy Plotnick. In it, he and his co-authors postulate that future paleontologists will have trouble following the…
-
The Minerals of Missouri Online Exhibit
New online virtual museum on the minerals of Missouri. The website can be found at http://www.virtualmuseumofgeology.com/. Enjoy!
-
Fossil News Magazine Returns!
Between 1998 and 2010, the little magazine, Fossil News: The Journal of Avocational Paleontology, was published monthly for a diverse and enthusiastic base of international subscribers, including amateur and paraprofessional fossil collectors, fossil preparators and dealers, and paleontologists and other scientists, many of whom also contributed articles, photographs, art work, and fossil tips to the magazine. After…
-
AMNH Trilobite of the Week – Placoparina sedgewickii
At the American Museum of Natural History, the trilobite of the week is Placoparina sedgewickii (McCoy, 1849). It was alive during the Middle Ordovician.
-
Cotton Crustacean – Paleontology T-shirts
Get your paleo t-shirts at Cotton Crustacean. There are t-shirts with Anomalocaris, Dunkleosteus, Elasmosaur, Ammonite, Helicoprion, Mosasaur, Toxoceras, Trilobita, and others. There are also art prints of some of the images. Check it out! Cotton Crustacean is a San Francisco Bay Area based, family run, boutique t-shirt company owned and operated by Aaron John…
