Blogs

Cast of Biggest Dinosaur Found to Go on Display in Sue's Place

Monday, February 5, 2018

Sue, the T. rex

A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that’s been on prominent display at Chicago’s Field Museum is being moved to make room for a cast of the biggest dinosaur ever discovered.

Officials with the Field Museum say the T. rex named Sue, which has been at the museum since 2000, will be moved on Monday. The specimen will be updated and moved upstairs to a private suite opening in 2019.

The changes are part of an overhaul to the lakefront museum’s main hall.

A 122-foot-long titanosaur, a Patagotitan mayorum from Argentina, is expected to arrive in June. It’ll take up a third of the main hall with its head peeking over a 28-foot, second-floor balcony.

Source: www.detroitnews.com

Over 40% of Americans Believe Humans and Dinosaurs Shared the Planet

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Many believe that dinosaurs and humans once coexisted, but most know that current technology doesn't allow for cloning dinosaurs from fossils.

The recent release of Jurassic World broke records for the best opening weekend ever, taking in $208.8 million in North America. The film, which is a reboot of 1993's original Jurassic Park, focuses on a theme park which displays dinosaurs that have been cloned by taking the DNA from fossils.

YouGov's latest research shows that 41% of Americans think that dinosaurs and humans either 'definitely' (14%) or 'probably' (27%) once lived on the planet at the same time. 43% think that this is either 'definitely' (25%) or 'probably' (18%) not true while 16% aren't sure. In reality the earliest ancestors of humans have only been on the planet for 6 million years, while the last dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago

There is a religious split on this question. While most Americans who describe themselves as 'born again' (56%) believe that humans and dinosaurs once shared the planet, most Americans who do not describe themselves as born again (51%) think that they did not. Only 22% of born again Americans think that dinosaurs and humans did not coexist.

When asked about the science that provides the fictional basis for the Jurassic Park movies, most Americans (54%) say that it is not currently possible to create dinosaur clones from DNA found in fossils while 28% believe that it is currently possible. Half the public also say that if there were a theme park like Jurassic Park, they would not go to visit while 40% say that they would.

The Jurassic Park movies have been widely watched. 71% of Americans say that they have seen the original and at least a third of the public have seen the earlier two sequels, The Lost World (43%) and Jurassic Park III (36%).

 

Source: today.yougov.com (2015)

Utahraptor Rips Way Through Senate Toward Becoming the State Dinosaur

Monday, February 5, 2018

 (Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah State assistant state paleontologist, Don DeBlieux, is framed in the skull of a Utahraptor on dislapy at the Utah State capitol in Salt Lake City Monday February 12, 2018. Deblieux and Utah State Paleontologist James Kirkland were at the capitol in support of S.B. 43 which is seeking to make the Utahraptor the State dinosaur.

The Utahraptor easily ripped its way through the Utah Senate on Monday, clawing its way closer to becoming the official state dinosaur.

The Senate voted unanimously to pass SB41 and sent it to the House.

That came as 10-year-old Kenyon Roberts, who first proposed the bill, stood on the Senate floor by sponsoring Sen. Curt Bramble — and as State Paleontologist Jim Kirkland, who discovered Utahraptor, watched nearby.

Utahraptor itself, at least parts of one, also stood watch in the Capitol. Replica casts of its skull, thigh, foot and claws were on display in the Capitol’s Hall of Governors, much to the noisy delight of schoolchildren on field trips there.

“You know I’ve been a cynic on state symbols” from the state cooking pot [Dutch oven] to the state folk dance [square dance], said Bramble, R-Provo. “But this one seems to be unique.”

Utah “is the only place on the planet where this particular dinosaur has been discovered,” and probably the only place it ever will be found because of unique geology here that was “able to preserve this particular species.”

Bramble noted how Utahraptor rescued Steven Spielberg and makers of the movie “Jurassic Park” from embarrassment — and brought attention to Utah.

The raptors pictured in that movie were larger than humans, “but all the raptors found up to that time were only about the size of wild turkeys,” Bramble said. The large Utahraptor was found a few months after release of the movie, showing it could have been the large raptor pictured.

At Bramble’s suggestion, the Senate tested young Roberts’ knowledge of dinosaurs by giving him a letter of the alphabet to see if he could name a dinosaur that started with it, and provide information.

When he was given the letter X by Sen. Jacob Anderegg to try to stump him, Roberts quickly said, “Xenotarsosaurus was a theropod like Utahraptor. Theropods are dinosaurs that walk on two legs, and most species ate meat. Xenotarsosaurus looked a lot like its cousin Carnotaurus.” After the quick answer, he said, “Next.”

“Slam on Senator Anderegg,” said Senate President Wayne Niderhauser, R-Sandy, amid laughs. He later added that young Roberts “was just like an encyclopedia of dinosaurs.”

Utah has 27 official state symbols.

Among them are the state fossil (Allosaurus), state bird (seagull), flower (sego lily), insect (honeybee), rock (coal), tree (quaking aspen),winter sports (skiing and snowboarding), firearm (Browning M1911pistol), vegetable (Spanish sweet onion) and historic vegetable (sugarbeet).

 

Source: www.sltrib.com

 

Tulsa Researcher Unlocking Prehistoric Mystery of the Tyrannosaurus rex

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

People have been fascinated by dinosaurs since their first bones were found some 2,000 years ago.

OSU Paleontologist Dr. Holly Woodward Ballard shares that fascination every day in her lab at the OSU Center for Health Sciences. She’s measuring the growth of the Tyrannosaurus rex, because no one is sure how large the dinosaur could get.

It starts with a tile saw like you'd buy at Home Depot. Very thin slices of T. rex leg bone are polished so they can be examined under a microscope.

She studies their growth curves like you would age a tree.

Woodward Ballard said, "The tissue is a circular pattern, kind of one after the other. So that’s what we count to see how old this animal is when it died."

The T. rex gets a lot of attention because they may have been the most frightening creature to ever walk the planet. But Woodward Ballard will tell you they're even more interesting as you really get to know them.

She said, "It’s just a huge overgrown chicken basically. It’s just this giant bird with teeth is what it looks like to me."

It’s a bird that could rip off hundreds of pounds of meat with a single bite. While some scientists theorize that T. rex was a slow scavenger, she doesn't necessarily agree.

Woodward Ballard said, "The thing you have to remember is the stride length of that thing. It would only have to take a few steps and you could be running flat out and it could catch you."

She is very enthusiastic about her work in the lab and hunting for dinosaurs in the summer.

"It died, it was fossilized, it was buried and you're the first person to put a hand on it. It's like reaching back 67 to 66 million years ago. It’s just so exciting."

So far, she's studied 19 T. rex leg bones with more to come. She says the famous T. rex skeleton, Sue, at the Field Museum in Chicago is one of the largest ever discovered. At the age of 28, Sue had grown to almost 41 feet and 12,000 pounds.

But Woodward Ballard has never studied the bone of a T. rex that had stopped growing. It may be that the world was so dangerous in the Cretaceous period, that growing to maturity was a very difficult challenge.

Source: http://ktul.com

Dinosaur-Era Bird Found Trapped in Amber

Monday, February 5, 2018

The amber containing the dinosaur-era bird had been polished partway through the body, allowing researchers to peer inside the skull and chest cavity and chemically map its exposed soft tissues. PHOTOGRAPH BY R.C. MCKELLAR, ROYAL SASKATCHEWAN MUSEU

The squashed remains of a small bird that lived 99 million years ago have been found encased in a cloudy slab of amber from Myanmar (Burma). While previous birds found in Burmese amber have been more visually spectacular, none of them have contained as much of the skeleton as this juvenile, which features the back of the skull, most of the spine, the hips, and parts of one wing and leg.

The newfound bird is also special because researchers can more clearly see the insides of the young prehistoric creature, says study co-author Ryan McKellar of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina, Canada.

“The amber is turbid, with lots of little wood particulates. It looks like it was produced on or near the forest floor,” McKellar says. This means the external view of the bird isn’t great, but the interior is much more exciting.

“When it was being prepared in Myanmar, they polished through the front half of the specimen, which gave us an exposed view into the chest cavity and the skull,” McKellar says.

The discovery adds to a remarkable collection of Cretaceous-period fossils from the amber deposits in northern Myanmar’s Hukawng Valley. In the past few years, the region has also yielded several beautiful bird wings, the spectacular feathered tail of a small carnivorous dinosaur, and the outline of an entire hatchling bird. In December, researchers even revealed ticks in amber that may have feasted on dinosaurs.

“This Myanmar fossil deposit is clearly game-changing. It’s arguably the more important breakthrough for understanding bird evolution right now,” says Julia Clarke, an expert on the evolution of birds and flight at the University of Texas at Austin.

“We used to think we’d never have a whole bird in Cretaceous amber, but now we have multiple examples.”

FOAMY AND SQUASHED

Lida Xing, lead author of the paper detailing the specimen in the journal Science Bulletin, says that when he first saw the newfound bird being sold for jewelry in Myanmar in 2015, his heart began to beat very fast.

The team was lucky to acquire the bird for the Dexu Institute of Paleontology in Chaozhou, China. Birds in amber can sometimes sell for up to $500,000, putting them beyond the reach of scientists, says Xing, a paleontologist at the China University of Geosciences in Beijing.

He estimates that this is only the second bird in Burmese amber that’s been described by scientists and published in a journal. But he thinks as many as six have been discovered so far, around half of which have disappeared into the hands of private collectors.

Based on their analysis, supported in part by National Geographic, the team says that the young bird fell into the Cretaceous tree resin either dead or alive, and moisture caused the resin to foam slightly, later creating the cloudy amber. Some of the bones and soft tissues were weathered away, and sediment got trapped inside the spaces.

An illustration shows the young Cretaceous bird trapped in tree resin, which would eventually fossilize into amber.  ILLUSTRATION BY CHEUNG CHUNG TAT

“A subsequent resin flow sealed the remains to protect them from further weathering or dissolution, but the amber was later squished, shattering many of the bones,” says McKellar. “All of this is now trapped in a wafer of amber about as large as a belt buckle.”

The bird itself is around 2.4 inches long and is perhaps slightly older than the 1.8-inch hatchling bird described last year. The structure of its feathers and skeleton suggests it was an enantiornithine, a type of primitive bird that went extinct with the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

“Even though they are hatchlings, they already have a full set of flight feathers,” McKellar says. “They have a weakly developed rachis, or central shaft, so they may not have been excellent flyers.”

In life, the bird would have had teeth in its beak and would have been dark chestnut or walnut in color, with fuzzy feathers on its head and neck.

NEST MATES

“It’s always exciting when a vertebrate fossil is found in amber, especially Cretaceous amber,” says George Poinar, a paleobiologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, whose research on fossilized insects in amber inspired the plot of Jurassic Park.

Assigning it to the enantiornithine birds makes sense, he adds, as they were common at that time. But it’s a pity “that the two diagnostic features of that family are missing: the toothed beak and clawed fingers on the wings.”

Poinar speculates that the fledgling may have been attacked by a predator and knocked out of the nest into resin oozing from the same tree, and that some of the plant fragments and a cockroach also found trapped in the amber piece may have originated in the nest.

“Cockroaches are general scavengers, and finding them in nesting material would not be a surprise,” he says.

With time and luck, McKellar says, the team hopes to have a whole growth series of enantiornithine birds in Burmese amber. There’s certainly no shortage of raw material to comb through—in 2015 alone, an estimated 10 tons of amber were extracted from the Hukawng Valley.

 

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Titanoceratops

Monday, February 19, 2018

The Guinness world record holder for largest skull. Author: Kurt McKee

Titanoceratops (meaning "titanic horn face") is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur. It was a giant chasmosaurine ceratopsian that lived during the Late Cretaceous period (late Campanian, 74.7–73.5 Ma, although it could have lived as late as 72.82 Ma) in what is now New Mexico, and the earliest known member of Triceratopsini. It was named in 2011 by Nicholas R. Longrich for a specimen previously thought to belong to PentaceratopsTitanoceratops was named for its giant skull, and the type species was named T. ouranos, after the father of the Greek titans.

It is known solely from the holotype OMNH 10165, a partial skeleton including a mostly complete skull and jaws. The skeleton has a reconstructed skull measuring 2.65 metres (8.7 ft) long, which makes it an easy candidate for the longest skull of any land vertebrate. With an estimated weight of 6.55 tonnes (6.45 long tons) and length of 6.8 metres (22.3 ft), Titanoceratops can compare to the giant sizes of Torosaurus and Triceratops.

Size comparison of the derived chasmosaurine ceratopsian Titanoceratops and the human by Andrew A. Farke.

The holotype of Titanoceratops is thought to come from the upper Fruitland Formation or the lower Kirtland Formation based on field notes and the lithology of the matrix surrounding the fossils, but unfortunately the precise location of the quarry is no longer known. Because the location of the quarry is no longer known, the bold border between the formations can not be discriminated. The species was formally named by Nicholas R. Longrich in 2011 and the type species is Titanoceratops ouranos. Previously, its fossils were assigned to Pentaceratops, although its separation is not certain and the two binomials are treated as synonymous according to Wick & Lehman (2013). The holotype specimen consists of most of the fore and hindlimbs, some vertebrae, a fairly complete skull with only one small section of the frill, and partial lower jaws.

The skull measures 1.2 m (3.9 ft) from the tip of the snout to the quadrate and its restored frill extends its total length up to 2.65 m (8.7 ft) making it a candidate for the longest skull of any terrestrial vertebrate. Titanoceratops was as large as the later triceratopsins with an estimated weight of 6.55 tonnes (7.22 short tons) and a mounted skeleton measuring 6.8 metres (22.3 ft) long and 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) tall at the back. Tom Holtz (2012) noted that it is extremely similar to its closely related contemporaries Eotriceratops and Ojoceratops, which may all be synonymous. The holotype skeleton of Titanoceratops consists of a partial skull with jaws, syncervical, cervical, dorsal, and sacral vertebrae, caudal certebrae, ribshumeri, a right radiusfemoratibiae, a right fibula, both ilia, both ischia, and ossified tendons. In total, the amount of material assigned to Titanoceratops means it is quite well known, along with genera like TriceratopsVagaceratopsPentaceratopsChasmosaurusCentrosaurusStyracosaurus, and Anchiceratops.

Life restoration of ceratopsid specimen OMNH 10165, classified as the species Titanoceratops ouranos. A ceratopsid genus from the Late Cretaceous Period Kirtland or Fruitland formation (Willow Wash Fauna, Kirtlandian age) of what is now New Mexico by LadyofHats

Originally assigned to PentaceratopsTitanoceratops was found by Longrich in its description to not be closely related to it, and instead found it to share characteristics with triceratopsins. The skeleton has many derived features that are shared between Triceratops and its closest relatives. However, even thought most recent studies find Titanoceratops to be valid and distinguished from Pentaceratops, one study in which Bravoceratops was described found the two genera and species to be synonymous, and therefore Titanoceratops ouranos the invalid name.

Previously, the origins of Triceratops were poorly known. Until the description of TitanoceratopsEotriceratops was the oldest known triceratopsin, and only dated to 68 million years old, from the uppermost region of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation. No Campanian triceratopsins were known before, so it appeared as if the group suddenly diversified in the Maastrichtian. Titanoceratops shows that large-bodied ceratopsians evolved earlier than thought. Based on the age of Titanoceratops, there must have been a five million year ghost lineage leading to Eotriceratops.

Source: Wikipedia.com, NatGeo.com

Where to Discover Dinosaurs in Texas

Sunday, February 4, 2018

The Morian Hall of Paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  Courtesy of Houston Museum of Natural Science

Although the word “dinosaur” is derived from Ancient Greek words that together roughly mean “terrible lizard,” scientists through the years have learned that these extinct creatures were more similar to modern birds than to lizards. Last month, a team of scientists—including researchers from the University of Texas in Austin—revealed their findings for a newly discovered dinosaur fossil, which they’ve named the Caihong juji. This chicken-sized creature lived in China during the Jurassic Period. Its name translates from Mandarin to “rainbow with the big crest,” referring to the juji’s brilliant mane of iridescent rainbow neck feathers. Not that we needed an excuse to get excited about paleontology, but this newest addition to the dinosaur canon—as well as Austin Dinosaur Day on February 3—has inspired us to put together a roundup of places where you can appreciate some terribly terrific dinosaurs in Texas.

Glen Rose, the “Dinosaur Capital of Texas”

If you seek dinosaurs, look no further than Glen Rose, a small town once home to big creatures, 60 miles southwest of Fort Worth. Start at Dinosaur Valley State Park, home to some of the best-preserved dinosaur tracks in the world. It was here that the first Sauropod (colloquially, a “long neck dinosaur”) trackway was ever discovered. Why are these tracks so prominent? Glen Rose was at the coast of the shallow sea that covered Texas during the Cretaceous period. When the crustaceans that lived in the water broke down, their shells left behind calcium deposits. This created a limy mud perfect for preserving remains, so that today you can see the large round tracks of the famous Sauropod, Paluxysaurus jonesi (named the official dinosaur of Texas in 2009), and the three-toed prints of the Theropod Acrocanthosaurus (a bipedal carnivore like the T-Rex) as you navigate twenty miles of guided pathways and trails in and around the Paluxy River. Before leaving, make sure to take a photo with the park’s Plexiglas dinosaur statues, once displayed at the 1964 World Fair in New York.

After you’ve seen the real deal, indulge in some kitsch by heading over to Dinosaur Worldwhich is like Jurassic Park without the anxiety. Dinosaur enthusiasts and children will be delighted by the park’s twenty-acre safari-style trail, where they can see, read about, and take photos with over 100 life-sized dinosaur statues.  Make sure to pack a prehistoric picnic to enjoy at the dino-themed playground, and when you’re finished, head inside the air-conditioned museum to see the ancient beasts come to life as animatronics. With an excavation ticket, kids can participate in a fossil dig or run buckets of sand through a mining sluice and search for treasures to take home as souvenirs.

Dinos in the City

Behold the awesome figure of a towering backlit ancient skeleton in the great hall. We humans are so small, but how audacious to have dug up history from the clutches of the Earth and put it a pedestal. The state’s big cities offer a classic dinosaur experience, including the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas (2201 N. Field St.) and the Houston Museum of Natural Science (5555 Hermann Park Drive), which are world-renown for their collections. The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (1600 Gendy St.) features DinoLab and DinoDig, and just last spring, the Witte Museum in San Antonio (3801 Broadway St.) opened its own permanent dinosaur exhibit, the Naylor Family Dinosaur Gallery. All fourmuseums present visitors with the opportunity to see dinosaur bones and learn all about ancient life and the wacky world of paleontology through informative multimedia exhibits. What’s especially neat is that each of the museums makes a point to showcase Texas-specific dinosaurs, so visitors can learn about their city’s geological past, the ecosystems that once lived there, and the work being done to preserve this history today.

The Texas Memorial Museum (2400 Trinity St.), nestled in the eastern quadrant of UT Austin’s campus, is quite a bit smaller than its bigger city counterparts, but that doesn’t mean that the state capitol isn’t equally down with dinosaurs. Not only does the museum house a permanent collection of dinosaur fossils from Texas and greater North America, but on February 3, the museum has organized a stellar city-wide line up of dinosaur themed activities for Austin Dinosaur Day, including a fossil dig at the Austin Nature & Science Center (2389 Stratford Dr.) and a dinosaur parade at the Zilker Botanical Garden (2220 Barton Springs Road). If you want more in the Austin area, drive to the nearby Dinosaur Park in Cedar Creek, which features statues and activities along a nature trail.

Back in time at Big Bend

As you drive into Big Bend National Park, imagine the cliffs of the Chisos Mountains covered in brilliant corals. In the distance, a mosasaur cruises just below the surface of the shallow sea that once covered this vast Texan landscape, some 300 million years ago. Big Bend’s new Fossil Discovery Exhibit, eight miles north of Panther Junction off Highway 385, aims to teach visitors about the many different climates and creatures that have shaped Big Bend in its lengthy lifespan. The $1.4 million exhibit, made possible by donations from supporters of the Big Bend Conservancy, celebrated its one-year anniversary in January. For a place that has rock structures dating back to 500 million years ago, half a century seems rather inconsequential, but the new exhibit is the biggest addition that the park has made to its visitor services system in the past 50 years. At the pavilion, visitors can see fossils discovered in the park, including the magnificent flying reptile, Quetzalcoatlus northropi, who boasted an impressive 35-foot long wingspan, and read about different environments of the Big Bend through the ages. Kids can play on fossil-themed climbing structures. It’s near impossible to leave without a renewed sense of awe for the enormity of history, and a keen eye for fossil discovery sites in the park.

Source: www.texasmonthly.com

Toward end of Ice Age, Human Beings Witnessed Fires Larger than Dinosaur Killers

Saturday, February 3, 2018

New research shows that some 12,800 years ago, an astonishing 10 percent of the Earth's land surface, or about 10 million square kilometers, was consumed by fires. Credit: © Oran Tantapakul / Fotolia

On a ho-hum day some 12,800 years ago, the Earth had emerged from another ice age. Things were warming up, and the glaciers had retreated.

Out of nowhere, the sky was lit with fireballs. This was followed by shock waves.

Fires rushed across the landscape, and dust clogged the sky, cutting off the sunlight. As the climate rapidly cooled, plants died, food sources were snuffed out, and the glaciers advanced again. Ocean currents shifted, setting the climate into a colder, almost "ice age" state that lasted an additional thousand years.

Finally, the climate began to warm again, and people again emerged into a world with fewer large animals and a human culture in North America that left behind completely different kinds of spear points.

This is the story supported by a massive study of geochemical and isotopic markers just published in the Journal of Geology.

The results are so massive that the study had to be split into two papers.

"Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ~12,800 Years Ago" is divided into "Part I: Ice Cores and Glaciers" and "Part 2: Lake, Marine, and Terrestrial Sediments."

The paper's 24 authors include KU Emeritus Professor of Physics & Astronomy Adrian Melott and Professor Brian Thomas, a 2005 doctoral graduate from KU, now at Washburn University.

"The work includes measurements made at more than 170 different sites across the world," Melott said.

The KU researcher and his colleagues believe the data suggests the disaster was touched off when Earth collided with fragments of a disintegrating comet that was roughly 62 miles in diameter -- the remnants of which persist within our solar system to this day.

"The hypothesis is that a large comet fragmented and the chunks impacted the Earth, causing this disaster," said Melott. "A number of different chemical signatures -- carbon dioxide, nitrate, ammonia and others -- all seem to indicate that an astonishing 10 percent of the Earth's land surface, or about 10 million square kilometers, was consumed by fires."

According to Melott, analysis of pollen suggests pine forests were probably burned off to be replaced by poplar, which is a species that colonizes cleared areas.

Indeed, the authors posit the cosmic impact could have touched off the Younger Dryas cool episode, biomass burning, late Pleistocene extinctions of larger species and "human cultural shifts and population declines."

"Computations suggest that the impact would have depleted the ozone layer, causing increases in skin cancer and other negative health effects," Melott said. "The impact hypothesis is still a hypothesis, but this study provides a massive amount of evidence, which we argue can only be all explained by a major cosmic impact."


Story Source:

Materials provided by University of KansasNote: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal References:

  1. Wendy S. Wolbach, Joanne P. Ballard, Paul A. Mayewski, Victor Adedeji, Ted E. Bunch, Richard B. Firestone, Timothy A. French, George A. Howard, Isabel Israde-Alcántara, John R. Johnson, David Kimbel, Charles R. Kinzie, Andrei Kurbatov, Gunther Kletetschka, Malcolm A. LeCompte, William C. Mahaney, Adrian L. Melott, Abigail Maiorana-Boutilier, Siddhartha Mitra, Christopher R. Moore, William M. Napier, Jennifer Parlier, Kenneth B. Tankersley, Brian C. Thomas, James H. Wittke, Allen West, James P. Kennett. Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ∼12,800 Years Ago. 1. Ice Cores and GlaciersThe Journal of Geology, 2018; 000 DOI: 10.1086/695703
  2. Wendy S. Wolbach, Joanne P. Ballard, Paul A. Mayewski, Andrew C. Parnell, Niamh Cahill, Victor Adedeji, Ted E. Bunch, Gabriela Domínguez-Vázquez, Jon M. Erlandson, Richard B. Firestone, Timothy A. French, George Howard, Isabel Israde-Alcántara, John R. Johnson, David Kimbel, Charles R. Kinzie, Andrei Kurbatov, Gunther Kletetschka, Malcolm A. LeCompte, William C. Mahaney, Adrian L. Melott, Siddhartha Mitra, Abigail Maiorana-Boutilier, Christopher R. Moore, William M. Napier, Jennifer Parlier, Kenneth B. Tankersley, Brian C. Thomas, James H. Wittke, Allen West, James P. Kennett. Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ∼12,800 Years Ago. 2. Lake, Marine, and Terrestrial SedimentsThe Journal of Geology, 2018; 000 DOI: 10.1086/695704

    Source:

    www.sciencedaily.com

Local Fossil ID’d as Oldest Dinosaur From Utah

Saturday, February 3, 2018

The Utah Geological Association’s journal Geology of the Intermountain West recently published an article by a team of three paleontologists that identified a pelvic fossil bone as the remains of the oldest dinosaur found in Utah. The small, meat-eating dinosaur is reconstructed in this image. [Image by Jeff Martz / Courtesy of John Foster]

A small fossil pelvis from the Moab area has been named the oldest identifiable dinosaur fossil bone ever found in Utah.

The collaborative efforts of three paleontologists – Xavier Jenkins with Arizona State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, John Foster with the Museum of Moab and Robert Gay with the Colorado Canyons Association – have resulted in an article published in the Utah Geological Association’s journal Geology of the Intermountain West that identifies this fossil from the Late Triassic Period (225–200 million years ago) as belonging to a small meat-eating dinosaur that roamed the area now known as Utah.

“The Triassic Period marks the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs,” said Julia McHugh, Curator of Paleontology for the Museums of Western Colorado, where the fossil is curated. “This fossil helps give us a starting point for their evolution and diversity in the Triassic of Utah. This specimen is the oldest known dinosaur bone from Utah, and the first found from the Triassic Period. It helps to fill in some of the gap to show us that for sure some of the oldest dinosaurs were present in ancient Utah.”

The dinosaur fossil – a part of the pelvis consisting of fused vertebrae, called the sacrum – is from a small, flesh-eating dinosaur, similar to the dinosaur Coelophysis that is known from New Mexico and Arizona. While it was assumed that Utah had these large turkey-sized dinosaurs running around, solid evidence of their existence was not available until this specimen was found.

“There are plenty of footprints that suggest these predatory dinosaurs were around during this important time, but footprints can be affected by lots of factors, and many non-dinosaurian reptiles of the time had very similar feet,” Gay said. “The few bones that have been found previously in Utah and called ‘dinosaurs’ were really scrappy, and we can't actually be sure that they really came from dinosaurs. The Triassic Period in Earth's history is critical because it spans the rise of dinosaurs from these small creatures to those that dominate pretty much every land ecosystem five million years later.”

The fossil was found in the Chinle Formation on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land north of Moab in 2005 by the Museum of Moab Director John Foster and a volunteer, when both were working with the Museum of Western Colorado. The collection of fossil vertebrates on BLM land requires a paleontological resources use permit, as was the case with this study.

“It was a blind-luck find in a way,” Foster said. “We knew the rock type to look at and we were specifically looking for reptiles in the Chinle, but most that are found in that unit are non-dinosaurs. I was looking for teeth and bones exposed and visible on loose blocks of rock, and my assistant, Ray Bley, decided to chisel open a similar rock but one that had no indication of bone on or in it. You could do that a thousand times and see only scrap, but Ray split a chunk off and said ‘What’s this?’ – I walked over and there they were, the fused vertebrae of a dinosaur.”

The comparison that Jenkins, Foster and Gay carried out showed that, given the ambiguity of the track evidence and the fragmentary nature or uncertain age of all other purported Triassic dinosaur specimens in Utah, the Moab specimen represents the oldest confirmed dinosaur fossil in the state.

“I think what this helps illustrate very well is that the rise of dinosaurs was rather gradual and that for some time after their first appearance, dinosaurs were in fact very rare,” Foster said. “Evidence of large reptiles is found all over the Moab area in the Chinle Formation, but it took until now to find one that is definitely a dinosaur. And this pattern of actual dinosaurs being rare is true in the Triassic in places like Arizona too.”

The paper in Geology of the Intermountain West is available at: utahgeology.org/openjournal/index.php/GIW/article/view/22.

Source: www.moabsunnews.com

Wahlisaurus massarae: Paleontologists Find 200-Million-Year-Old Ichthyosaur Fossil

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Reconstruction of Wahlisaurus massarae. Image credit: James McKay.

The 200 million-year-old specimen is only the second known example of Wahlisaurus massarae, a species of ichthyosaur announced recently by a University of Manchester paleontologist.

Ichthyosaurs were predatory sea-going reptiles that ranged in size from 1 to 69 feet (0.3-21 m) long. They swam the world’s oceans for millions of years during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Despite their profound adaptations to the aquatic realm, these reptiles disappeared about 30 million years before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction (65 million years ago) that marked the end for dinosaurs and the beginning of the age of mammals.

In 2016, a paleontologist and honorary scientist at the University of Manchester, Dean Lomax, described an ichthyosaur skeleton that he had examined in the collections of Leicester’s New Walk Museum and Art Gallery.

He spotted several unusual features of the bones and determined that the features were unique and represented a completely new species, Wahlisaurus massarae.

“When Wahlisaurus massarae was announced, I was a little nervous about what other paleontologists would make of it, considering the new species was known only from a single specimen,” Lomax said.

“As a scientist you learn to question almost everything, and be as critical as you can be.”

“My analysis suggested it was something new, but some paleontologists questioned this and said it was just ‘variation’ of an existing species.”

Photograph of Dean Lomax (left), Simon Carpenter (middle) and Deborah Hutchinson with the new specimen of Wahlisaurus massarae. Image credit: University of Manchester.

In the new study, Lomax teamed up with New Walk Museum paleontologist Mark Evans and Simon Carpenter, fossil collector of Somerset.

The study focuses on a specimen Lomax identified in Simon’s private collection, which is an almost complete coracoid bone (part of the pectoral girdle) that has exactly the same unique features of the same bone in Wahlisaurus massarae.

“You can only imagine my sheer excitement to find a specimen of Wahlisaurus massarae,” Lomax said.

“It was such a wonderful moment. When you have just one specimen, ‘variation’ can be called upon, but when you double the number of specimens you have it gives even more credibility to your research.”

The new discovery is from a time known as the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, right after a world-wide mass extinction.

For these reasons, the authors have been unable to determine exactly whether the ichthyosaur was latest Triassic or earliest Jurassic in age, although it is roughly 200 million-year-old.

The team’s results will be published in the Geological Journal.

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D.R. Lomax et al. 2018. An ichthyosaur from the UK Triassic-Jurassic boundary: A second specimen of the leptonectid ichthyosaur Wahlisaurus massaraeLomax 2016. Geological Journal, in press; doi: 10.1002/gj.3155

Source: www.sci-news.com

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