2009-04-28 – Chongqing, China: “China’s Prehistoric Animal Fossil Exhibition”

Prehistoric “dinosaur”, “mammoth” fossils displayed in Chongqing

see the video

www.chinaview.cn 2009-04-27 21:49:04

BEIJING, April 27 — A herd of animals led by two “mammoths” and nine “dinosaurs” are causing a stir in the central Chinese city of Chongqing.

    “China’s Prehistoric Animal Fossil Exhibition” is underway at the city’s Liberation Monument Square. More than 30 precious artifacts are on display.

    The show features relics from well-known museums in 8 provinces and cities. Many of the fossils are considered national treasures and date between the Jurassic and the Quatenary periods 190 million years ago.Among the highlights are the bones of nine dinosaurs and a well-preserved woolly mammoth skeleton. Researchers estimate the 2-and-a-half-meter-tall mammoth is about three million years old. A nearby mechanical replica mimics the movements and sound of the real thing.This exhibition runs until May 24th.

    Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Chongqing.

    (Source: XHTV)

Editor: Bi Mingxin

2008-10-12 – South Dakota, USA: scoperto nuovo Plesiosauro (plesiosaur)

Fossil find puts river on scientific cutting edge

Discovery near Pickstown ‘special’

 

THOM GABRUKIEWICZ • tgabrukiew@argusleader.com • October 11, 2008

PICKSTOWN – Jim Martin probed the cliffside soil with a blue-handled rock hammer, pounding at times, then using the hammer’s chiseled end to scrape at a fine-grained, dark layer.

“There it is, there we go,” he said. “That’s exactly what we’re looking for.”

And with that, he picked up a handful of dark, gritty material from a 2-inch band just above the layer of hard shale that used to be the bottom of a great inland seaway covering what now is South Dakota.

Martin, executive director of the Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City, was on a “CSI”-style investigation on the shores of Lake Francis Case, in a bay across from the Fort Randall Dam. He was trying to find out what killed one short-necked plesiosaur, a 25-foot marine reptile that zoomed through the water with the aid of four paddle-like flippers while devouring most anything in its path.

“Think of it as the Loch Ness monster, although that’s simplistic,” Martin said. “The finest fisherman ever to live. It was agile, fast – it would have done well with just its front flippers, moving like a seal or a penguin – but this one had a super-charger on its rear end.”

The fossilized plesiosaur, only the second nearly complete skeleton ever found in the state, was discovered in July at Lake Francis Case by 11-year-old Devon Zimmerman of Sioux City, Iowa. Its discovery extends not only science’s knowledge of the beast but also of events that shook the Great Plains landscape of the late Cretaceous period, sometime between 72 million and 74 million years ago.

“I was out walking on the shore, tossing rocks,” Devon said. “I thought it was something, something really cool.”

His mother, DeeAnn Zimmerman, added: “He found it and said it looked like a spine. His dad (Duane) said it was probably a piece of wood. Really, we just sort of forgot about it. Then we went back and looked at it and said, ‘Oh, no, that really is a fossil.’ And we went to the visitors’ center to report it.”

Cody Wilson, lake manager with the U.S. Corps of Engineers in Pickstown, said the Zimmermans did the right thing. Instead of chipping it out and trying to take some of it away to sell on eBay, the Zimmermans preserved the find for the public, for science, for the rest of history, Wilson said.

When informed of the find, Martin was more than willing to drive from Rapid City to check it out.

“I think I was in the car the next day,” he said.

The fossilized remains curve in the rock, the long-billed skull facing away from shore. Bits of scale and small bones filled the area where the reptile’s fleshy stomach would have been.

“Something killed this critter pretty fast,” Martin said. “And that’s the thing about this particular specimen; we have its last supper in its stomach, the fossil remains of three different kinds of fish.”

The plesiosaur was found in a layer of silicified shale, a hard rock layer that’s like quartz.

“Hit it with a hammer, and it’ll bounce back,” Martin said. “We had to go back and get the jackhammer and saw.”

Volunteers – including Devon Zimmerman – carefully cut their way around the fossil, packed the rock in plaster and trucked it back to Rapid City. There, another volunteer will work with a small pneumatic air device to slowly separate the fossil from the shale.

“It’ll take another five years to get it out of the stone,” Martin said. “But I can wait. Plesiosaurs have been found on every continent, but this one’s special. We’ve found skulls, bones, but to get 60 percent of one fossil, I’d have been happy with 20 percent. And we could be talking about a new critter here.”

That’s what brought Martin back in late September to Lake Francis Case, to try to figure out what caused this plesiosaur to expire so suddenly, and to be preserved almost instantly after death.

The great inland seaway of the Cretaceous stretched from the Gulf of Mexico northwest toward what now is northern Alaska. The sea was as deep as 700 feet near the Gulf, and probably about 200 feet deep over South Dakota, Martin said.

It was rich with a variety of Mesozoic marine reptiles, including plesiosaurs, giant marine turtles and mosasaurs – basically a crocodile with paddles. Mosasaurs, called the tyrannosaurs of the sea, are the most commonly preserved marine reptiles in the state.

“Plesiosaurs – the pliosaurid, or short-necked version – is a different matter,” Martin said. “I wish people would find more so I could have a bigger sampling. But two in a lifetime – I’ll take it.”

The handful of dirt in his hand was compressed ash, and when it was deposited across the inland seaway, it settled into a layer that was more than 2 feet thick.

Above that layer, Martin pointed to layer of sand, and then a yellowish, lumpy layer filled with balls of pumice. Both the ash and pumice suggest a volcanic event.

“I would say this plesiosaur died during the Manson Impact,” Martin said.

The Manson Impact refers to a meteorite that struck what now is Pocahontas County, Iowa. Buried 100 to 300 feet below the town of Manson is the geologic record of the impact, which struck with the force of 10 trillion tons of TNT, said Ray Anderson, with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The stony meteorite probably weighed about 10 billion tons, and its impact instantly ignited everything within 150 miles, toppled trees up to 300 miles away and most certainly killed every animal within 650 miles.

“Basically, this thing came up for air and got a lung full of hot glass shards,” Martin said. “And as it started to sink, choking, it got rolled in a giant wave. A tsunami, if you will, that swept across the seaway all the way from the impact crater in Iowa. Pretty much the most catastrophic day you could have.”

To be sure, Martin took samples of each layer, which he’ll study and date to confirm his hypothesis.

If it turns out to be a new species, there’s the distinct possibility that Martin will name it after Devon. Martin named the first nearly complete plesiosaur fossil found – a new species that dates back to 80 million years ago – after its finder, Paul Neumiller of Bonesteel.

“That would be really awesome,” Devon said.

Reach Thom Gabrukiewicz at 331-2320.

source (with video): http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081011/NEWS/810110326/1001

2008-10-09 – Nuovi paleo-video dai Blogs (Videos, 3D reconstructions, crazy Paleontologists)

Sui blog, da poco pubblicati nuovi video:

Blog GER – Fossilien-news

• Kanal “Homotherium” zeigt Raubkatzen-Videos Ottobre 7, 2008

       (Two videos with 3d reconstruction of: Panthera leo spelaea and Megantereon)

Blog ENG – Palaeoblog 

• Fun In The Currie Lab Ottobre 8, 2008

      (crazy Paleontologist of Phil Currie’s Labs filmed by one of the grad students, Miriam Reichel)

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Support this blog buying on Amazon:  PaleoNewsShop !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-22 – Pesce fossile con dita (Panderichthys, 1) (Abstract from Nature)

Letter

Nature advance online publication 21 September 2008 | doi:10.1038/nature07339; Received 12 June 2008; Accepted 14 August 2008; Published online 21 September 2008

 

The pectoral fin of Panderichthys and the origin of digits

Catherine A. Boisvert¹, Elga Mark-Kurik² & Per E. Ahlberg¹

1. Subdepartment of Evolutionary Organismal Biology, Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18A, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
2. Institute of Geology at Tallinn University of Technology, Ehitajate tee 5, 19086 Tallinn, Estonia

Correspondence to: Catherine A. Boisvert¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.A.B. (Email: catherine.boisvert@ebc.uu.se).

 

One of the identifying characteristics of tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) is the presence of fingers and toes. Whereas the proximal part of the tetrapod limb skeleton can easily be homologized with the paired fin skeletons of sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fish, there has been much debate about the origin of digits. Early hypotheses¹ interpreted digits as derivatives of fin radials, but during the 1990s the idea gained acceptance that digits are evolutionary novelties without direct equivalents in fish fin skeletons. This was partly based on developmental genetic data², but also substantially on the pectoral fin skeleton of the elpistostegid (transitional fish/tetrapod) Panderichthys, which appeared to lack distal digit-like radials³. Here we present a CT scan study of an undisturbed pectoral fin of Panderichthys demonstrating that the plate-like ‘ulnare’ of previous reconstructions is an artefact and that distal radials are in fact present. This distal portion is more tetrapod-like than that found in Tiktaalik ⁴ and, in combination with new data about fin development in basal actinopterygians⁵, sharks⁶ and lungfish⁷, makes a strong case for fingers not being a novelty of tetrapods but derived from pre-existing distal radials present in all sarcopterygian fish.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature07339.html

NB – SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATIONS (with video and pictures)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/suppinfo/nature07339.html

Il dinosauro argentino

 

Il dinosauro argentino

A Buenos Aires, un gruppo di scienziati ha annunciato il ritrovamento dei resti fossili di un dinosauro sconosciuto, vissuto circa 70 milioni di anni fa.  Si trattava di un carnivoro lungo tra i 6 e i 7 metri. La scoperta è avvenuta nella provincia di Santa Cruz, in Patagonia (copyright: Reuters).

[5 giugno 2008]

VIDEO – (da “Le Scienze” by reuters)

Impronta di Anchilosauro nella Morrison Formation del Colorado

Sicuramente non è la prima impronta di Anchilosauro tovata nel mondo, come annunciato nell’articolo, tuttavia essendo esse molto rare la scoperta è da ritenersi sicuramente molto significativa.

Articolo tratto da KJTC8.COM

Exclusive: KJCT hunts for dinosaur tracks

Posted: June 2, 2008 12:19 AM

Updated: June 2, 2008 05:45 PM

 

CACTUS PARK (KJCT)- A Colorado high school teacher says he discovered the first known Ankylosaur dinosaur footprint in the world near Grand Junction about a week ago.

This weekend he headed back to Cactus Park to look for more dinosaur tracks and bones. KJCT News 8’s Sara Goldenberg joined him on a dinosaur expedition.

 “It’s about 150 millions years old… the only one in the world.”

 The five-toed Ankylosaur dinosaur track measures nine inches long and 12 inches wide– larger than any known Jurassic foot skeletons.

Kent Hups, a science teacher at Manuel High School and a paleontologist, discovered the track in Cactus Park.

 “It’s fun to find something really unique, really fascinating, really fantastic to science, because it motivates you and it motivates the other scientists around to really start looking,” he said. 

 Ankylosaurs were armored dinosaurs related to Stegosaurs. Hups says it’s the only known track of it’s kind in the world, and it can help tell us what these dinosaurs look like.

 “When you start realizing that there’s big Ankylosaurs walking around in the Jurassic, it is fun to go look again. It is fun to go look at bones and go see if you can find remains of these animals,” Hups said.

 He found the dinosaur track in a sandstone rock. Hups says he noticed unusual holes in the rock, and when he flipped it over, he found the track.

 “I started jumping up and down, and yelled at my friend Mike, and he came over and was like, ‘What?’ I was like, we got something really good here.”

 Hups says the Morrison Formation is one of the most well-known locations in the world for dinosaur discoveries. And the geology of the area in Western Colorado exposes the fossils.

 “I think it’s really good for looking for dinosaurs in this area because things are exposed and you’re able to see,” he said.

 He says this huge find means they can start looking for bigger Ankylosaur tracks out here. He says he has a permit especially for that from the Bureau of Land Management.

“It’s like digging for buried treasure. You get a chance to find things, and when you find a dinosaur bone and you find a track like we found, you realize you’re the first person in the history of the world to see it. And it is like digging up treasure,” Hups said.

 The rare dinosaur track will go to the BLM. Three replicas were made, and soon you can see a copy for yourself at the Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita.

LINKS:

1 – VIDEO by KJBT8.com