November 2019

Scientists Discover 'Ice Fossils' in a 4.6 Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Shard

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">XCT slice images of equant samples of the Acfer 094 matrix</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite landed in Algeria in 1990, the remnant of a larger asteroid born during the dawn of our solar system.</span><br />
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New analysis of the meteorite, called Acfer 049, has revealed ice fossils trapped inside, making it the first direct evidence of frozen water as a building block of early asteroids.<br />
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Given the meteorite's age, it also preserves material that created our solar system, providing a unique look at our corner of the universe and how it formed. The new findings published this month in the journal Science Advances.<br />
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Scientists know that it was possible for asteroids to include ice as an ingredient in their structure, mainly due to the way water altered minerals in the asteroids. But they wanted to understand more about the amount of water, its distribution throughout the asteroid structure, called a matrix, and when it melted.<br />
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Acfer 049 preserved tiny pockets that once contained the ice before it melted and researchers call these microscopic holes ice fossils.<br />
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Like other solar systems, ours began with the formation of a star. The sun formed from a cloud of dust and gas and the leftover materials not used to create the star became the ingredients for the planets in our solar system. Then gas and elements formed into a flat planetary disk around the sun and that included hydrogen, ice, iron and silicates.<br />
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Over time, the dust and elements stuck together, forming planets and other bodies, including asteroids. This is why asteroids and comets are considered to be the leftovers of material that formed the solar system.<br />
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Ice, which could be found beyond the snow line of the planetary disk where solid water ice can form, was also included in the mix. The snow line existed in the disk at a distance from the star where its heat couldn't maintain liquid water.<br />
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"This is starting material from which all the planets, including Earth, came from," said Epifanio Vaccaro, study author and Curator of Petrology at London's Natural History Museum. "The matrix of these meteorites is therefore thought to be the starting material from which all the planets formed."<br />
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The rocky bits of dust and ice that became asteroids retained a pristine record of the ingredients that created them. But the planets formed by rearranging their ingredients through heat -- metals melted to form the core while silicates created a mantle and crust. This means that rocks found on Earth are quite different than the material found in asteroids.<br />
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"When this happens, all the starting material that we had in the protoplanetary disk is gone as it went through the process of melting and recrystallisation," Epifanio said. "This means that if we want to understand what the dust was like as the solar system formed, we need to go back and grab some of the material that didn't go through this differentiation process. In some meteorites, we have that starting material preserved."<br />
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While dust and ice doesn't sound like the solid foundation for a rocky asteroid, its matrix is tightly constructed because of how its materials came together.<br />
"The matrix itself is very fine-grained material that holds everything in the meteorite together," Epifanio said.<br />
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But the matrix itself made the meteorite difficult to study because they didn't have the technology to peer through the fine grains until now. The researchers used microscopes with high spatial resolution, which allowed them to finally see the tiny pockets that once contained ice.<br />
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These microscopes could be used to look at other meteorites and possibly find more evidence of ice fossils, the researchers said.<br />
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"Based on this finding of asteroidial ice, we made a model that tells us how the asteroid grew and how the planets formed," Epifanio said. "We think that fluffy ice and dust particles came together into bigger bodies beyond the snow line, and then migrated inwards. As they did so, the ice started melting, leaving the fossils in its place."<br />
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The research has been published in <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/11/eaax5078" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Science Advances.</a></span></i></u></div>

Scientists Discover 'Ice Fossils' in a 4.6 Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Shard

XCT slice images of equant samples of the Acfer 094 matrix A 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite landed in Algeria in 1990, the remnant of...

Opalized Petrified Wood

Fossils 7:47 PM

Opalized Petrified Wood

Colorful crystal patterns are displayed in a cross-section of petrified wood in the Petrified Forest National Park, located in northeast ...

What Are Lost Continents, and Why Are We Discovering So Many?

Earth History, Geology, Tectonic 7:42 PM

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For most people, continents are Earth’s seven main large landmasses.<br />
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But geoscientists have a different take on this. They look at the type of rock a feature is made of, rather than how much of its surface is above sea level.<br />
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In the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in the discovery of lost continents. Most of these have been plateaus or mountains made of continental crust hidden from our view, below sea level.<br />
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One example is Zealandia, the world’s eighth continent that extends underwater from New Zealand.<br />
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Several smaller lost continents, called microcontinents, have also recently been discovered submerged in the eastern and western Indian Ocean.<br />
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But why, with so much geographical knowledge at our fingertips, are we still discovering lost continents in the 21st century?</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We may have found another</span></h4>
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In August, we undertook a 28-day voyage on the research vessel RV Investigator to explore a possible lost continent in a remote part of the Coral Sea. The area is home to a large underwater plateau off Queensland, called the Louisiade Plateau, which represents a major gap in our knowledge of Australia’s geology.<br />
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On one hand, it could be a lost continent that broke away from Queensland about 60 million years ago. Or it could have formed as a result of a massive volcanic eruption taking place around the same time. We’re not sure, because nobody had recovered rocks from there before - until now.<br />
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We spent about two weeks collecting rocks from this feature, and recovered a wide variety of rock types from parts of the seafloor as deep as 4,500m.<br />
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Most were formed through volcanic eruptions, but some show hints that continental rocks are hiding beneath. Lab work over the next couple of years will give us more certain answers.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Down to the details</span></h4>
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There are many mountains and plateaus below sea level scattered across the oceans, and these have been mapped from space. They are the lighter blue areas you can see on Google Maps.<br />
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However, not all submerged features qualify as lost continents. Most are made of materials quite distinct from what we traditionally think of as continental rock, and are instead formed by massive outpourings of magma.<br />
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A good example is Iceland which, despite being roughly the size of New Zealand’s North Island, is not considered continental in geological terms. It’s made up mainly of volcanic rocks deposited over the past 18 million years, meaning it’s relatively young in geological terms.<br />
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The only foolproof way to tell the difference between massive submarine volcanoes and lost continents is to collect rock samples from the deep ocean.<br />
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Finding the right samples is challenging, to say the least. Much of the seafloor is covered in soft, gloopy sediment that obscures the solid rock beneath.<br />
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We use a sophisticated mapping system to search for steep slopes on the seafloor, that are more likely to be free of sediment. We then send a metal rock-collecting bucket to grab samples.<br />
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The more we explore and sample the depths of the oceans, the more likely we’ll be to discover more lost continents.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The ultimate lost continent</span></h4>
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Perhaps the best known example of a lost continent is Zealandia. While the geology of New Zealand and New Caledonia have been known for some time, it’s only recently their common heritage as part of a much larger continent (which is 95% underwater) has been accepted.<br />
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This acceptance has been the culmination of years of painstaking research, and exploration of the geology of deep oceans through sample collection and geophysical surveys.<br />
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New discoveries continue to be made.<br />
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During a 2011 expedition, we discovered two lost continental fragments more than 1,000km west of Perth.<br />
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The granite lying in the middle of the deep ocean there looked similar to what you would find around Cape Leeuwin, in Western Australia.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other lost continents</span></h4>
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However, not all lost continents are found hidden beneath the oceans.<br />
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Some existed only in the geological past, millions to billions of years ago, and later collided with other continents as a result of plate tectonic motions.<br />
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Their only modern-day remnants are small slivers of rock, usually squished up in mountain chains such as the Himalayas. One example is Greater Adria, an ancient continent now embedded in the mountain ranges across Europe.<br />
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Due to the perpetual motion of tectonic plates, it’s the fate of all continents to ultimately reconnect with another, and form a supercontinent.<br />
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But the fascinating life and death cycle of continents is the topic of another story.</div>
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/au" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-lost-continents-and-why-are-we-discovering-so-many-126355" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">original </a>article.</span></i></u></div>
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What Are Lost Continents, and Why Are We Discovering So Many?

For most people, continents are Earth’s seven main large landmasses. But geoscientists have a different take on this. They look at t...

Scientists Discover New Carbon as Hard as Diamonds

Diamonds, Researches 7:13 PM

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Superhard materials can slice, drill and polish other objects. They also hold potential for creating scratch-resistant coatings that could help keep expensive equipment safe from damage.<br />
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Now, science is opening the door to the development of new materials with these seductive qualities.<br />
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Researchers have used computational techniques to identify 43 previously unknown forms of carbon that are thought to be stable and superhard -- including several predicted to be slightly harder than or nearly as hard as diamonds. Each new carbon variety consists of carbon atoms arranged in a distinct pattern in a crystal lattice.<br />
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The study -- published in the journal npj Computational Materials -- combines computational predictions of crystal structures with machine learning to hunt for novel materials. The work is theoretical research, meaning that scientists have predicted the new carbon structures but have not created them yet.<br />
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"Diamonds are right now the hardest material that is commercially available, but they are very expensive," says University at Buffalo chemist Eva Zurek. "I have colleagues who do high-pressure experiments in the lab, squeezing materials between diamonds, and they complain about how expensive it is when the diamonds break.<br />
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"We would like to find something harder than a diamond. If you could find other materials that are hard, potentially you could make them cheaper. They might also have useful properties that diamonds don't have. Maybe they will interact differently with heat or electricity, for example."<br />
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Zurek, PhD, a professor of chemistry in UB College of Arts and Sciences, conceived of the study and co-led the project with Stefano Curtarolo, PhD, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke University.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The quest for hard materials</span></h4>
Hardness relates to a material's ability to resist deformation. As Zurek explains, it means that "if you try to indent a material with a sharp tip, a hole will not be made, or the hole will be very small."<br />
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Scientists consider a substance to be superhard if it has a hardness value of over 40 gigapascals as measured through an experiment called the Vickers hardness test.<br />
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All of the study's 43 new carbon structures are predicted to meet that threshold. Three are estimated to exceed the Vickers hardness of diamonds, but only by a little bit. Zurek also cautions that there is some uncertainty in the calculations.<br />
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The hardest structures the scientists found tended to contain fragments of diamond and lonsdaleite -- also called hexagonal diamond -- in their crystal lattices. In addition to the 43 novel forms of carbon, the research also newly predicts that a number of carbon structures that other teams have described in the past will be superhard.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Speeding up discovery of superhard materials</span></h4>
The techniques used in the new paper could be applied to identify other superhard materials, including ones that contain elements other than carbon.<br />
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"Very few superhard materials are known, so it's of interest to find new ones," Zurek says. "One thing that we know about superhard materials is that they need to have strong bonds. Carbon-carbon bonds are very strong, so that's why we looked at carbon. Other elements that are typically in superhard materials come from the same side of the periodic table, such as boron and nitrogen."<br />
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To conduct the study, researchers used XtalOpt, an open-source evolutionary algorithm for crystal structure prediction developed in Zurek's lab, to generate random crystal structures for carbon. Then, the team employed a machine learning model to predict the hardness of these carbon species. The most promising hard and stable structures were used by XtalOpt as "parents" to spawn additional new structures, and so on.<br />
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The machine learning model for estimating hardness was trained using the Automatic FLOW (AFLOW) database, a huge library of materials with properties that have been calculated. Curtarolo's lab maintains AFLOW and previously developed the machine learning model with Olexandr Isayev's group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<br />
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"This is accelerated material development. It's always going to take time, but we use AFLOW and machine learning to greatly accelerate the process," Curtarolo says. "The algorithms learn, and if you have trained the model well, the algorithm will predict the properties of a material -- in this case, hardness -- with reasonable accuracy."<br />
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"You can take the best materials predicted using computational techniques and make them experimentally," says study co-author Cormac Toher, PhD, assistant research professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke University.<br />
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The first and second authors of the new study are UB PhD graduate Patrick Avery and UB PhD student Xiaoyu Wang, both in Zurek's lab. In addition to these researchers, Zurek, Curtarolo and Toher, the co-authors of the paper include Corey Oses and Eric Gossett of Duke University and Davide Proserpio of the Universitá degi Studi di Milano.<br />
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The research was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, with additional support from the Universitá degi Studi di Milano, and computational support from UB's Center for Computational Research.<br />
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2019/002/007.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.buffalo.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University at Buffalo</a>. Original written by Charlotte Hsu.</span></i></u></div>

Scientists Discover New Carbon as Hard as Diamonds

Superhard materials can slice, drill and polish other objects. They also hold potential for creating scratch-resistant coatings that co...

35 Minerals That Are Critical To Our Society

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35 Minerals That Are Critical To Our Society

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Fabulous Azurite Crystals

Minerals 11:11 PM

Fabulous Azurite Crystals

Credit: Mintreasure.com Exceptional azurite crystals on matrix from the famed Clara Mine, Wolfach, Black Forest, Baden-Württemberg, G...

Secret of Explosive Volcanism Unlocked

Tectonic, volcano 7:27 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hot lava spew from the crater of Mount Merapi as seen from Babadan village in Magelang in 2001. Credit: Dita Alangkara/AP</td></tr>
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When will the next eruption take place? Examination of samples from Indonesia's Mount Merapi show that the explosivity of stratovolcanoes rises when mineral-rich gases seal the pores and microcracks in the uppermost layers of stone. These findings result in new possibilities for the prediction of an eruption.<br />
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Mount Merapi on Java is among the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. Geoscientists have usually used seismic measurements which illustrate underground movements when warning the population of a coming eruption in time.<br />
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An international team including scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now found another indication for an upcoming eruption in the lava from the peak of Mount Merapi: The uppermost layer of stone, the "plug dome," becomes impermeable for underground gases before the volcano erupts.<br />
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"Our investigations show that the physical properties of the plug dome change over time," says Prof. H. Albert Gilg from the TUM Professorship for Engineering Geology . "Following an eruption the lava is still easily permeable, but this permeability then sinks over time. Gases are trapped, pressure rises and finally the plug dome bursts in a violent explosion." <br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mount Merapi as a model volcano</span></h4>
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Using six lava samples, one from an eruption of Mount Merapi in 2006, the others from the 1902 eruption -- the researchers were able to ascertain alterations in the stone. Investigation of pore volumes, densities, mineral composition and structure revealed that permeability dropped by four orders of magnitude as stone alteration increased. The cause is newly formed minerals, in particular potassium and sodium aluminum sulfates which seal the fine cracks and pores in the lava.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cycle of destruction</span></h4>
Computer simulations confirmed that the reduced permeability of the plug dome was actually responsible for the next eruption. The models show that a stratovolcano like Mount Merapi undergoes three phases: First, after an eruption when the lava is still permeable, outgassing is possible; in the second phase the plug dome becomes impermeable for gases, while at the same time the internal pressure continuously increases; in the third phase the pressure bursts the plug dome.<br />
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Photographs of Mount Merapi from the period before and during the eruption of May 11, 2018 support the three-phase model: The volcano first emitted smoke, then seemed to be quiet for a long time until the gas found an escape and shot a fountain of ashes kilometers up into the sky.<br />
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"The research results can now be used to more reliably predict eruptions," says Gilg. "A measurable reduction in outgassing is thus an indication of an imminent eruption."<br />
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Mount Merapi is not the only volcano where outgassing measurements can help in the timely prediction of a pending eruption. Stratovolcanoes are a frequent source of destruction throughout the Pacific. The most famous examples are Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, Mount St. Helens in the western USA and Mount Fuji in Japan.<br />
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/35776/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.tum.de/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Technical University of Munich (TUM)</a>.</span></i></u></div>
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Secret of Explosive Volcanism Unlocked

Hot lava spew from the crater of Mount Merapi as seen from Babadan village in Magelang in 2001. Credit: Dita Alangkara/AP When will t...

The Gachalá Emerald

famous, Minerals 7:47 PM

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The Gachalá Emerald, one of the largest and valuable gem emeralds in the world, at 858 carats uncut. It was found in the mine called Vega de San Juan, located in Gachalá, a town in Colombia. The emerald was named in honour of Gachalá, the town where it was found.<br />
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An emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl and is colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. The word “emerald” is derived esmaralda, a variant of Latin, which originated in Ancient Greek word smaragdos meaning “green gem”.<br />
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Presently the emerald is in the United States, where it was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by the New York City jeweler, Harry Winston.</div>

The Gachalá Emerald

The Gachalá Emerald, one of the largest and valuable gem emeralds in the world, at 858 carats uncut. It was found in the mine called Ve...

Newly Discovered Fossil Bird Fills in Gap Between Dinosaurs and Modern Fliers

dinosaur, evolution, Fossils 7:41 PM

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tOqA61jEe7U/Xc7U_cfRPjI/AAAAAAAARqc/JgM8LcZynygUKrbXQao-xUStlxDowve3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Newly%2BDiscovered%2BFossil%2BBird%2BFills%2Bin%2BGap%2BBetween%2BDinosaurs%2Band%2BModern%2BFliers%2B%25281%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Newly Discovered Fossil Bird Fills in Gap Between Dinosaurs and Modern Fliers" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1209" height="570" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tOqA61jEe7U/Xc7U_cfRPjI/AAAAAAAARqc/JgM8LcZynygUKrbXQao-xUStlxDowve3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Newly%2BDiscovered%2BFossil%2BBird%2BFills%2Bin%2BGap%2BBetween%2BDinosaurs%2Band%2BModern%2BFliers%2B%25281%2529.jpeg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artist’s depiction of Fukuipteryx prima. Image: Masanori Yoshida</td></tr>
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The fossils of a bird that lived 120 million years ago, during the age of dinosaurs, have been discovered in Japan.<br />
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It was a typical Japanese summer — hot, humid and cloudy — when archaeologists pulled a well-preserved, fossilized bird from the ground in 2013. Their find, announced this week in Communications Biology, might change our idea of what adaptations were essential to the development of flight.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Close to Flight</span></h4>
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Named Fukuipteryx prima, the archaeologists date the bird to the Early Cretaceous, a period 145 million to 101 million years ago during which the evolution of flight was just taking off. This is the first species of early bird from the era found outside of China. And even though this specimen probably couldn’t fly very far, the fossil contains a bone that researchers previously thought only developed later, as birds were refining flight.<br />
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Future fossils from Japan and elsewhere might also help rework our understanding of how birds mastered the skies. “It may be a good opportunity for us to think back to what we thought we knew about bird evolution and start looking for new data in the regions where fossil birds are not very known, including Japan,” writes study coauthor Takuya Imai, a paleontologist with Fukui Prefectural University, via email.<br />
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All modern birds carry a distinct bone called a pygostyle, a triangle of fused spinal vertebrae right at the base of the tail. The structure supports tail feathers, and researchers thought it appeared in tandem with the development of flight in dinosaurs-turned-birds. Other birds from the same era as this find — all found in China — lack a pygostyle. But F. prima has one.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lucky Fossil</span></h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The find was unique in other ways, too. F. prima maintained its 3D form in the mud as it fossilized, something not usually seen. Imai says they’re not sure how — it may have fossilized quickly, and minerals filtered into the hollow bones and kept them from getting crushed under the weight of the soil. By having more of the bird’s original dimensions, the team could run a CT scan and construct its entire physique despite lacking some of the bones. <br />
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Based on their reconstruction, the team thinks this bird was on the brink of full-fledged flight. The armlike appendages are longer than the legs, indicating they were used like wings, but the dinosaur likely lacked the robust chest bones needed for true flight, Imai says. This bird likely glided or flapped short distances. And, of course, there’s the the aviation-friendly pygostyle, something paleontologists assumed this preflight specimen wouldn’t have.<br />
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The find means that this essential bone may have developed for other reasons in the bird lineage and only became helpful for flight later in evolution, Imai says. But more excavations outside of China are necessary to confirm this theory.<br />
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“If we keep doing that, our understanding about the Early Cretaceous evolution of birds on a global scale may completely change from what we currently think,” Imai says.</div>
<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The study has been published in the scientific journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-019-0639-4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Communications Biology</a>.</span></i></u></div>

Newly Discovered Fossil Bird Fills in Gap Between Dinosaurs and Modern Fliers

Artist’s depiction of Fukuipteryx prima. Image: Masanori Yoshida The fossils of a bird that lived 120 million years ago, during the ...

The Mysterious 'Tully Monster' Just Got More Mysterious

Earth History, Fossils, Researches 7:20 PM

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rgcBdNTNMyY/Xc1-OnUlZ9I/AAAAAAAARqE/ncfVZ5GLcRQt4lWQJ7XK_-WAU3NPPT0awCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/The%2BMysterious%2B%2527Tully%2BMonster%2527%2BJust%2BGot%2BMore%2BMysterious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Mysterious 'Tully Monster' Just Got More Mysterious" border="0" data-original-height="1014" data-original-width="1352" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rgcBdNTNMyY/Xc1-OnUlZ9I/AAAAAAAARqE/ncfVZ5GLcRQt4lWQJ7XK_-WAU3NPPT0awCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/The%2BMysterious%2B%2527Tully%2BMonster%2527%2BJust%2BGot%2BMore%2BMysterious.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artist’s impression of Tullimonstrum, and The Tullimonstrum fossil. Ghedoghedo/Wikimedia</td></tr>
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Every now and again, scientists discover fossils that are so bizarre they defy classification, their body plans unlike any other living animals or plants. <i>Tullimonstrum </i>(also known as the Tully Monster), a 300m-year-old fossil discovered in the Mazon Creek fossil beds in Illinois, US, is one such creature.<br />
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At first glance, Tully looks superficially slug-like. But where you would expect its mouth to be, the creature has a long thin appendage ending in what looks like a pair of grasping claws. Then there are its eyes, which protrude outward from its body on stalks.<br />
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Tully is so strange that scientists have even been unable to agree on whether it is a vertebrate (with a backbone, like mammals, birds, reptiles and fish) or an invertebrate (without a backbone, like insects, crustaceans, octopuses and all other animals). In 2016, a group of scientists claimed to have solved the mystery of Tully, providing the strongest evidence yet that it was a vertebrate. But my colleagues and I have conducted a new study that calls this conclusion into question, meaning this monster is as mysterious as ever.<br />
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The Tully Monster was originally discovered in the 1950s by a fossil collector named Francis Tully. Ever since its discovery scientists have puzzled over which group of modern animals Tully belongs to. The enigma of Tully’s true evolutionary relationships has added to its popularity, ultimately leading it to become the state fossil of Illinois.<br />
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There have been many attempts to classify the Tully Monster. The majority of these studies have focused on the appearance of some of its more prominent features. These include a linear feature in the fossil interpreted as evidence of a gut, the light and dark banding of the fossil and the peculiar grasping claws of its mouth. The body plan of the Tully Monster is so unusual in it’s entirety that it will greatly expand the diversity of of whatever group it ultimately belongs to, changing the way we think about that group of animals.<br />
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The 2016 research argued the animal should be grouped with vertebrates because its eyes contain pigment granules called melanosomes, which are arranged by shape and size in the same way as those in vertebrate eyes. But our research shows that the eyes of some invertebrates such as octopus and squid also contain melanosomes partitioned by shape and size in a similar way to Tully’s eyes, and that these an also be preserved in fossils.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Particle accelerator research</span></h4>
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To do this, we used a type of particle accelerator called a synchrotron radiation lightsource located at Stanford University in California. This allowed us to explore the chemical makeup of samples from fossils and from animals living today. The synchrotron bombards specimens with intense bursts of radiation to “excite” the elements within them. When excited, each element releases X-rays with a specific signature. By detecting the emitted X-ray signatures, we can tell what elements were excited and ultimately what the specimen we’re interested in is made of.<br />
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First we found that melanosomes from the eyes of modern vertebrates have a higher ratio of zinc to copper than the modern invertebrates we studied. To our surprise, we then found the same pattern could be seen in fossilised vertebrates and invertebrates found at Mazon Creek.<br />
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We then analysed the chemistry of Tully’s eyes and the ratio of zinc to copper was more similar to that of invertebrates than vertebrates. This suggests the animal may not have been a vertebrate, contradicting previous efforts to classify it.<br />
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We also found that Tully’s eyes contain different type of copper to that found in vertebrate eyes. But the copper also wasn’t identical to that in the invertebrates we studied. So while our work adds weight to the idea that Tully is not a vertebrate, it doesn’t clearly identify it as an invertebrate either.<br />
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Where do we go from here? A broader analysis of the chemistry of melanosomes and other pigments in the eyes of a wider range of invertebrates would be a good next step. This may help to further narrow down the group of animals to which Tully belongs.<br />
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Ultimately the riddle of what kind of creature the Tully Monster is continues. But our research demonstrates how studying fossils at the chemical and molecular levels can play an important part in figuring out the identity of this and other enigmatic creature.</div>
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<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above post is reprinted from <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mysterious-tully-monster-fossil-just-got-more-mysterious-126531?fbclid=IwAR1uPmmTs9nF0ziJiCTI_D4aAUWbWGS9dVyjK8A9sxcq4bYednXL6DIF5us" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Conversation</a></span></i></u></div>

The Mysterious 'Tully Monster' Just Got More Mysterious

Artist’s impression of Tullimonstrum, and The Tullimonstrum fossil. Ghedoghedo/Wikimedia Every now and again, scientists discover fos...

Pamukkale: Amazing Geological Wonder

Geology, places to visit 7:56 PM

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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pamukkale is actually Turkish for “cotton castle”, a name that we think manages to characterize the true inner “fluffiness” of this place.</span><br />
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If we are talking about natural beauty, the Pamukkale is one of the most epic wonders. With its fluffy cotton pools and geologic heritage, it is beautiful from all angles.<br />
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Pamukkale's terraces are made of travertine, a sedimentary rock deposited by water from the hot springs. <br />
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In this area, there are 17 hot water springs in which the temperature ranges from 35 °C (95 °F) to 100 °C (212 °F). The water that emerges from the spring is transported 320 metres (1,050 ft) to the head of the travertine terraces and deposits calcium carbonate on a section 60 to 70 metres (200 to 230 ft) long covering an expanse of 24 metres (79 ft) to 30 metres (98 ft).  <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--5vCH9vH1gQ/Xcg7BcFqmyI/AAAAAAAARpo/og-cCL5EJCkbq_QnhmRYa-K2VBQ6P1j3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Limestone%2Bwall%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="800" height="377" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--5vCH9vH1gQ/Xcg7BcFqmyI/AAAAAAAARpo/og-cCL5EJCkbq_QnhmRYa-K2VBQ6P1j3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Limestone%2Bwall%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Brocken Inaglory</td></tr>
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Thermal sources on an important fault line of western Anatolia in Pamukkale are warmed up by subterranean heat and come out at 33-36 C. The water contains calcium hydro carbonate. Tectonic movements triggered frequent earthquakes in this area and gave rise to the emergence of a number of very hot springs. The water from these springs created Pamukkale with its large mineral content. <br />
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Measurements made at the source of the springs find atmospheric levels of 725 mg/l carbon dioxide, by the time this water flows across the travertines, this figure falls to 145 mg/l. Likewise calcium carbonate falls from 1200 mg/l to 400 mg/l and calcium 576.8 mg/l to 376.6 mg/l. From these results, it is calculated that 499.9 mg of CaCO3 is deposited on the travertine for every liter of water. This means that for a flow rate of 1 l/s of water 43,191 grams (1,523.5 oz) are deposited daily.<br />
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The average density of a travertine is 1.48 g/cm3 implying a deposit of 29.2 dm3. Given that the average flow of the water is 465.2 l/s this implies that it can whiten 13,584 square meters (146,220 sq ft) a day, but in practice, this area coverage is difficult to attain. These theoretical calculations indicate that up to 4.9 square kilometers it can be covered with a white deposit of 1 millimeter (0.039 in) thickness.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MX2_d2wZDPY/Xcg5kGwd-PI/AAAAAAAARpc/nyiJCQyOnkccL2MOhGljJdU1AcqPUX9QgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Pamukkale5%2Bs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Pamukkale: Amazing Geological Wonder" border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MX2_d2wZDPY/Xcg5kGwd-PI/AAAAAAAARpc/nyiJCQyOnkccL2MOhGljJdU1AcqPUX9QgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Pamukkale5%2Bs.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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The underground volcanic activity which causes the hot springs also forced carbon dioxide into a cave, which was called the Plutonium, which here means "place of the god Pluto".<br />
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It is located in Turkey's Inner Aegean region, in the River Menderes valley, which has a temperate climate for most of the year.<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">See also:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2016/02/the-rainbow-mountains-in-peru-very.html" target="_blank">The Rainbow Mountains in Peru Very Amazing</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2017/11/mountain-of-god-weirdest-volcano-in.html" target="_blank"><span data-offset-key="3tdjq-0-0"><span data-text="true">'Mountain of God' the Weirdest Volcano in the World</span></span></a></span><br />
<br /></div>

Pamukkale: Amazing Geological Wonder

Pamukkale is actually Turkish for “cotton castle”, a name that we think manages to characterize the true inner “fluffiness” of this pla...

Scientists Unearth Huge Claw From 110-million-year-old Carnivorous Dinosaur

dinosaur, Earth History, extinction 7:56 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fossilised 20 centimetre long hand claw of theropod discovered at Eric the West site on Victoria’s Otway Coast. Credit: Stephen Poropat/Museums Victoria</td></tr>
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Swinburne and Museums Victoria have announced the discovery of several theropod bones, including a 20 centimeter long hand claw, from the Otway Coast of Victoria.<br />
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The bones were found in the Eumeralla Formation, a geological deposit that is approximately 107 million years old.<br />
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Fossils of theropods—the group of dinosaurs that includes such famous predators as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, as well as modern birds—are relatively rare in Australia. The new Victorian specimens were discovered at a site known as "Eric the Red West' on the Otway Coast between 2011 and 2017, by volunteers working on Dinosaur Dreaming team's annual digs.<br />
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These digs are held each February and are coordinated by husband and wife paleontologists, Swinburne's Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich and Dr. Thomas Rich from Museums Victoria.<br />
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Previously, the Eric the Red West site had produced the skeleton of <i>Diluvicursor pickeringi</i>, a unique species of ornithopod dinosaur that was described and named in 2018.<br />
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The new theropod fossils were found isolated rather than as part of a skeleton. This is because they were carried some distance from where the theropods died by ancient, deep, fast-flowing rivers. These rivers snaked through the then-narrow rift valley (now Bass Strait) that opened as Australia and Tasmania separated during the Early Cretaceous period, more than 110 million years ago.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Victorian bones resemble bones from western Queensland</span></h4>
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Many of the theropod bones found at the Eric the Red West site are from a group of theropods called megaraptorids. Intriguingly, they look almost identical to those of the Australian megaraptorid theropod <i>Australovenator wintonensis</i> from western Queensland.<br />
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Australovenator lived around ten million years after—and thousands of kilometers further north than—the Victorian megaraptorid. This suggests that megaraptorid theropods roamed over a large part of Australia and for a long period of time.<br />
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The research on the new Victorian theropod remains was led by Swinburne's Dr. Stephen Poropat as part of a postdoctoral research fellowship in vertebrate palaeontology.<br />
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According to Dr. Poropat, who has conducted research on Australian dinosaurs for several years, the presence of megaraptorid theropods in Victoria that are nearly indistinguishable from Australovenator—but older than it by around ten million years—is unusual.<br />
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"The similarities between the Victorian megaraptorid remains and Australovenator are striking," Dr. Poropat says.<br />
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"If we had found these theropod bones in Queensland, we would probably have called them Australovenator wintonensis. But they're from Victoria, which prompts the question: "Could one dinosaur species exist for more than ten million years, across eastern Australia?" Maybe."<br />
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Australovenator lived in Queensland around 95 million years ago, alongside several species of long-necked sauropod dinosaur (like <i>Diamantinasaurus matildae</i> and <i>Savannasaurus elliottorum</i>). However, the 107 million year-old rocks of western Victoria that produced the new theropod bones have not yielded a single scrap of sauropod bone.<br />
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"This is important, because it tells us that Australian megaraptorid theropods weren't entirely dependent on sauropods for food," says Dr. Poropat.<br />
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"We find megaraptorid teeth with sauropod carcasses in central Queensland all the time, but they seem to have been doing just fine in Victoria where sauropods seem to have been absent."<br />
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So were megaraptorid theropods relying on another food source in Victoria? Dr. Poropat thinks so. "Adult sauropods were many times heavier than adult megaraptorids, so attacking them would have been dangerous. What we do know is that another group of plant-eating dinosaurs—the ornithopods—were abundant in Victoria (based on bones) and in central Queensland (based on footprints).<br />
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"Although ornithopods might have been ideal meals for megaraptorids in both regions, Queensland's megaraptorids had another food choice—sauropod steaks! Whether they were fresh or on rotting carcasses, they would have been a pretty tempting item to have on the menu!"<br />
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The new theropod bones are held at Melbourne Museum. Another field trip to the Eric the Red West site is planned for November 2019. Dr. Poropat hopes that more megaraptorid bones might yet be found there.</div>
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<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2019.1666273" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by  Swinburne<a href="https://www.utech.edu.jm/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> University of Technology</a>.</span></i></u></div>

Scientists Unearth Huge Claw From 110-million-year-old Carnivorous Dinosaur

Fossilised 20 centimetre long hand claw of theropod discovered at Eric the West site on Victoria’s Otway Coast. Credit: Stephen Poropat/M...

New Way to Date Rocks

Geochemistry, Mining 7:33 PM

New Way to Date Rocks

Photo: The Mineral Collective A new way to date a common mineral could help pinpoint ore deposits and improve mineral exploration glob...

Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, But in Opal

famous, Fossils, gemstones 5:28 PM

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NG6NR7BQgsk/XHFzvLtIHdI/AAAAAAAAQzo/dy0mcr8DBvUgGGL6TTG0ivnZYJes4fECQCLcBGAs/s1600/Fossilized%2BInsect%2BDiscovered%2BNot%2Bin%2BAmber%252C%2BBut%2Bin%2BOpal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="1024" height="376" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NG6NR7BQgsk/XHFzvLtIHdI/AAAAAAAAQzo/dy0mcr8DBvUgGGL6TTG0ivnZYJes4fECQCLcBGAs/s640/Fossilized%2BInsect%2BDiscovered%2BNot%2Bin%2BAmber%252C%2BBut%2Bin%2BOpal.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/velvetboxsociety/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">(Brian Berger/Instagram/@velvetboxsociety)</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In a find unlike anything seen before, a piece of opal from the island of java in indonesia holds some remarkable cargo: a stunningly preserved insect that may be at least four to seven million years old.</span><br />
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Previously, plenty of ancient insects have been found in amber, a gemstone made of fossilized tree resin. When animals became encased in the fresh resin, it entombs them rapidly enough to preserve the remains, often with exquisite detail.<br />
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On a trip to Indonesia, gemologist Brian Berger purchased an opal that appeared to have an insect entombed inside. Insects trapped in amber are a common-enough sight, but in a slow-forming gemstone like opal?<br />
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“Some researchers weren’t sure it was possible,” Berger told Gizmodo. “Now we know it’s possible. Is it likely? Extremely unlikely.”<br />
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Berger had the stone analyzed by the Gemological Institute of America, which confirmed its authenticity. He published <a href="https://entomologytoday.org/2019/01/18/fossilized-insect-discovered-amber-opal/?fbclid=IwAR3tvq4p9ZxpCQ8qBNd29sRDsvWxLu_DpKqC9SgOwPgPvxuwFGVH8g3yBcQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a blog in Entomology </a>about his finding and is looking for entomologists to further analyze it.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Plants produce a sticky substance called resin mostly as a means to protect themselves. Under the right circumstances, the chemical structures of these resins can change over time, fossilizing into amber—occasionally trapping and preserving an insect inside.<br />
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This specimen probably started as a typical insect trapped in amber—but then it appears to have gone through a second process called opalization, where some of the amber turned into opal. Opals are essentially spheres of silicon dioxide with water combined into their chemistry. Organic specimens can turn into opal similar to the way fossilization turns bone into stone; paleontologists in Australia have recently found an opalized dinosaur fossil.<br />
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At least, this is what Berger speculates happened. How the specimen formed remains unclear.<br />
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One entomologist, Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada, told Gizmodo “it is a pretty neat find, and a bit puzzling.” Though commenting only on Berger’s blog post in Entomology Today, McKellar said it “definitely looks like an insect inclusion.” He noted that he’d seen a comparable specimen in Canada, where a piece of wood was partially embedded in resin and partially exposed to the surrounding environment. The amber preserved the wood, but silica replaced the organic matter outside the amber and turned it into petrified wood.<br />
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McKellar thought that perhaps this specimen was formed by a similar process, and said he’d be interested in the age of the deposit where it was found.<br />
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Meanwhile, well-known American entomologist George Poinar Jr. from Oregon State University remained cautious. He found the specimen “interesting,” but wanted to wait for an entomologist’s opinion before offering any further comment without examining the object himself.</span><br />
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<i><a href="https://gizmodo.com/gemologist-finds-insect-trapped-in-opal-instead-of-ambe-1831966497" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gizmodo</span></a></i></div>

Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, But in Opal

Photo: (Brian Berger/Instagram/@velvetboxsociety) In a find unlike anything seen before, a piece of opal from the island of java in i...

What Makes Earth's Surface Move?

earth, Geology, Tectonic 7:51 PM

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Do tectonic plates move because of motion in the Earth's mantle, or is the mantle driven by the movement of the plates? Or could it be that this question is ill-posed? This is the point of view adopted by scientists at the École Normale Supérieure -- PSL, the CNRS and the University of Rome 3, who regard the plates and the mantle as belonging to a single system. According to their simulations, published in Science Advances, it is mainly the surface that drives the mantle, although the dynamic balance between the two changes over supercontinent cycles.<br />
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Which forces drive tectonic plates? This has remained an open question ever since the advent of plate tectonic theory 50 years ago. Do the cold edges of plates slowly sinking into the Earth's mantle at subduction zones cause the motion observed at the Earth's surface? Or alternatively, does the mantle, with its convection currents, drive the plates? For geologists, this is rather like the problem of the chicken and the egg: the mantle apparently causes the plates to move, while they in turn drive the mantle...<br />
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To shed light on the forces at work, scientists from the Geology Laboratory of the École Normale Supérieure (CNRS/ENS -- PSL), the Institute of Earth Sciences (CNRS/Universities Grenoble Alpes and Savoie Mont Blanc/IRD/Ifsttar) and the University of Rome 3 treated the solid Earth as a single indivisible system and carried out the most comprehensive modelling to date of the evolution of a fictional planet very similar to the Earth.<br />
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The scientists first had to find the appropriate parameters, and then spend some nine months solving a set of equations with a supercomputer, reconstructing the evolution of the planet over a period of 1.5 billion years.<br />
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Using this model, the team showed that two thirds of the Earth's surface moves faster than the underlying mantle, in other words it is the surface that drags the interior, while the roles are reversed for the remaining third. This balance of forces changes over geological time, especially for the continents.<br />
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The latter are mainly dragged by deep motion within the mantle during the construction phases of a supercontinent, as in the ongoing collision between India and Asia: in such cases, the motion observed at the surface can provide information about the dynamics of the deep mantle. Conversely, when a supercontinent breaks up, the motion is mainly driven by that of the plates as they sink down into the mantle.<br />
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The computation contains a wealth of data that remains largely unexploited. The data obtained could help us to understand how mid-ocean ridges form and disappear, how subduction is triggered, or what determines the location of the plumes that cause vast volcanic outpourings.<br />
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://www.cnrs.fr/en/what-makes-earths-surface-move" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.cnrs.fr/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CNRS</a>.</span></i></u></div>

What Makes Earth's Surface Move?

Do tectonic plates move because of motion in the Earth's mantle, or is the mantle driven by the movement of the plates? Or could it...

Geology In