Geology In

Pink Halite

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rv8ApPI8OHo/YUC6sg0NRKI/AAAAAAAATUo/_4qh6xq6x08aQ9pdQYY2yyxTpLoytr6ZwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/Pink%2BHalite.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rv8ApPI8OHo/YUC6sg0NRKI/AAAAAAAATUo/_4qh6xq6x08aQ9pdQYY2yyxTpLoytr6ZwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/Pink%2BHalite.jpg" title="Pink Halite" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pink Halite from California<br />Photo Copyright ©️ Artstonetics/IG<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><p></p><p>Halite  is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride (NaCl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow or gray depending on inclusion of other materials, impurities, and structural or isotopic abnormalities in the crystals.</p><p>Halite has economic value. In addition to its use in food, salt is traditionally used in large quantities in wintertime to prevent roadways from icing up. Halite is principally mined from ancient rock salt successions. Rock salt is a chemical sedimentary rock composed of halite and formed by evaporation of seawater.<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;">
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</div><br /><p></p><p>Pink Halite is a type of Halite that had its color tainted from bacteria
 of various algae species. Halite is known as the “natural form of salt”
 and is a very common mineral found near oceans and salt lakes. This 
stone can be found in the form of masses and a tubular crystal 
structure. </p><p>The specimen pictured above is from a dried up salt lake in 
San Bernardino, California. Be careful to avoid getting pieces of Pink 
Halite wet as it may start to disintegrate before your eyes. <br /> </p><p>Through geologic time, the lake has alternated between having water and being dry. What little water does occur in modern Searles Lake is highly saline. When the water evaporates, halite precipitates. The pinkish coloration is from incorporation of pigments (carotenoids) in halophilic archaea and algae that live in the water. <br /></p><p><br /></p>

Pink Halite

Giant 'Swimming Head' Creature Lived in Our Oceans 500 Million Years Ago

evolution, Fossils 6:45 PM

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AMOQeEq5_zw/YT9xdDgAkfI/AAAAAAAATUg/gMdJU7W3LfoU9bewgymXz5aedo-HivkbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1260/08tb-predator-3-mobileMasterAt3x%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1260" height="458" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AMOQeEq5_zw/YT9xdDgAkfI/AAAAAAAATUg/gMdJU7W3LfoU9bewgymXz5aedo-HivkbQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h458/08tb-predator-3-mobileMasterAt3x%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Palaeontologists unearth one of the largest radiodonts of the Cambrian explosion" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Titanokorys gainesi carapace. Image credit: Jean-Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum.</td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Paleontologists have described the largest Cambrian hurdiid radiodont known so far, named Titanokorys gainesi, from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia, Canada.</span></p><p>Palaeontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have uncovered the remains of a huge new fossil species belonging to an extinct animal group in half-a-billion-year-old Cambrian rocks from Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies. The findings were announced on September 8, 2021, in a study published in Royal Society Open Science.<br /><br />Named Titanokorys gainesi, this new species is remarkable for its size. With an estimated total length of half a meter, Titanokorys was a giant compared to most animals that lived in the seas at that time, most of which barely reached the size of a pinky finger.<br /><br />"The sheer size of this animal is absolutely mind-boggling, this is one of the biggest animals from the Cambrian period ever found," says Jean-Bernard Caron, ROM's Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br />Evolutionarily speaking, Titanokorys belongs to a group of primitive arthropods called radiodonts. The most iconic representative of this group is the streamlined predator Anomalocaris, which may itself have approached a metre in length. Like all radiodonts, Titanokorys had multifaceted eyes, a pineapple slice-shaped, tooth-lined mouth, a pair of spiny claws below its head to capture prey and a body with a series of flaps for swimming. Within this group, some species also possessed large, conspicuous head carapaces, with Titanokorys being one of the largest ever known.<br /><br />"Titanokorys is part of a subgroup of radiodonts, called hurdiids, characterized by an incredibly long head covered by a three-part carapace that took on myriad shapes. The head is so long relative to the body that these animals are really little more than swimming heads," added Joe Moysiuk, co-author of the study, and a ROM-based Ph.D. student in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto.<br /><br />Why some radiodonts evolved such a bewildering array of head carapace shapes and sizes is still poorly understood and was likely driven by a variety of factors, but the broad flattened carapace form in Titanokorys suggests this species was adapted to life near the seafloor.<br /><br />"These enigmatic animals certainly had a big impact on Cambrian seafloor ecosystems. Their limbs at the front looked like multiple stacked rakes and would have been very efficient at bringing anything they captured in their tiny spines towards the mouth. The huge dorsal carapace might have functioned like a plough," added Dr. Caron, who is also an Associate Professor in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto, and Moysiuk's Ph.D. advisor.<br /><br />All fossils in this study were collected around Marble Canyon in northern Kootenay National Park by successive ROM expeditions. Discovered less than a decade ago, this area has yielded a great variety of Burgess Shale animals dating back to the Cambrian period, including a smaller, more abundant relative of Titanokorys named Cambroraster falcatusin reference to its Millennium Falcon-shaped head carapace. According to the authors, the two species might have competed for similar bottom-dwelling prey.<br /><br />The Burgess Shale fossil sites are located within Yoho and Kootenay National Parks and are managed by Parks Canada. Parks Canada is proud to work with leading scientific researchers to expand knowledge and understanding of this key period of earth history and to share these sites with the world through award-winning guided hikes. The Burgess Shale was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 due to its outstanding universal value and is now part of the larger Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site.<br /><br />The discovery of Titanokorys gainesi was profiled in the CBC's The Nature of Things episode "First Animals." These and other Burgess Shale specimens will be showcased in a new gallery at ROM, the Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life, opening in December 2021.<br /><br />Major funding support for the research and fieldwork came from the Polk Milstein Family, ROM, the National Geographic Society (#9475-14 to JBC), the Swedish Research Council (to Michael Streng), the National Science Foundation (NSF-EAR-1556226, 1554897) and Pomona College (to Robert R. Gaines). This research is also supported by a National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery grant to J.-B.C and a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship through the University of Toronto (Dept. of Ecology and Evolution) to J.M.</p><p> </p><p><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> The above story is based on <a href="https://www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/massive-new-animal-species-discovered-in-half-billion-year-old" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span>provided by<span> </span></span><a href="https://www.rom.on.ca/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><strong style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;">Royal Ontario Museum</strong></a></span></i></u><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">.</span></i></u><span><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></i></u><br /></span></span></p>

Giant 'Swimming Head' Creature Lived in Our Oceans 500 Million Years Ago

Titanokorys gainesi carapace. Image credit: Jean-Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum. Paleontologists have described the largest Cambrian...

'Flying Dragon' First-ever Remains of Prehistoric Winged Dinosaur

dinosaur, Fossils 7:07 PM

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1J2XB3pS49Q/YT4lSjEcx4I/AAAAAAAATUY/2hlZq5Sx-K0rC_dvtbHgx7nGgKlz4v3FgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/%2527Flying%2BDragon%2527%2BFirst-ever%2BRemains%2Bof%2BPrehistoric%2BWinged%2BDinosaur%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1J2XB3pS49Q/YT4lSjEcx4I/AAAAAAAATUY/2hlZq5Sx-K0rC_dvtbHgx7nGgKlz4v3FgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/%2527Flying%2BDragon%2527%2BFirst-ever%2BRemains%2Bof%2BPrehistoric%2BWinged%2BDinosaur%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="'Flying Dragon' First-ever Remains of Prehistoric Winged Dinosaur" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed by a group of scientists in the Atacama Desert.</td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The dinosaur fossil is preserved in a rare three-dimensional way, as the bones of pterosaurs generally get crushed due to their delicacy.</span><br /></p><p>Scientists in Chile's Atacama Desert have unearthed the fossil remains of a so-called "flying dragon," a Jurassic-era dinosaur previously known only to the northern hemisphere.<br /><br />The flying reptile belonged to a group of early pterosaurs that roamed the earth 160 million years ago. It had a long pointed tail, wings and sharp, outward pointing teeth.<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;">
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</div><br />The beast's fossil remains were discovered by Osvaldo Rojas, director of the Atacama Desert Museum of Natural History and Culture, and then further investigated by scientists at the University of Chile.<br /><br />Details of the discovery, the first linking such creatures to the Southern Hemisphere, were published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.<br /><br />"This shows the distribution of the animals in this group was wider than what was known up to now," said Jhonatan Alarcon, a University of Chile scientist who led the investigation.<br /><br />The discovery points to close ties and possible migration between the northern and southern hemispheres at a time when most of the globe's southerly land masses where believed to be linked in a supercontinent called Gondwana.<br /><br />”There are pterosaurs of this group also in Cuba, which apparently were coastal animals, so most likely they have migrated between the North and the South or maybe they came once and stayed, we don't know," Alarcon said.<br /><br />Chile's vast Atacama Desert, once largely submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean, is now a moonscape of sand and stone.<br /><br />The region, parts of which haven't seen rain for decades, is a hot spot for fossil discoveries, with many remains untouched in remote areas not far beneath the desert surface.<p></p><p> </p><p> </p>

'Flying Dragon' First-ever Remains of Prehistoric Winged Dinosaur

Fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed by a group of scientists in the Atacama Desert. The dinosaur fossil is preserved in a rare three-di...

The Geology behind Kidney Stone Crystallization

Geology, Researches 6:56 PM

The Geology behind Kidney Stone Crystallization

Section of a kidney stone. Credit: Mayandi Sivaguru and Bruce Fouke Rather than crystallizing all at once, kidney stones dissolve and re-...

Some Rare Diamonds Form Out of The Remains of Once-Living Creatures

Diamonds, Tectonic 5:12 PM

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TVMInzaw74w/YSzmh609hAI/AAAAAAAATTM/C17VFYp4mKoQW9M5Sr4-3KwPn-kX2bmEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1180/Some%2BRare%2BDiamonds%2BForm%2BOut%2Bof%2BThe%2BRemains%2Bof%2BOnce-Living%2BCreatures%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1180" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TVMInzaw74w/YSzmh609hAI/AAAAAAAATTM/C17VFYp4mKoQW9M5Sr4-3KwPn-kX2bmEgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h384/Some%2BRare%2BDiamonds%2BForm%2BOut%2Bof%2BThe%2BRemains%2Bof%2BOnce-Living%2BCreatures%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Some Rare Diamonds Form Out of The Remains of Once-Living Creatures" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Despite humanity's intense fascination with sparkly pieces of carbon, it seems there is still plenty to learn about how diamonds form deep within our planet.<br /><br />The Earth’s deepest diamonds are commonly made up of former living organisms that have effectively been recycled more than 400 kilometres below the surface, new Curtin research has discovered.<br /><br />The research, published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, found that both diamonds found in oceanic rocks and the so-called super-deep continental diamonds shared a common origin of recycled organic carbon deep within the Earth’s mantle.<br /><br />Lead author Dr Luc Doucet, from Curtin’s Earth Dynamics Research Group within the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the findings offered a fascinating insight into the world’s most expensive gemstones.<br /></p><p>“Bringing new meaning to the old trash to treasure adage, this research discovered that the Earth’s engine actually turns organic carbon into diamonds many hundreds of kilometres below the surface,” Dr Doucet said.<br /><br />“Ballooning rocks from the Earth’s deeper mantle, called mantle plumes, then carry the diamonds back up to the Earth’s surface via volcanic eruptions for humans to enjoy as sought-after gemstones.<br /><br />“While recycling is becoming a modern-day necessity for our sustainable survival, we were particularly surprised to learn, through this research, that Mother Nature has been showing us how to recycle with style for billions of years.”<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br /><b>The three main types of natural diamonds</b> include oceanic, super-deep continental and lithospheric diamonds, formed at different levels of the mantle with a varying mixture of organic and inorganic carbon.<br /><br />Co-lead author John Curtin Distinguished Professor Zheng-Xiang Li, the Head of the Earth Dynamics Research Group, said the research provided a model that explains the formation and locations of all three major types of diamonds.<br /><br />“This is the first time that all three major types of diamonds have been linked to mantle plumes, ballooning hot rocks driven by plate tectonics and the supercontinent cycle from deeper Earth,” Professor Li said.<br /><br />“This research not only helps to understand Earth’s carbon cycle, but also has the potential to unlock more secrets of the Earth’s dynamic history through tracking the past locations of mantle plumes and superplumes. This can be achieved by mapping out the distribution of both continental and oceanic diamonds.”<br /><br />However, Professor Li said it remained a mystery as to why diamonds formed in the so-called “mantle transition zone”, 400 to 600 kilometres deep, utilised recycled organic carbon only.<br /><br />“This might have something to do with the physical-chemical environment there”, Professor Li said. “It is not uncommon for a new scientific discovery to raise more questions that require further investigation.”<br /><br />  </p><p><i><u> The above story is based on <a href="https://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/new-curtin-research-shows-mother-nature-recycles-trash-to-create-diamonds/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Curtin University.</a></u></i></p>

Some Rare Diamonds Form Out of The Remains of Once-Living Creatures

Despite humanity's intense fascination with sparkly pieces of carbon, it seems there is still plenty to learn about how diamonds form de...

Nature Recycles Trash to Create Diamonds

Diamonds, Geology 8:56 PM

Nature Recycles Trash to Create Diamonds

Map showing oceanic diamond and oceanic mantle plume occurrences. The Earth’s deepest diamonds are commonly made up of former living org...

Paleontologists Find Frog-Legged Beetle Fossil in Colorado

Earth History, Fossils 6:29 PM

Paleontologists Find Frog-Legged Beetle Fossil in Colorado

The new frog-legged beetle species, Pulchritudo attenboroughi, or Attenborough’s Beauty, was identified by Frank Krell, Denver Museum of Nat...

‘Mammoth Weevil’ Found Preserved in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

amber, Fossils 5:29 PM

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vlSUYsjxboY/YSJ-mTgsrjI/AAAAAAAATSE/08rYEMoJB3UcVvTmSYiT54YMoJ9XG8R5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1260/image_9923e-Rhamphophorus-legalovii%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="1260" height="446" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vlSUYsjxboY/YSJ-mTgsrjI/AAAAAAAATSE/08rYEMoJB3UcVvTmSYiT54YMoJ9XG8R5ACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h446/image_9923e-Rhamphophorus-legalovii%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="A fossilized long-bodied weevil found in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar represents a new tribe, genus and species and dates back some 100 million years." width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rhamphophorus legalovii. Image credit: Poinar & Brown, doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104948.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p>A fossilized long-bodied weevil found in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar represents a new tribe, genus and species and dates back some 100 million years.<br /></p><p>Oregon State University research has identified a 100-million-year-old weevil unlike any other known fossilized or living weevil.<br /><br />George Poinar Jr., an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn about the biology and ecology of the distant past, calls the male specimen a "mammoth weevil" because of its "monstrous trunk"—also known as the weevil's rostrum or beak.<br /><br />Poinar said Rhamphophorus legalovii, as the long-bodied weevil fossil is known scientifically, probably wielded its trunk as a weapon while in combat with other males over females.<br /><br />Encased in Burmese amber, the specimen represents a new tribe, genus and species. Rhamphophorus derives from a pair of Greek words meaning "curving beak" and "to bear," and legalovii honors Russian weevil specialist Andrei A. Legalov.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br />"Entomologists will be discussing the systematic placement of this fossil for years since it is so bizarre," said Poinar, who has a courtesy appointment in the OSU College of Science.<br /><br />Findings were published in Cretaceous Research.<br /><br />There are nearly 100,000 known species of weevils—small, plant-eating beetles known for their elongated snouts. Well-known North American species are the boll weevil that attacks cotton, the alfalfa weevil and the strawberry root weevil.<br /><br />Weevils with straight antennae are categorized as primitive weevils, and those whose antennae feature an elbow-like bend are known as true weevils; Rhamphophorus is a primitive weevil with an 11-segment antenna and Poinar placed it in the Nemonychidae family, whose members are known as "pine flower weevils."<br /><br />"The story of the family's ancient history is told by species in Mesozoic amber deposits, although no extinct or extant species with such elongated rostrums are known," he said. "The larvae and adults of many nemonychids eat pollen from developing male cones of pines and other conifers."<br /><br />The newly identified weevil genus and species belongs to the sub-family Cimberidinae, consisting of particularly long-nosed weevils whose physical characteristics are developed like highly specialized tools. Of the 70 known species of Cimberidinae, many are sexually dimorphic—males and females look quite different from one another. Thus the female of Rhamphophorus probably had a much shorter rostrum.<br /><br />The new weevil, which likely lived on the ground rather than in trees, is 5.5 millimeters long, almost half of which is head and rostrum. The amber in which it is preserved came from the Noije Bum 2001 Summit Site mine first excavated in Myanmar's Hukawng Valley in 2001.<br /><br />"Rhamphophorus had extended middle foot segments that might have increased its ability to grasp plant surfaces or better reach its foes during fights for females," Poinar said. "It would be interesting to know if females also had this feature."<br /><br />Injuries suffered by Rhamphophorus suggest it may have been doing battle with another male over a female just before it fell into the resin and was preserved.<br /><br />"Rhamphophorus shows many features unknown on living or extinct fossil weevils," Poinar said. "It shows how an adult beetle can become so specialized that even its family position can be questioned. Certainly lifestyle in conjunction with microhabitat influenced the evolutionary development of this weevil, which gives us an exciting glimpse of morphological diversity in mid-Cretaceous weevils."<br /> </p><p><i><u><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> The above story is based on <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/ancient-newly-identified-%E2%80%98mammoth-weevil%E2%80%99-used-huge-%E2%80%98trunk%E2%80%99-fight-mates" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span>provided by<span> </span></span><a href="http://www.osu.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><strong style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;">Oregon State University</strong></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">. Original written by Steve Lundeberg.</span></span></u></i><br /></p>

‘Mammoth Weevil’ Found Preserved in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

Rhamphophorus legalovii. Image credit: Poinar & Brown, doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104948. A fossilized long-bodied weevil found in mi...

Billion-year 'Gap' in Grand Canyon Geological Record Explained

Earth History, Geology, sedimentary 7:55 PM

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S_SvERc6su0/YSEvWjHJa9I/AAAAAAAATRs/ygp-9t2e4-4MEsDTVIw5-rsGaFSMKJcLgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/Precambrian_-_Cambrian_Unconformity_in_Grand_Canyon%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S_SvERc6su0/YSEvWjHJa9I/AAAAAAAATRs/ygp-9t2e4-4MEsDTVIw5-rsGaFSMKJcLgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/Precambrian_-_Cambrian_Unconformity_in_Grand_Canyon%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Angular unconformity between horizontal Tonto Group rocks (of Cambrian age) on top of tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks (1.1-1.2 Ga of Mesoproterozoic age) in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA." width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Angular unconformity between horizontal Tonto Group rocks (of Cambrian age) on top of tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks (1.1-1.2 Ga of Mesoproterozoic age) in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA.<br />Photo: James St. John <br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder reveals the complex history behind one of the Grand Canyon's most well-known geologic features: A mysterious and missing gap of time in the canyon's rock record that covers hundreds of millions of years.<br /><br />The research comes closer to solving a puzzle, called the "Great Unconformity," that has perplexed geologists since it was first described nearly 150 years ago.<br /><br />Think of the red bluffs and cliffs of the Grand Canyon as Earth's history textbook, explained Barra Peak, lead author of the new study and a graduate student in geological sciences at CU Boulder. If you scale down the canyon's rock faces, you can jump back almost 2 billion years into the planet's past. But that textbook is also missing pages: In some areas, more than 1 billion years' worth of rocks have disappeared from the Grand Canyon without a trace.<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Geologists want to know why.</h4><p style="text-align: left;">"The Great Unconformity is one of the first well-documented geologic features in North America," Peak said. "But until recently, we didn't have a lot of constraints on when or how it occurred."<br /><br />Now, she and her colleagues think they may be narrowing in on an answer in a paper published this month in the journal Geology. The team reports that a series of small yet violent faulting events may have rocked the region during the breakup of an ancient supercontinent called Rodinia. The resulting havoc likely tore up the earth around the canyon, causing rocks and sediment to wash away and into the ocean.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br />The team's findings could help scientists fill in missing pieces of what happened during this critical period for the Grand Canyon—today one of North America's foremost natural wonders.<br /><br />"We have new analytical methods in our lab that allow us to decipher the history in the missing window of time across the Great Unconformity," said Rebecca Flowers, coauthor of the new study and a professor of geological sciences. "We are doing this in the Grand Canyon and at other Great Unconformity localities across North America."<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Beautiful lines</h4><p style="text-align: left;">It's a mystery that goes back a long way. John Wesley Powell, the namesake of today's Lake Powell, first saw the Great Unconformity during his famed 1869 expedition by boat down the rapids of the Colorado River.<br /><br />Peak, who completed a similar research rafting trip through the Grand Canyon in spring 2021, said that the feature is stark enough that you can see it from the river.<br /><br />"There are beautiful lines," Peak said. "At the bottom, you can see very clearly that there are rocks that have been pushed together. Their layers are vertical. Then there there's a cutoff, and above that you have these beautiful horizontal layers that form the buttes and peaks that you associate with the Grand Canyon."<br /><br />The difference between those two types of rocks is significant. In the western part of the canyon toward Lake Mead, the basement stone is 1.4 to 1.8 billion years old. The rocks sitting on top, however, are just 520 million years old. Since Powell's voyage, scientists have seen evidence of similar periods of lost time at sites around North America.<br /><br />"There's more than a billion years that's gone," Peak said. "It's also a billion years during an interesting part of Earth's history where the planet is transitioning from an older setting to the modern Earth we know today."<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">A continent splits</h4><p style="text-align: left;">To explore the transition, Peak and her colleagues employed a method called "thermochronology," which tracks the history of heat in stone. Peak explained that, when geologic formations are buried deep underground, the pressure building on top of them can cause them to get toasty. That heat, in turn, leaves a trace in the chemistry of minerals in those formations.<br /><br />Using this approach, the researchers conducted a survey of samples of rock collected from throughout the Grand Canyon. They discovered that the history of this feature may be more convoluted than scientists have assumed. In particular, the western half of the canyon and its eastern portion (the part that tourists are most familiar with) may have undergone different geologic contortions throughout time.<br /><br />"It's not a single block with the same temperature history," Peak said.<br /><br />Roughly 700 million years ago, basement rock in the west seems to have risen to the surface. In the eastern half, however, that same stone was under kilometers of sediment.<br /><br />The difference likely came down to the breakup of Rodinia, a gigantic land mass that began to pull apart at about the same time, Peak said. The researchers results suggest that this major upheaval may have torn at the eastern and western halves of the Grand Canyon in different ways and at slightly different times—producing the Great Unconformity in the process.<br /><br />Peak and her colleagues are now looking at other sites of the Great Unconformity in North America to see how general this picture might be. For now, she's excited to watch geologic history play out in one of the country's most picturesque landscapes.<br /><br />"There are just so many things there that aren't present anywhere else," she said. "It's a really amazing natural lab."</p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G49116.1/606722/Zircon-U-Th-He-thermochronology-reveals-pre-Great" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Colorado at Boulder</a>.</u></i><br /> </p>

Billion-year 'Gap' in Grand Canyon Geological Record Explained

Angular unconformity between horizontal Tonto Group rocks (of Cambrian age) on top of tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks (1.1-1.2 Ga of Me...