Meteor Blast Over Bering Sea Was 10 Times Size of Hiroshima

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5chOA3xtx5g/XI--os3kiKI/AAAAAAAAQ3A/hoHvAxqMCyA-PIfhn2ngQfXnQ5PoDDiDwCLcBGAs/s1600/A%2Bmeteor%2Bexploded%2Bover%2BEarth%2Bwith%2B10%2Btimes%2Bthe%2Benergy%2Bof%2BHiroshima%25E2%2580%2599s%2Batomic%2Bbomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Meteor Blast Over Bering Sea Was 10 Times Size of Hiroshima" border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1600" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5chOA3xtx5g/XI--os3kiKI/AAAAAAAAQ3A/hoHvAxqMCyA-PIfhn2ngQfXnQ5PoDDiDwCLcBGAs/s640/A%2Bmeteor%2Bexploded%2Bover%2BEarth%2Bwith%2B10%2Btimes%2Bthe%2Benergy%2Bof%2BHiroshima%25E2%2580%2599s%2Batomic%2Bbomb.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> A dashcam image of the Chelyabinsk meteor. The meteor last December exploded over a more remote location. Photograph: AP</td></tr> </tbody></table> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A meteor explosion over the Bering Sea late last year unleashed 10 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, scientists have revealed.</span><br /> <br /> The fireball tore across the sky off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula on 18 December and released energy equivalent to 173 kilotons of TNT. It was the largest air blast since another meteor hurtled into the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, in Russia’s south-west, six years ago, and the second largest in the past 30 years.<br /> <br /> Unlike the Chelyabinsk meteor, which was captured on CCTV, mobile phones and car dashboard cameras, the December arrival from outer space went largely unnoticed at the time because it exploded in such a remote location.<br /> <br /> Nasa received information about the blast from the US air force after military satellites detected visible and infrared light from the fireball in December. Lindley Johnson, a planetary defence officer at Nasa, told BBC News that blasts of this size were expected only two or three times a century.<br /> <br /> The space agency’s analysis shows that the meteor, probably a few metres wide, barrelled into Earth’s atmosphere at 72,000mph and exploded at an altitude of 16 miles. The blast released about 40% of the energy of the meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk, according to Kelly Fast, Nasa’s near-Earth objects observations programme manager, who spoke at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science conference near Houston.<br /> </span><br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></span></div> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since the event came to light, meteor researchers have been asking airlines for any sightings of the fireball, which came in close to routes used by commercial carriers flying between North America and Asia.<br /> <br /> Peter Brown, a meteor specialist at Western University in Canada, spotted the blast independently in measurements made by global monitoring stations. The explosion left its mark in data recorded by a network of sensors that detect infrasound, which has a frequency too low for the human ear to pick up. The network was set up to detect covert nuclear bomb tests.<br /> <br /> The Bering Sea event is another reminder that despite efforts to identify and track space rocks that could pose a threat to Earth, sizeable meteors can still arrive without warning. Nasa is working to identify 90% of near-Earth asteroids larger than 140 metres by 2020, but the task could take another 30 years to complete.<br /> <br /> The 20m-wide meteor that detonated over Chelyabinsk lit up the morning sky on 15 February 2013. At its most intense, the fireball burned 30 times brighter than the sun. The flash quickly gave way to a shockwave that knocked people off their feet and shattered windows in thousands of apartments. No one was killed but more than 1,200 people were injured, many by flying glass. Some sustained retinal burns from watching the spectacle.<br /> <br /> In 1908 the most powerful meteor blast in modern times shook the ground in Russia. The rock exploded over Tunguska, a sparsely populated region in Siberia, and flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 770 sq miles.</span><br /> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Guardian News</span></i></u></span></div>

Meteor Blast Over Bering Sea Was 10 Times Size of Hiroshima

 A dashcam image of the Chelyabinsk meteor. The meteor last December exploded over a more remote location. Photograph: AP A meteor ...

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Researchers Unravel Mysteries of Earth's Inner Core

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wWPrwXr-xNA/XIvReh6cEgI/AAAAAAAAQ2Y/Bxx77WFin6ExHty-MKIMXolWBDbLfHDkQCLcBGAs/s1600/Researchers%2Bunravel%2Bmysteries%2Bof%2BEarth%2527s%2Binner%2Bcore%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Researchers Unravel Mysteries of Earth's Inner Core " border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="1200" height="492" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wWPrwXr-xNA/XIvReh6cEgI/AAAAAAAAQ2Y/Bxx77WFin6ExHty-MKIMXolWBDbLfHDkQCLcBGAs/s640/Researchers%2Bunravel%2Bmysteries%2Bof%2BEarth%2527s%2Binner%2Bcore%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> <br /> Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) are unlocking some of the secrets of the Earth's inner core by adapting and further developing a technique used in hospitals around the world.<br /> <br /> Tomography is the imaging process used in x-rays and ultrasounds, and involves waves passing through the body, before bouncing off body tissue and back to a receiver.<br /> <br /> ANU researcher Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić said it's also turned out to be a useful way for seismologists to "see" inside the Earth—with a couple of key differences.<br /> <br /> "This is one of the first attempts at tomography of the Earth's inner core."<br /> <br /> "In medicine they have an infinite number of sources and receivers they can place around the body, depending on the problem area. Earth scientists have to rely on natural sources—or earthquakes—and seismometers, and we don't have full control over their location."<br /> <br /> "One of the key things we can measure is the travel time of waves through the planet, from the time a large earthquake happens to when it gets recorded by the instrument on the other side of the globe."<br /> <br /> This travel time, and how much the waves attenuate—or lose energy—can provide crucial information about the material they're passing through, in the same way x-rays can pick up abnormal structures in the human body.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> The ANU team used a ground breaking method to improve the accuracy of their results, employing a complex computer algorithm.<br /> <br /> "We used what's called a "trans-dimensional" algorithm. This means the dimension of our problem is changing as we are solving it, or in other words the number of unknowns in our problem is itself an unknown," Dr. Tanja Pejić said.<br /> <br /> "This is a highly computationally complex problem, with individual computations taking weeks to solve on the RSES's Terrawulf computer cluster. The answer is a whole ensemble of solutions, and averaging through it gives us a statistically more likely solution."<br /> <br /> The study focused on imaging the top layer of the Earth's inner core, an area seen by some scientists as a 'final frontier' of global seismology.<br /> <br /> "For the past few decades scientists have been locked in a debate about the inner core's formation, dynamics, and growth," Dr. Pejić said.<br /> <br /> "Our paper shows that the eastern hemisphere is highly attenuative for seismic waves, but also that the western hemisphere—instead of being less attenuative—can be further divided into two regions. One region is potentially even more attenuative than all of the eastern hemisphere, and the other region is less attenuative."<br /> <br /> Professor Tkalčić said these findings could provide new evidence about the connection between the inner core and other parts of the earth.<br /> <br /> "We can learn from these tomographic images something about the dynamics of the entire system, the entire core and its connection to the lower mantle and the surface of the Earth."<br /> <br /> "Even though this is a snapshot of the current view of the Earth, it could help us better understand the formation process of the solid inner core, and even planetary formation in general."<br /> <br /> "We are slowly getting there."<br /> <br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://science.anu.edu.au/research/research-stories/anu-researchers-unravel-mysteries-earths-inner-core" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Australian National University.</a></span></i></u></div>

Researchers Unravel Mysteries of Earth's Inner Core

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) are unlocking some of the secrets of the Earth's inner core by adapting a...

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Yellowstone’s Geysers Are Getting More Active. Nobody’s Sure Why

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q14JIh2UD4w/XIfHkNBHiJI/AAAAAAAAQ14/08ZbLfpNi2sC9tmAXokVZcBitM2_980EwCLcBGAs/s1600/Yellowstone%25E2%2580%2599s%2BGeysers%2BAre%2BGetting%2BMore%2BActive.%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q14JIh2UD4w/XIfHkNBHiJI/AAAAAAAAQ14/08ZbLfpNi2sC9tmAXokVZcBitM2_980EwCLcBGAs/s640/Yellowstone%25E2%2580%2599s%2BGeysers%2BAre%2BGetting%2BMore%2BActive.%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steamboat Geyser experiences a relatively minor eruption in a picture taken in Yellowstone National Park. Recently, the geyser set a record by erupting 32 times in a single year.<br /></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <br /> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The geysers in Yellowstone National Park are as breathtakingly beautiful as they are mercurial. Old Faithful is famous in part because of its predictability, since most of these natural fonts are much more inscrutable.</span><br /> <br /> Something odd is going on in Yellowstone National Park. Geysers that would once erupt every half century are now spouting steam every week.<br /> <br /> And, late last year, one slumbering geyser — dubbed Ear Spring — vomited up 80 years worth of trash. The spring’s last big blow was in 1957. So, when it blew to a height of some 9m in September, National Parks officers spent days collecting old coins, beer cans, and even a 1930s baby dummy from its surrounds.<br /> <br /> “An approximately 8-foot diameter area of surrounding ground is ‘breathing’ — rising and falling by about six inches every 10 minutes,” USGS researchers said.<br /> <br /> While the eruption offered up an interesting time capsule, it’s also represents of what researchers are calling an unusual upturn in geyser activity.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> The Steamboat geyser used to erupt erratically, sometimes after a duration as short as four days or as long as 50 years. Lately, it’s been sending spouts of steaming water 90m high into the air once every week.<br /> <br /> The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory says it erupted 32 times last year.</div> <h4 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What’s Going on?</span></h4> <div style="text-align: left;"> However, USGS and park officials have stressed in recent months that there have been no signs of volcanic activity.<br /> <br /> “Changes in Yellowstone’s hydrothermal features are common occurrences and do not reflect changes in activity of the Yellowstone volcano,” they said in a statement.<br /> <br /> This is because the hydrothermal system — where water pools among the cracks in the rocks of the earth’s surface — is limited to mainly just the top 30m or so.<br /> <br /> The magma that triggers volcanic activity resides several kilometres deeper.<br /> <br /> “There has been no significant increase in seismicity nor broadscale variations in ground movement,” the USGS says.<br /> <br /> And the geysers’ behaviour remains erratic.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> “It’s a good lesson in how geysers actually work,” Michael Poland, the scientist-in-charge at Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told National Geographic . “As soon as you start to recognise a pattern, it changes.”</div> <h4 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Apocalypse? Nope.</span></h4> <div style="text-align: left;"> With all this in mind, do we know what’s going on at Yellowstone? There’s been no change in the underlying heat source, and no major geological changes, Poland says.<br /> <br /> However, the last few years have been exceptionally snowy, so a change in the supply of subsurface water may be a major factor. As it happens, the second-longest earthquake swarm in the park’s recorded history took place in 2017. Research tentatively suggests that the same heavy precipitation may have provided the faults involved with plenty of lubrication, allowing them to jut forward with reckless abandon.<br /> <br /> In both cases, it’s difficult to make any definitive statements. There aren’t really any direct measurements of the subsurface water in the park, and such inferences are based on the records of surface water and precipitation. For now, Poland says, “we’re just speculating.”<br /> <br /> What absolutely isn’t worth speculating about is the state of Yellowstone’s infamous volcanic system. Any uptick in any sort of activity at Yellowstone seems to spark fears about a catastrophic eruption of the park’s huge caldera, even though such worries are unfounded.<br /> <br /> There has been no change to the underlying magma reservoir over the past few years, Poland emphasizes. Plus, the mischief of any of the park’s geysers—which operate at the very top of the crust—has no bearing whatsoever on that mostly solid magma cache many miles below the surface.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Further reading:</span></b></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/some-yellowstone-geysers-getting-more-active-but-why-geology/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">National Geographic</a></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <a href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/natural-wonders/yellowstones-geysers-are-getting-more-active-nobodys-sure-why/news-story/d90fcb153eb7d2260da14b02239bb773" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> News.com.au</a></div> </div>

Yellowstone’s Geysers Are Getting More Active. Nobody’s Sure Why

Steamboat Geyser experiences a relatively minor eruption in a picture taken in Yellowstone National Park. Recently, the geyser set a reco...

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CO2 Mineralization in Geologically Common Rocks for Carbon Storage

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hwrwwfIH0H0/XIaAfVgbENI/AAAAAAAAQ1s/LQu8wH-bf3oC9sLDP2G6oIHwdaAUdpimQCLcBGAs/s1600/magnesite_wikicommons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1186" height="404" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hwrwwfIH0H0/XIaAfVgbENI/AAAAAAAAQ1s/LQu8wH-bf3oC9sLDP2G6oIHwdaAUdpimQCLcBGAs/s640/magnesite_wikicommons.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Magnesite. Image credit: Rob Lavinsky</td></tr> </tbody></table> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Humanity needs to improve when it comes to reducing carbon emissions to prevent the worst effects of climate change. If the world is to meet the IPCC's minimum target of keeping global temperature increases below 1.5 °C, every possible avenue for CO₂ remediation must be explored.</span><br /> <br /> Geological trapping can play a major role here. Our planet's underground rocks and sediments offer a vast potential space for long-term carbon storage. To support this, a recent computational study from a Japanese-led international group at Kyushu University shows how trapped carbon dioxide can be converted into harmless minerals.<br /> <br /> The rocks beneath the earth's surface are highly porous, and trapping involves injecting CO₂ into the pores after collecting it from its emission source. Although CO₂ is usually considered too stable to react chemically with rock, it can bind tightly to the surface by physical adsorption. Eventually it dissolves in water, forming carbonic acid, which can react with aqueous metals to form carbonate minerals.<br /> <br /> "Mineralization is the most stable method of long-term CO₂ storage, locking CO₂ into a completely secure form that can't be re-emitted," explains Jihui Jia of the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER), Kyushu University, first author of the study. "This was once thought to take thousands of years, but that view is rapidly changing. The chemical reactions are not fully understood because they're so hard to reproduce in the lab. This is where modeling comes in."<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> As reported in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, simulations were initially run to predict what happens when carbon dioxide collides with a cleaved quartz surface -- quartz (SiO₂) being abundant in the earth's crust. When the simulation trajectories were played back, the CO₂ molecules were seen bending from their linear O=C=O shape to form trigonal CO₃ units bonded with the quartz.<br /> <br /> In a second round of simulations, H₂O molecules were added to mimic the "formation water" that is often present beneath oil and gas drilling sites. Intriguingly, the H₂O molecules spontaneously attacked the reactive CO₃ structures, breaking the Si-O bonds to produce carbonate ions. Just like carbonic acid, carbonate ions can react with dissolved metal cations (such as Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, and Fe²⁺) to bind carbon permanently into mineral form.<br /> <br /> Together, the simulations show that both steps of CO₂ mineralization -- carbonation (binding to rock) and hydrolysis (reacting with water) -- are favorable. Moreover, free carbonate ions can be made by hydrolysis, not just by dissociation of carbonic acid as was once assumed. These insights relied on a sophisticated form of molecular dynamics that models not just the physical collisions between atoms, but electron transfer, the essence of chemistry.<br /> <br /> "Our results suggest some ways to improve geological trapping," says study lead author Takeshi Tsuji. "For quartz to capture CO₂, it must be a cleaved surface, so the silicon and oxygen atoms have reactive 'dangling' bonds. In real life, however, the surface might be protected by hydrogen bonding and cations, which would prevent mineralization. We need a way to strip off those cations or dehydrogenate the surface."<br /> <br /> Evidence is growing that captured CO₂ can mineralize much faster than previously believed. While this is exciting, the Kyushu paper underlines how complex and delicate the chemistry can be. For now, the group recommends further studies on other abundant rocks, like basalt, to map out the role that geochemical trapping can play in the greatest technical challenge facing civilization.<br /> <br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b12089" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials </a>provided by <a href="http://i2cner.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kyushu University, I2CNER</a>. </span></i></u><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /> </span></div>

CO2 Mineralization in Geologically Common Rocks for Carbon Storage

Magnesite. Image credit: Rob Lavinsky Humanity needs to improve when it comes to reducing carbon emissions to prevent the worst eff...

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What Is the Largest Snake That Ever Existed?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hsr9qpgtMi4/XIZ61_VGnHI/AAAAAAAAQ1g/-ezfxE82WlUdR9ht-W5xhqa_LzACfPauwCLcBGAs/s1600/Life-sized%2Bmodel%2Bof%2BTitanoboa%2Bdevouring%2Ba%2Bcrocodilian%252C%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BSmithsonian%2Bexhibit%2B%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="1272" height="336" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hsr9qpgtMi4/XIZ61_VGnHI/AAAAAAAAQ1g/-ezfxE82WlUdR9ht-W5xhqa_LzACfPauwCLcBGAs/s640/Life-sized%2Bmodel%2Bof%2BTitanoboa%2Bdevouring%2Ba%2Bcrocodilian%252C%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BSmithsonian%2Bexhibit%2B%25283%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Life-sized model of Titanoboa devouring a crocodilian, from the Smithsonian exhibit</td></tr> </tbody></table> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <h4 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prehistoric snake was as long as a school bus. </span></h4> Some 60 million years ago, well after the demise of the dinosaurs, a giant relative of today’s boa constrictors, weighing more than a ton and measuring 42 feet long, hunted crocodiles in rain-washed tropical forests in northern South America.<br /> <br /> Titanoboa is an extinct genus of very large snakes that lived in what is now La Guajira in northeastern Colombia. They could grow up to 12.8 m (42 ft) long and reach a weight of 1,135 kg (2,500 lb).<br /> <br /> Fossils of the snake were uncovered from the Cerrejón Formation at Cerrejón, the tenth biggest coal mine in the world in the Cesar-Ranchería Basin of La Guajira, northern Colombia, covering an area larger than Washington, D.C.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> Fossils of Titanoboa have been found in the Cerrejón Formation, and date to around 58 to 60 million years ago. The giant snake lived during the Middle to Late Paleocene epoch, a 10-million-year period immediately following the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.<br /> <br /> The only known species is Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the largest snake ever discovered, which supplanted the previous record holder, Gigantophis.<br /> <br /> By comparing the sizes and shapes of its fossilized vertebrae to those of extant snakes, researchers estimated that the largest individuals of T. cerrejonensis found had a total length around 12.8 m (42 ft) and weighed about 1,135 kg (2,500 lb; 1.12 long tons; 1.25 short tons).<br /> <br /> Titanoboa inhabited the first recorded Neotropical forest in the world. It shared its ecosystem with large Crocodylomorpha and large turtles, which may have served as food for the giant snake, except large sized Purusaurus brasiliensis, for example, too big for Titanoboa to handle. <br /> <br /> Unlike some contemporary poisonous snakes, Titanoboa wouldn't have benefited from brightly colored markings. The giant snake hunted by sneaking up on its prey. Most of the plus-size reptiles in Titanoboa's habitat were algae-colored and difficult to see against the landscape, making it easier to find dinner.<br /> <br /> <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/2018/01/the-largest-insect-ever-existed-was.html" target="_blank">The Largest Insect Ever Existed Was a Giant "Dragonfly"</a></span><br /> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2017/09/this-gigantic-extinct-devil-frog-was.html" target="_blank">This Gigantic, Extinct Devil Frog Was Capable of Eating Dinosaurs</a></span></div>

What Is the Largest Snake That Ever Existed?

Life-sized model of Titanoboa devouring a crocodilian, from the Smithsonian exhibit Prehistoric snake was as long as a school bus...

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Prehistoric Worm Built Tube-like 'Houses' on Sea Floor

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-apTtpelU7gY/XHf89sDeqWI/AAAAAAAAQ0k/ot_vrysZsO0XX8ToLts3-n4ORMCgX5TUACLcBGAs/s1600/fossil%2B%25281%2529%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="1120" height="246" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-apTtpelU7gY/XHf89sDeqWI/AAAAAAAAQ0k/ot_vrysZsO0XX8ToLts3-n4ORMCgX5TUACLcBGAs/s640/fossil%2B%25281%2529%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The worm shaped animal would have lived inside of a porous tube, and used its “U” shaped structure to attach itself in place within the tube. Photo: Jean-Bernard Caron</td></tr> </tbody></table> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The fossilised remnants of tube-like "dwellings" which housed a primitive type of prehistoric sea worm on the ocean floor have been identified in a new study.</span><br /> <br /> According to researchers, the long, perforated tubes may have looked like narrow chimneys reaching up from the sea bed, and were made by a creature called Oesia, which lived a solitary existence inside them about 500 million years ago.<br /> <br /> The findings emerge from a study undertaken by academics from Canada and the UK, in which they reassess fossils originally believed to have come from a type of seaweed called Margaretia. Instead, they found that these were the vestiges of tubular structures which protected these ancient worms.<br /> <br /> The research, which is published in the journal BMC Biology, was carried out by academics from the Universities of Cambridge, Toronto and Montréal, and at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.<br /> <br /> Part of its importance is that it confirms Oesia was a primitive specimen from a group of creatures called hemichordates. These belong to a bigger group called deuterostomes, of which vertebrates (including humans) form a separate branch. By finding out more about these early creatures, researchers hope eventually to be able to identify and characterise a distant ancestor common to all deuterostomes, from sea worms to humans.<br /> <br /> In particular, the research supports the increasingly common view that this ancestor was probably a "filter feeder," which ate by sucking in water and straining out nutrients. Oesia was one such filter feeder, with gills down most of its body to expel water afterwards, and holes in the walls of its tubular home to let the water in and out.<br /> </span><br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></span></div> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Karma Nanglu, from the University of Toronto and the study's lead author, said: "Hemichordates are central to our understanding of how deuterostomes evolved. Through them, we can get clues about the anatomy and lifestyle of the last common ancestor that we all share, and this adds further evidence to the hypothesis that the ancestor was a filter-feeder like Oesia."<br /> <br /> Professor Simon Conway Morris, from St John's College, University of Cambridge and a co-author, said: "Oesia fossils are pretty enigmatic -- they are very rare and until now we could not prove which group they belonged to. Now we know that they were primitive hemichordates -- perhaps the most primitive of all."<br /> <br /> The study was possible thanks to the discovery of a rich source of fossilised remains near Marble Canyon, in the Canadian Rockies (Kootenay National Park, B.C.), which is run by Parks Canada.<br /> <br /> "Marble Canyon is one of the most recently discovered fossil localities in the Burgess Shale, a geological formation known for its exceptional quality of fossil preservation," said co-author Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron, Senior Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. "Oesia has been known from an older Burgess Shale site for over 100 years, but the specimens from Marble Canyon are far more abundant and better preserved, giving us unprecedented details of the animal's internal anatomy."<br /> <br /> The research establishes that Oesia was a rather phallic-shaped creature, similar to modern acorn worms with a proboscis, a collar, and a long trunk. Co-author Christopher B. Cameron, Associate Professor at the Université de Montréal said: "Acorn worms are notoriously sparse in the fossil record. Only a handful of fossil species have been described, making the recognition of such an ancient representative of the group particularly noteworthy."<br /> <br /> The average Oesia was about 53mm long, and rarely more than 10mm wide. Unusually, these worms had U-shaped gills running down most the length of their bodies to enable filter feeding. Gill slits seem to be a characteristic common to all deuterostomes; even humans have slits in their necks at an early stage in their embryonic development, and this is seen as evidence that all deuterostomes are related to a distant, common ancestor.<br /> <br /> The researchers realised that Oesia must have lived in tubes because among the Marble Canyon finds there are dozens of examples where the fossil remains of the worm are found within those of Margaretia.<br /> <br /> Since the 1920s, Margaretia has been classified as a type of algae, albeit one unlike any other known species from this period in prehistory. The direct association with Oesia explains why Margaretia looks so exotic: This was no seaweed, but rather a perforated tube-like structure that the worm inhabited.<br /> <br /> The study suggests that in some cases these structures exceeded 50cm in height and that they were typically at least twice the width of the worm, giving it plenty of room. The ends were sealed off, making life inside a rather lonely experience. "Only single worms are found within tubes, suggesting a solitary mode of life," Nanglu added.<br /> <br /> At some point, the fossil record suggests that acorn worms underwent a transition, leaving their tubes and instead opting for a life under the sea bed. The study argues that as evolution gathered pace and more predators appeared on the scene, digging into the sea floor may simply have been a safer option. Certainly, modern-day acorn worms have adopted this lifestyle; rather than filter feeding they live in the sediment and eat nutrients within it.<br /> <br /> "In its own depressing way this is a story of Darwinian competition," Conway Morris explained. "The levels of competition and predation increased, life sped up and got harder, and animals had to protect themselves more. One way of doing this was to abandon life filter feeding in a tube, and instead to dig into the sediment and eat mud. Once there, they found a new niche and were able to make a perfectly good life for themselves."</span><br /> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/secret-oesia-life-prehistoric-worm-built-tube-%E2%80%9Chouses%E2%80%9D-sea-floor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">St John's College, University of Cambridge</a>. </span></i></u><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /> </span></span></div>

Prehistoric Worm Built Tube-like 'Houses' on Sea Floor

The worm shaped animal would have lived inside of a porous tube, and used its “U” shaped structure to attach itself in place within the t...

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Unraveling Secrets of Diamond Formation

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J60N9W8hU38/XHFmSHGRYTI/AAAAAAAAQzc/y1FSycQGoUcL9AEmE2DUpAh6Xp19b4bYQCLcBGAs/s1600/Diving%2BInto%2BEarth%2527s%2BInterior%2BHelps%2BScientists%2BUnravel%2BSecrets%2Bof%2BDiamond%2BFormation%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Unraveling Secrets of Diamond Formation" border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J60N9W8hU38/XHFmSHGRYTI/AAAAAAAAQzc/y1FSycQGoUcL9AEmE2DUpAh6Xp19b4bYQCLcBGAs/s640/Diving%2BInto%2BEarth%2527s%2BInterior%2BHelps%2BScientists%2BUnravel%2BSecrets%2Bof%2BDiamond%2BFormation%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></div> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Understanding the global carbon cycle provides scientists with vital clues about the planet's habitability.</span><br /> <br /> It's the reason why the Earth has a clement stable climate and a low carbon dioxide atmosphere compared to that of Venus, for instance, which is in a runaway greenhouse state with high surface temperatures and a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere.<br /> <br /> One major difference between Earth and Venus is the existence of active plate tectonics on Earth, which make our environment unique within our solar system.<br /> <br /> But the atmosphere, oceans, and Earth's crust are only part of the story. The mantle, which represents 75% of Earth's volume, potentially holds more carbon than all other reservoirs combined.<br /> <br /> Carbon – one of the essential building blocks of organic life – is taken into Earth's interior by subduction, where it drastically lowers the melting point of the solid mantle, forming carbonated melts (carbon-rich molten rocks) in the shallow mantle, fuelling surface volcanoes. Carbonate minerals may also be transported much deeper into the Earth, reaching the lower mantle, but what happens next is uncertain.<br /> </span><br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></span></div> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Answering that question is beset with challenges – conditions deep within the Earth are extreme and samples from the mantle are rare. The solution is to recreate those conditions in the lab using sophisticated technology.<br /> <br /> Now a team of experimental geoscientists from the University of Bristol have done just that. Their results, published open access in Earth and Planetary Science letters, uncover new clues about what happens to carbonate minerals when they are transported into the mantle via subduction of the oceanic crust (where one of Earth's tectonic plates slides below another).<br /> <br /> Their findings have uncovered a barrier to subduction of carbonate beyond depths of around 1,000km, where it reacts with silica in the oceanic crust to form diamonds that are stored in the deep Earth over geological timescales.<br /> <br /> Dr. James Drewitt from the School of Earth Sciences explains: "Do carbonate minerals remain stable through the Earth's lower mantle, and if not, what pressure/temperature changes does it take to spark reactions between the minerals and what do they look like? These are the questions we wanted to find the answers to – and the only way to get those answers was to reproduce the conditions of the Earth's interior."<br /> <br /> Dr. Drewitt and his team subjected synthetic carbonate rocks to very high pressures and temperatures comparable to deep Earth conditions of up to 90 GPa (about 900,000 atmospheres) and 2000 degrees C using a laser-heated diamond anvil cell. They found that carbonate remains stable up to depths of 1,000-1,300km, almost halfway to the core.<br /> <br /> Under these conditions carbonate then reacts with surrounding silica to form a mineral known as bridgmanite, which forms most of the Earth's mantle. The carbon released by this reaction is in the form of solid carbon dioxide. As the hot surrounding mantle eventually heats up the subducted slab, this solid carbon dioxide breaks down to form superdeep diamonds.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> Dr. Drewitt adds: "Eventually the superdeep diamonds could be returned to the surface in upwelling mantle plumes, and this process could represent one of the sources of superdeep diamonds that we find at the surface and which provide the only direct evidence we have of the composition of the deep earth.<br /> <br /> "This is exciting because the deepest humans have ever been able to drill is about 12 km, less than half the depth of Earth's crust. This pales in comparison to the massive scale of Earth's mantle, which extends to nearly 3,000 km depth."<br /> <br /> The team used a diamond anvil cell to generate pressures equivalent to those found at these depths, loading samples under a microscope into a pressure chamber drilled out of a metal gasket which is then compressed between the gem quality, brilliant cut diamond anvils. The crystal structure of those samples was then analysed using X-ray diffraction at the UK synchrotron facility in Oxfordshire.<br /> <br /> Dr. Drewitt now plans to apply these high pressure and high-temperature experiments along with advanced computer simulation techniques to other minerals and materials, adding: "As well as carbon, there is potentially several ocean's worth of water transported deep into the mantle, and when released this will induce melting of Earth's upper and lower mantle.<br /> <br /> "However, we cannot adequately test or understand current models of the dynamic behaviour of this water rich molten rock because we do not know their composition or their physical properties. The experiments at extreme conditions and advanced computer simulations that we are currently working on will help to resolve these problems."</span><br /> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /> The above story is based on <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/february/diamond-formation.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Bristol</a>.</span></i></u></div>

Unraveling Secrets of Diamond Formation

Understanding the global carbon cycle provides scientists with vital clues about the planet's habitability. It's the reason...

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Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, But in Opal

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <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> </tbody></table> <br /> <br /> <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 /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> “Some researchers weren’t sure it was possible,” Berger told Gizmodo. “Now we know it’s possible. Is it likely? Extremely unlikely.”<br /> <br /> 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 /> </span><br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script></span></div> <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 /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> At least, this is what Berger speculates happened. How the specimen formed remains unclear.<br /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> <br /> <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...

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New Dinosaur Species With Spiky Backbone Discovered in Argentina

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i3LT5HiV6dk/XGwZJLUnIwI/AAAAAAAAQzE/tX5kHlE1JfUk5kbvGmggEkYyNGt5IsdcQCLcBGAs/s1600/New%2BDinosaur%2BSpecies%2BWith%2BSpiky%2BBackbone%2BDiscovered%2Bin%2BArgentina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="New Dinosaur Species With Spiky Backbone Discovered in Argentina" border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="1208" height="348" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i3LT5HiV6dk/XGwZJLUnIwI/AAAAAAAAQzE/tX5kHlE1JfUk5kbvGmggEkYyNGt5IsdcQCLcBGAs/s640/New%2BDinosaur%2BSpecies%2BWith%2BSpiky%2BBackbone%2BDiscovered%2Bin%2BArgentina.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A replica of the skull and neck of the "Bajadasaurus pronuspinax," a new species of sauropod discovered in Patagonia</td></tr> </tbody></table> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paleontologists in Argentina have uncovered a dinosaur unlike anything ever seen before. Alive some 140 million years ago, these majestic herbivores featured long, forward-pointing spikes running along their necks and backs. These spikes may have served a defensive role, but their exact purpose now presents a fascinating new mystery.<br /> <br /> A herbivorous dinosaur that fended off predators with a row of spines running along its back and lived 140 million years ago has been found in Argentine Patagonia.<br /> <br /> The discovery of the new species of dicraeosauridae, christened Bajadasaurus pronuspinax, was revealed in Scientific Reports.<br /> <br /> A reproduction of its spiny neck was exhibited in the Cultural Science Center in Buenos Aires.<br /> <br /> "We believe that the long and sharp spines—very long and thin—on the neck and back of Bajadasaurus and Amargasaurus cazaui (another dicraeosauridae) must have been to deter possible predators," said Pablo Gallina, an assistant researcher at the state council of scientific and technical investigations (CONICET) and Maimonides University.<br /> <br /> "We think that had they been just bare bone structures or covered only by skin, they could have been easily broken or fractured with a blow or when being attacked by other animals," he added.<br /> </span><br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></span></div> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"These spines must have been covered by a keratin sheath similar to what happens in the horns of many mammals."<br /> <br /> Bajadasaurus was a quadruped and part of the wider Sauropod family that lived from the late Triassic period (around 230 million years ago) until the end of the late Cretaceous (70 million years ago).<br /> <br /> Amargasaurus cazaui lived in the South American continent around 15 million years after Bajadasaurus and both species were found in the Neuquen province around 1,120 miles (1,800 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires.<br /> <br /> It's the same zone in which Giganotosaurus carolinii, considered the biggest carnivorous dinosaur of all time, was discovered in 1993.<br /> <br /> It lived during the late Cretaceous period and could have fed on Bajadasaurus.<br /> <br /> CONICET said in a statement the spines could have been used to regulate the dinosaur's temperature or even to render it more sexually attractive to a potential mate.<br /> <br /> It said Bajadasaurus could have had a fleshy hump between the spines that served a similar role to that of a camel.<br /> <br /> The Bajadasaurus skull is the best preserved example of a dicraeosauridae ever found.<br /> <br /> "Studies suggest this animal spent much of its time feeding on ground plants while its eye sockets, close to the top of its skull, allowed it to key an eye on what was happening around it," said CONICET.</span><br /> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The research has been published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37943-3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Scientific Reports</a>.</span></i></u></div>

New Dinosaur Species With Spiky Backbone Discovered in Argentina

A replica of the skull and neck of the "Bajadasaurus pronuspinax," a new species of sauropod discovered in Patagonia Pale...

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