Elestial Amethyst From Australia

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yAdcSzqe84s/VFZzks0NLaI/AAAAAAAAB-o/URxM2iyt5uw/s1600/1560771_855025471175672_3267086097460020485_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yAdcSzqe84s/VFZzks0NLaI/AAAAAAAAB-o/URxM2iyt5uw/s1600/1560771_855025471175672_3267086097460020485_n.jpg" width="472" /></a></div> <span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-align: right;"><br /></span>Very large single crystal of milky quartz coated on three faces with lustrous bi-pyramidal smoky/amethyst crystals, many with clay filled internal windows and distinct amethyst colour banding.<br /><br />Elestial Smoky/Amethyst <br /><br />Entia Valley, Harts Range, NT, Australia <br />17cm x 12cm<br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Credit: Patrick Gundersen</span></b></div>

Elestial Amethyst From Australia

Very large single crystal of milky quartz coated on three faces with lustrous bi-pyramidal smoky/amethyst crystals, many with clay filled...

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Ferrierite-Mg, Quartz (Var: Chalcedony)

<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/-CLnwGlY-tXM/V6Xgcwy69qI/AAAAAAAAJSs/EnJLjaPIaw4nU_OuXqZfHBOqMWzRfP3ugCLcB/s1600/Ferrierite-Mg%252C%2BQuartz%2B%2528Var%2BChalcedony%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CLnwGlY-tXM/V6Xgcwy69qI/AAAAAAAAJSs/EnJLjaPIaw4nU_OuXqZfHBOqMWzRfP3ugCLcB/s640/Ferrierite-Mg%252C%2BQuartz%2B%2528Var%2BChalcedony%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <br /><b>Ferrierite-Mg, Quartz (Var: Chalcedony)</b><br /> <br /><b>Ferrierite-Mg</b><br />System: Orthorhombic<br />Colour: White, colorless, ...<br />Lustre: Vitreous<br />Hardness: 3 - 3½<br />Member of: Zeolite Group<br /><br /> <b>Locality: </b>Kamloops Lake, Kamloops Mining Division, British Columbia, Canada<br /><br /> <b>Photo Copyright ©</b> Rudy W. Tschernich<br /> </div>

Ferrierite-Mg, Quartz (Var: Chalcedony)

Ferrierite-Mg, Quartz (Var: Chalcedony) Ferrierite-Mg System: Orthorhombic Colour: White, colorless, ... Lustre: Vitreous Hardness: ...

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Magma pancakes beneath Lake Toba

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W-UZRh_K2fc/VFOjnukuJMI/AAAAAAAAB7Y/oNfWQfyZV30/s1600/magma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W-UZRh_K2fc/VFOjnukuJMI/AAAAAAAAB7Y/oNfWQfyZV30/s1600/magma.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></span></a></div> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Where do the tremendous amounts of material that are ejected to from huge volcanic calderas during super-eruptions actually originate?</span><br /> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">The tremendous amounts of lava that are emitted during super-eruptions accumulate over millions of years prior to the event in the Earth's crust. These reservoirs consist of magma that intrudes into the crust in the form of numerous horizontally oriented sheets resting on top of each other like a pile of pancakes.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">A team of geoscientists from Novosibirsk, Paris and Potsdam presents these results in the current issue of <i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Science</i>. The scientists investigate the question on where the tremendous amounts of material that are ejected to from huge calderas during super-eruptions actually originate. Here we are not dealing with large volcanic eruptions of the size of Pinatubo of Mount St. Helens, here we are talking about extreme events: The Toba-caldera in the Sumatra subduction zone in Indonesia originated from one of the largest volcanic eruption in recent Earth history, about 74,000 years ago. It emitted the enormous amount of 2,800 cubic kilometers of volcanic material with a dramatic global impact on climate and environment. Hereby, the 80 km long Lake Toba was formed.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Geoscientists were interested in finding out: How can the gigantic amounts of eruptible material required to form such a super volcano accumulate in the Earth's crust. Was this a singular event thousands of years ago or can it happen again?</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences successfully installed a seismometer network in the Toba area to investigate these questions and provided the data to all participating scientists via the GEOFON data archive. GFZ scientist, Christoph Sens-Schönfelder, a co-author of the study explains: "With a new seismological method we were able to investigate the internal structure of the magma reservoir beneath the Toba-caldera. We found that the middle crust below the Toba supervolcano is horizontally layered." The answer thus lies in the structure of the magma reservoir. Here, below 7 kilometers the crust consists of many, mostly horizontal, magmatic intrusions still containing molten material.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">New seismological technique</span></b></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">It was already suspected that the large volume of magma ejected during the supervolcanic eruption had slowly accumulated over the last few millions of years in the form of consequently emplaced intrusions. This could now be confirmed with the results of field measurements. The GFZ scientists used a novel seismological method for this purpose. Over a six-month period they recorded the ambient seismic noise, the natural vibrations which usually are regarded as disturbing signals. With a statistical approach they analyzed the data and discovered that the velocity of seismic waves beneath Toba depends on the direction in which the waves shear the Earth's crust. Above 7 kilometers depth the deposits of the last eruption formed a zone of low velocities. Below this depth the seismic anisotropy is caused by horizontally layered intrusions that structure the reservoir like a pile of pancakes. This is reflected in the seismic data.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Supervolcanoes</span></b></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Not only in Indonesia, but also in other parts of the world there are such supervoclcanoes, which erupt only every couple of hundred thousand years but then in gigantic eruptions. Because of their size those volcanoes do not build up mountains but manifest themselves with their huge carter formed during the eruption – the caldera. Other known supervolcanoes include the area of the Yellow-Stone-Park, volcanoes in the Andes, and the caldera of Lake-Taupo in New Zealand. The present study helps to better understand the processes that lead to such super-eruptions.</span></div> <span style="font-family: inherit;">reference</span><br /> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">K. Jaxybulatov, N.M. Shapiro, I. Koulakov, A. Mordret, M. Landès, C. Sens-Schönfelder (2014): "A large magmatic sill complex beneath the Toba caldera", </span><i style="background-color: white; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Science</i><span style="background-color: white;"> 6209. Vol. 346, pp. 617-619, 31.10.2014; </span>DOI: 10.1126/science.1258582</span></div>

Magma pancakes beneath Lake Toba

Where do the tremendous amounts of material that are ejected to from huge volcanic calderas during super-eruptions actually originate? ...

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Scientists Discover Carbonate Rocks Are Unrecognized Methane Sink

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bf7DBe1s1x8/VFKAO3YWtyI/AAAAAAAAB68/lwMeqABdn8A/s1600/produktbilde_Carbonate_outcrop.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Scientists Discover Carbonate Rocks Are Unrecognized Methane Sink" border="0" height="241" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bf7DBe1s1x8/VFKAO3YWtyI/AAAAAAAAB68/lwMeqABdn8A/s1600/produktbilde_Carbonate_outcrop.png" title="" width="400" /></a></div> <br /> <br /> The sediment-based microbes form an important methane "sink," preventing much of the chemical from reaching the atmosphere and contributing to greenhouse gas accumulation. As a byproduct of this process, the microbes create a type of rock known as authigenic carbonate, which while interesting to scientists was not thought to be involved in the processing of methane.<br /> <br /> That is no longer the case. A team of scientists has discovered that these authigenic carbonate rocks also contain vast amounts of active microbes that take up methane. The results of their study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, were reported today in the journal Nature Communications.<br /> <br /> "No one had really examined these rocks as living habitats before," noted Andrew Thurber, an Oregon State University marine ecologist and co-author on the paper. "It was just assumed that they were inactive. In previous studies, we had seen remnants of microbes in the rocks – DNA and lipids – but we thought they were relics of past activity. We didn't know they were active.<br /> <br /> "This goes to show how the global methane process is still rather poorly understood," Thurber added.<br /> <br /> Lead author Jeffrey Marlow of the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues studied samples from authigenic compounds off the coasts of the Pacific Northwest (Hydrate Ridge), northern California (Eel River Basin) and central America (the Costa Rica margin). The rocks range in size and distribution from small pebbles to carbonate "pavement" stretching dozens of square miles.<br /> <br /> "Methane-derived carbonates represent a large volume within many seep systems and finding active methane-consuming archaea and bacteria in the interior of these carbonate rocks extends the known habitat for methane-consuming microorganisms beyond the relatively thin layer of sediment that may overlay a carbonate mound," said Marlow, a geobiology graduate student in the lab of Victoria Orphan of Caltech.<br /> <br /> These assemblages are also found in the Gulf of Mexico as well as off Chile, New Zealand, Africa, Europe – "and pretty much every ocean basin in the world," noted Thurber, an assistant professor (senior research) in Oregon State's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.<br /> <br /> The study is important, scientists say, because the rock-based microbes potentially may consume a huge amount of methane. The microbes were less active than those found in the sediment, but were more abundant – and the areas they inhabit are extensive, making their importance potential enormous. Studies have found that approximately 3-6 percent of the methane in the atmosphere is from marine sources – and this number is so low due to microbes in the ocean sediments consuming some 60-90 percent of the methane that would otherwise escape.<br /> <br /> Now those ratios will have to be re-examined to determine how much of the methane sink can be attributed to microbes in rocks versus those in sediments. The distinction is important, the researchers say, because it is an unrecognized sink for a potentially very important greenhouse gas.<br /> <br /> "We found that these carbonate rocks located in areas of active methane seeps are themselves more active," Thurber said. "Rocks located in comparatively inactive regions had little microbial activity. However, they can quickly activate when methane becomes available.<br /> <br /> "In some ways, these rocks are like armies waiting in the wings to be called upon when needed to absorb methane."<br /> <br /> The ocean contains vast amounts of methane, which has long been a concern to scientists. Marine reservoirs of methane are estimated to total more than 455 gigatons and may be as much as 10,000 gigatons carbon in methane. A gigaton is approximate 1.1 billion tons.<br /> <br /> By contrast, all of the planet's gas and oil deposits are thought to total about 200-300 gigatons of carbon.<br /> <div style="background-color: white;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div> <div style="background-color: white;"> </div> <center style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <center> <ins id="aswift_3_expand" style="background-color: transparent; border: none; display: inline-table; height: 15px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; visibility: visible; width: 468px;"></ins></center> </center> <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <br /></div> </div>

Scientists Discover Carbonate Rocks Are Unrecognized Methane Sink

The sediment-based microbes form an important methane "sink," preventing much of the chemical from reaching the atmosphere an...

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Reef-builders with a sense of harmony

<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="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bVszn1ZpNsw/VFJ1fxCvXpI/AAAAAAAAB6s/UUJ-9EPvLzk/s1600/141030102852-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bVszn1ZpNsw/VFJ1fxCvXpI/AAAAAAAAB6s/UUJ-9EPvLzk/s1600/141030102852-large.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div id="caption" style="color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #eeeeee;">Cold-water corals of the species Lophelia pertusa are able to fuse skeletons of genetically distinct individuals.</span></div> <div id="credit" style="color: #070809; float: left; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; text-align: left; width: 300px;"> <em style="background-color: #eeeeee;">Credit: Solvin Zankl</em></div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> They live in the cold, dark depths of the oceans, are often exposed to strong currents and provide a stable base for diverse and colourful ecosystems: Stony corals of the species<em> Lophelia pertusa</em> are considered excellent reef-builders. According to the latest findings of researchers from the Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, the University of Glasgow and the United States Geological Survey, even genetically different individuals are able to fuse their skeletons. On an expedition with the German submersible JAGO and the research vessel POSEIDON, the scientists observed this for the first time ever at two reefs off the coast of central Norway in September 2011. Their results are now published in the <em>Scientific Reports.</em></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> "Normally it is very hard to see where one coral ends and another begins. But on our dives with JAGO, we were able to find reefs where orange and white types of the coral fused together," says Dr. Sebastian Hennige of the Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh. "Coming from a tropical coral research background, seeing coral fusing like this instantly grabbed my attention, so we were able to successfully sample some corals for genetic and skeletal tests to prove that fusion happens between different individuals." Because of his observations and analyses, Hennige thinks that <em>Lophelia pertusa</em> is able to recognise 'self' at a species level.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> It had previously been assumed that these massive reefs were made by siblings joining together, but they are in fact fusing between genetically distinct individuals, as though two people sitting closely together were able to fuse their skeletons. This ability clearly distinguishes <em>Lophelia pertusa</em> from tropical corals. Tropical reefs are held together by calcareous algae that grow on the crust of dead branches. These algae depend on sunlight. "Cold-water corals build their reefs in the dark and are not supported like this. But they seem to have found another way to attain stability," explains Dr. Armin Form, a marine biologist at GEOMAR and co-author of the publication. "Either the corals actually fuse and form a joint stock, or a branch grows over another one without interference." Tropical stony corals usually behave much more aggressive: They release chemicals to prevent contacts with other corals or rely on physical aggression. "This defensive behaviour uses up a lot of energy, which is then no longer available for other functions."</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> "This discovery highlights not only how much we have to learn about deep-sea ecosystems but how important advanced technologies are in deep-sea exploration," Murray Roberts, professor at Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, points out. "The chance to explore these deep coral reefs with the submersible JAGO allowed us to observe the corals fusing and get the all-important samples back to the ship and into our labs."</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <em>Lophelia pertusa</em> has evolved ways to save energy and strengthen the stability of the reef. Dr. Armin Form: "Given this plasticity, we hope that the coral will be able to cope with future climate changes. But we are not sure if they can keep track with the rapid environmental changes we are already experiencing."</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="line-height: 15.6000003814697px;">The above story is based on </span><a href="http://www.geomar.de/n2142-e" rel="nofollow" style="color: #004276; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">materials</a><span style="line-height: 15.6000003814697px;"> provided by </span><a class="blue" href="http://www.geomar.de/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #7e7ea9; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)</strong></a><span style="line-height: 15.6000003814697px;">. </span><em style="line-height: 15.6000003814697px;">Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.</em></div> </div>

Reef-builders with a sense of harmony

Cold-water corals of the species Lophelia pertusa are able to fuse skeletons of genetically distinct individuals. Credit: Solvin Zankl...

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Putnisite: New Mineral Discovered in Australia

<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="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AbIdiFagLcY/VFIXQzCLvLI/AAAAAAAAB6M/H-zvLM0EaSs/s1600/image_1869-Putnisite.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AbIdiFagLcY/VFIXQzCLvLI/AAAAAAAAB6M/H-zvLM0EaSs/s1600/image_1869-Putnisite.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Crystals of putnisite (purple) . Image credit: P. Elliott et al.</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The new mineral is named putnisite after Drs Christine and Andrew Putnis from the University of Münster, Germany, for their outstanding contributions to mineralogy.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Putnisite occurs as isolated pseudocubic crystals, up to 0.5 mm in diameter, and is associated with quartz and a near amorphous Cr silicate.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> It is translucent, with a pink streak and vitreous lustre. It is brittle and shows one excellent and two good cleavages parallel to {100}, {010} and {001}.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “What defines a mineral is its chemistry and crystallography. By x-raying a single crystal of mineral you are able to determine its crystal structure and this, in conjunction with chemical analysis, tells you everything you need to know about the mineral,” explained Dr Elliott, who, along with colleagues, described <a href="http://minmag.geoscienceworld.org/content/78/1/131.abstract" style="-webkit-transition: background-color, color 0.2s linear; border: 0px none; color: #236cbf; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0s ease 0s, color 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">putnisite in the <i style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mineralogical Magazine</i></a>.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Most minerals belong to a family or small group of related minerals, or if they aren’t related to other minerals they often are to a synthetic compound – but putnisite is completely unique and unrelated to anything.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Putnisite combines the elements strontium, calcium, chromium, sulfur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen:</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"> SrCa<span style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">4</span>Cr<span style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">8</span><span style="border: 0px none; bottom: 1ex; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">3+</span>(CO<span style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">3</span>)<span style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">8</span>SO<span style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">4</span>(OH)<span style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">16</span>•25H<span style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span>O</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The mineral has a Mohs hardness of 1.5–2, a measured density of 2.20 g/cm3 and a calculated density of 2.23 g/cm3. It was discovered during prospecting by a mining company in Western Australia.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Nature seems to be far cleverer at dreaming up new chemicals than any researcher in a laboratory,” Dr Elliott concluded.</div> <div> Reference </div> <div> <span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">P. Elliott et al. 2014. Putnisite, SrCa</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">4</span><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">Cr</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">8</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; bottom: 1ex; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">3+</span><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">(CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">3</span><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">)</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">8</span><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">SO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">4</span><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">(OH)</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">16</span><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">•25H</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">O, a new mineral from Western Australia: description and crystal structure.</span><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mineralogical Magazine</i><span style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px;">, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 131-144; doi: 10.1180/minmag.2014.078.1.10</span></div> </div>

Putnisite: New Mineral Discovered in Australia

Crystals of putnisite (purple) . Image credit: P. Elliott et al.   The new mineral is named putnisite after Drs Christine and Andrew...

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Fox-sized relative of Triceratops discovered in Venezuela

<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="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hx6NHfBY9sE/VFIOPAFe5II/AAAAAAAAB58/bSLmml_eErg/s1600/laquintasaura-dinosaur-illustration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hx6NHfBY9sE/VFIOPAFe5II/AAAAAAAAB58/bSLmml_eErg/s1600/laquintasaura-dinosaur-illustration.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption">An artist's impression of the dinosaur Laquintasaura venezuelae, which lived some 200 million years ago in what is now Venezuela. (© Mark Witton)<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The fossil of a new two-legged, fox-sized dinosaur relative of both Stegosaurusand Triceratops, which dates back about 200 million years, has been discovered in Venezuela. The find suggests that dinosaurs advanced quickly across the globe after a mass extinction claimed at least half of all species on Earth, researchers say.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This new fossil, the first named dinosaur unearthed from northern South America, also provides evidence that dinosaurs lived in herds early on in their evolution, and were able to dwell in regions previously thought too inhospitable for dinosaurs to survive.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The new dinosaur is named Laquintasaura venezuelae. Laquintasaura is Greek for "lizard of La Quinta," the rock formation where the reptile was discovered in the Andes, while venezuelae refers to the country of Venezuela, where the dinosaur was unearthed.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The dinosaur was about 3 feet long and only stood up to about 1 foot high. Judging by its teeth, it was an omnivore.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"The teeth are very unusual, with a tall, narrow triangular outline, tips that are slightly curved backward, coarse serrations along the margins and thin ridges that extend up and along the crown," said lead study author Paul Barrett, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. "This combination of features is unknown in any other dinosaur. Although the triangular shape and coarse serrations suggest that plants made up most of the diet, the tall outline is reminiscent of meat-eating teeth, as are the slightly curved tips, so it is possible that Laquintasaura took small prey such as large insects some of the time."</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Laquintasaura was an ornithischian or "bird-hipped" dinosaur, an early relative of titans such as duck-billed hadrosaurs, the armored stegosaurs and ankylosaurs, and three-horned Triceratops. The other major dinosaur lineage were the saurischian or "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs, which included giant long-necked sauropods such as Brachiosaurus and predatory theropods such as Velociraptorand T. rex. (Birds actually evolved from saurischians, not the so-called bird-hipped ornithischians.)</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Laquintasaura lived about 200 million years ago, "placing it in the earliest part of the Jurassic period, a time when dinosaurs were just starting their ascent to global dominance," Barrett told Live Science.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">This dinosaur was alive soon after the end-Triassic mass extinction event. This mass extinction was one of the big five mass extinctions to affect life on Earth the most recent one, the end-Cretaceous, which was about 67 million years ago, ended the age of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs originated about 230 million years ago, in the late Triassic, but only achieved global dominance beginning 30 million years later, after the cataclysmic end of the Triassic. </span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">"In many ways, this extinction was a major help to dinosaurs, as it killed off a number of other reptile groups that might have been competitors," Barrett said. "Laquintasaura is known only 500,000 years after the extinction, and shows that ornithischians were quick off the mark during this recovery period."</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Recently, scientists have unearthed a trove of early saurischian dinosaurs, such as meat-eating Eodromaeus and plant-eating Eoraptor. However, early ornithischian fossils have proven quite scarce this new discovery helps fill a major gap in what scientists know of dinosaur evolutionary history.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">At least four specimens of Laquintasaura were uncovered together. This finding suggests that ornithischians may have practiced herd behavior early in their evolution. Until now, complex social behavior among ornithischians was confirmed only in dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic onward, dozens of millions of years after Laquintasaura was alive.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">In addition, Laquintasaura apparently lived near the equator, which past research suggested was inhospitable to dinosaurs.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">"Climate models had suggested that the equatorial regions may have been isolated from other regions by extensive deserts on either side, which may have acted as a barrier to prevent large animals reaching this region," Barrett said. "However, plant fossils from the area, and the discovery of Laquintasaura, suggest that the climate must have been capable of supporting at least some animals for at least part of the year, though it's unclear just how hospitable the area was all year round."</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">A couple of fossil teeth the researchers discovered from another species "demonstrate that a meat-eating dinosaur was also present, but these teeth are the only evidence that we found for such an animal. No other fossils from other animal groups have been found," Barrett said.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Many other details remain unknown about what the area was like when this dinosaur lived.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">"Some of the rocks in the general area of the discovery represent semiarid environments, while others indicate more swampy environments," Barrett said. "The climate would have been hot, but the amount of water would have varied through time."</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;">In the future, "it would be interesting to do more work on the specific environment that the bones come from, as well as the processes that concentrated the bones into the rich jumbled layer that was found," Barrett said.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <article itemid="" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/NewsArticle" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 16px 0px 0px; width: 612px;"> <div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; font-size: x-small;">The scientists detailed their findings online Aug. 6 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.</span></div> </div> </div> </article></div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> </div>

Fox-sized relative of Triceratops discovered in Venezuela

An artist's impression of the dinosaur Laquintasaura venezuelae, which lived some 200 million years ago in what is now Venezuela. (© ...

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The beautiful colours of Harts Range Kyanite

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7wZa7D_uw0Q/VFZ0lfi2G3I/AAAAAAAAB-w/EXWzHjGrj1M/s1600/10593192_858870537457832_3524800454565522553_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7wZa7D_uw0Q/VFZ0lfi2G3I/AAAAAAAAB-w/EXWzHjGrj1M/s1600/10593192_858870537457832_3524800454565522553_n.jpg" height="640" width="540" /></a></div> <br /> <span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none; text-align: right; width: auto;" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span dir="ltr" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">Collected from various localities in the Harts Range region, these gemmy Kyanite crystals range from an "icy blue" (left), through teal "ocean" kyanite (center), aqua sea-green (right) and a lime green (far right). Sizes from 5cm to 20cm, although larger sizes have been found.</span></span></span><br /> <div> <span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none; text-align: right; width: auto;" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span dir="ltr" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div> <div class="fbPhotoPagesTagList" id="fbPhotoSnowliftPagesTagList" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.6399993896484px; text-align: right;"> </div> </div>

The beautiful colours of Harts Range Kyanite

Collected from various localities in the Harts Range region, these gemmy Kyanite crystals range from an "icy blue" (left), thr...

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How did complex life evolve? The answer could be inside out

<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="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yz0OXaTIM88/VFDBU6jOrCI/AAAAAAAAB5c/jbaocVFlpMo/s1600/141028082646-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yz0OXaTIM88/VFDBU6jOrCI/AAAAAAAAB5c/jbaocVFlpMo/s1600/141028082646-large.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div id="caption" style="color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The inside-out theory provides a gradual path by which eukaryotic cells could have evolved. The first stage began with a bacterial cell whose outer membrane forms protrusions, which the Baums call 'blebs', that reached out from the cell. These protrusions trapped free-living mitochondria-like bacteria between them. Using the energy gained from being in close contact with bacteria (and using bacterial-derived lipids), cells were able to get bigger and expand the size of their blebs.</span></div> <div id="caption" style="color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div> <div id="caption" style="color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;"> <div id="text" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6000003814697px;"> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Scientists have long pondered the question of how simple "prokaryotic" cells, like bacteria, which are little more than a membrane-bound sack, evolved into more complex eukaryotic cells, which contain numerous internal membrane compartments. These compartments include the nucleus, which holds genetic information in the form of DNA; the endoplasmic reticulum, which shunts proteins and lipids around the cell; and mitochondria which act as the cell's powerhouse. The mitochondria also contain their own distinct DNA, which is one good indicator of their once having been separate organisms. The trouble is that no one has identified eukaryotic cells that are intermediate in complexity, making it much harder to know how they evolved.</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">At present, the most widely accepted theory is that mitochondria derive from a bacterium that was engulfed by an archaeon (plural = archaea), a kind of prokaryote that looks similar to a bacterium but has many molecular differences. The eukaryotic membrane systems, including the nuclear envelope, then formed within the boundaries of this archaeal cell through the invagination of the outer membrane. This fits with much current data, but a few problems remain. Most significantly, no archaeal cells are known that invaginate membranes.</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Furthermore, it seems unlikely that mitochondria were engulfed since engulfing food requires a lot of energy, which in eukaryotes is provided by mitochondria, and engulfment likely also requires mitochondrial-derived lipids.</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">David Baum, University of Wisconsin, says: "All agree that eukaryotes arose from a symbiotic relationship between two cell types: bacteria that became mitochondria and a host cell, archaea, or a close relative of archaea, that became the cytoplasm and nucleus. This symbiosis explains the origin of mitochondria, but what about other eukaryotic structures, most notably the nucleus?"</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">The Baums' inside-out theory provides a gradual path by which eukaryotic cells could have evolved. The first stage began with a bacterial cell whose outer membrane forms protrusions, which the Baums call 'blebs', that reached out from the cell. These protrusions trapped free-living mitochondria-like bacteria between them. Using the energy gained from being in close contact with bacteria (and using bacterial-derived lipids), cells were able to get bigger and expand the size of their blebs.</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">The sides of the blebs formed the endoplasmic reticulum and their inner surfaces formed the outer membrane of the nucleus, with the original outer membrane of the archaeon becoming what we now call the inner nuclear membrane. Finally, the fusion of blebs with one another led to the formation of the plasma membrane. The result was the eukaryotic cell as we now know it. This inside-out theory is explained in more detail using a diagram in the research article (see notes to editors).</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">David Baum explains the differences between the outside-in and inside-out theories using a metaphor: "A prokaryotic cell can be thought of as a factory composed of one large, open building in which managers, machinists, mail clerks, janitors, etc. all work side by side. In contrast, a eukaryotic cell is like a factory complex, composed of a several connected work spaces: a single control room and specialize rooms for receiving, manufacturing, shipping, waste disposal, etc. The traditional theories propose that the factory complex arose when partitions were built within a single hangar-like building. The inside-out theory, in contrast, imagines that a series of extensions were added around an original core building -- now the control room -- while others functions moved out into new, specialized quarters."</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">The inside-out theory is radically different from all existing theories because the action in building the eukaryotic cell is outside the boundaries of the ancestral cell. As David Baum, who came up with an outline of the model 30 years ago, when still an undergraduate, noted: "The inside-out model ought to be an obvious alternative to the outside-in models, but maybe you have to be a naive undergraduate to consider such an inverted perspective."</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">We can't know how these very early evolutionary steps occurred, but we can look at current processes for inspiration. The Baums use some examples of modern archaea that produce bleb-like protrusions to support the credibility of their ideas, and draw on many common features of eukaryotes that are easily explained by the inside-out model.</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Like any good scientific theory, the inside-out model leads to predictions that can be tested in modern cells. The Baums hope, therefore, that their theory will stimulate empirical research, since there is still a lot that it not known about the biology of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Commenting on the inside-out theory Miranda Robertson, Editor of <em>BMC Biology</em>, says: "Not everyone is going to be convinced by this theory -- any reconstruction of events in a past as far distant as the origin of eukaryotes is going to have areas of uncertainty which it would be futile to try and fill in. But a theory doesn't have to be right to be useful, if it provokes people to think. And to test it."</span></div> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Buzz Baum, University College London, says: "Even if the hypothesis or parts of it are refuted, we are optimistic that the effort to evaluate it will spawn new cell biological discoveries and, in so doing, will improve our understanding of biology of eukaryotic cells as they grow and divide. Although students studying cell biology may come to think that it's too late for them to contribute to a field where almost everything is known, this simply isn't the case. As the model helps to make clear, there is still much to be discovered about the basic logic of eukaryotic cell organisation."</span></div> </div> <div class="clear" style="background-color: white; clear: both; line-height: 15.6000003814697px;"> </div> </div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <div id="story_source" style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px;"> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> The above story is based on <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/bc-hdc102314.php" rel="nofollow" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a class="blue" href="http://www.biomedcentral.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #7e7ea9; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong>BioMed Central</strong></a>. <em>Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.</em></div> <div> <em><br /></em></div> </div> </div>

How did complex life evolve? The answer could be inside out

The inside-out theory provides a gradual path by which eukaryotic cells could have evolved. The first stage began with a bacterial cell ...

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Amazing Saléeite with Strengite

<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;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ossHs68IPcg/VILTLdTHmxI/AAAAAAAACog/1-YcdvLh47A/s1600/1901326_755253091194836_1818282277236437060_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="449" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ossHs68IPcg/VILTLdTHmxI/AAAAAAAACog/1-YcdvLh47A/s640/1901326_755253091194836_1818282277236437060_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Photo Copyright © Matteo Chinellato<span dir="ltr" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /> </span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <span dir="ltr" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><br /><span face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Saléeite</b></span><br /><br />Formula: </span></span><span dir="ltr" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span>Mg(UO₂)₂(PO₄)₂·10</span></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span dir="ltr" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span> </span>System: Monoclinic<br />Colour: Lemon-yellow, ...<br />Lustre: Sub-Adamantine, Sub-Vitreous, Resinous, Waxy<br />Hardness: 2 - 3</span><br /> <br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Strengite</span></b><br /><br />Formula: </span><span dir="ltr" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span>FePO₄ · 2H₂O. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span dir="ltr" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span></span>System: Orthorhombic<br />Colour: Purple, violet, pink, ...<br />Hardness: 3½ - 4<br /><br /> <b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Locality:</span></b> Sapucaia Mine (Proberil mine), Sapucaia do Norte, Galiléia, Doce valley, Minas Gerais, Brazil<br /> <br /><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /> </span></span><br /> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> </div>

Amazing Saléeite with Strengite

Photo Copyright © Matteo Chinellato Saléeite Formula: Mg(UO₂)₂(PO₄)₂·10   System: Monoclinic Colour: Lemon-yellow, ... Lustre: Sub-Ad...

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Ancient auditory illusions reflected in prehistoric art?

<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="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m_HxWBmU4mA/VFCteXeXb0I/AAAAAAAAB5M/3v9d65xW9_o/s1600/141028114714-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m_HxWBmU4mA/VFCteXeXb0I/AAAAAAAAB5M/3v9d65xW9_o/s1600/141028114714-large.jpg" height="207" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div id="caption" style="color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;">Here are prehistoric paintings of hoofed animals in a cave with thunderous reverberations located in Bhimbetka, India.</span></div> <div> <br /></div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">During the 168th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), to be held October 27-31, 2014 at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown Hotel, Steven J. Waller, of Rock Art Acoustics, will describe several ways virtual sound images and absorbers can appear supernatural.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"Ancient mythology explained echoes from the mouths of caves as replies from spirits, so our ancestors may have made cave paintings in response to these echoes and their belief that echo spirits inhabited rocky places such as caves or canyons," explained Waller.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Just as light reflection gives an illusion of seeing yourself duplicated in a mirror, sound waves reflecting off a surface are mathematically identical to sound waves emanating from a virtual sound source behind a reflecting plane such as a large cliff face. "This can result in an auditory illusion of somebody answering you from within the rock," Waller said.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Echoes of clapping can sound similar to hoof beats, as Waller pointed out, while multiple echoes within a cavern can blur together into a thunderous reverberation that mimics the sound of a herd of stampeding hoofed animals.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"Many ancient cultures attributed thunder in the sky to 'hoofed thunder gods,' so it makes sense that the reverberation within the caves was interpreted as thunder and inspired paintings of those same hoofed thunder gods on cave walls," said Waller. "This theory is supported by acoustic measurements, which show statistically significant correspondence between the rock art sites and locations with the strongest sound reflection."</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Other acoustical characteristics may have also been misinterpreted by ancient cultures unaware of sound wave theory. Waller noticed a resemblance between an interference pattern and Stonehenge, so he set up an interference pattern in an open field with just two flutes "droning the same note" to explore what it would sound like.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"The quiet regions of destructive sound wave cancellation, in which the high pressure from one flute cancelled the low pressure from the other flute, gave blindfolded subjects the illusion of a giant ring of rocks or 'pillars' casting acoustic shadows," Waller said.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">He traveled to England and demonstrated that Stonehenge does indeed radiate acoustic shadows that recreate the same pattern as interference. "My theory that musical interference patterns served as blueprints for megalithic stone circles -- many of which are called Pipers' Stones -- is supported by ancient legends of two magic pipers who enticed maidens to dance in a circle and turned them all into stones," Waller noted.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">There are several important implications of Waller's research. Perhaps most significantly, it demonstrates that acoustical phenomena were culturally significant to early humans -- leading to the immediate conclusion that the natural soundscapes of archaeological sites should be preserved in their natural state for further study and greater appreciation.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"Even today, sensory input can be used to manipulate perception and lead to illusions inconsistent with scientific reality, which could have interesting practical applications for virtual reality and special effects in entertainment media," Waller said. "Objectivity is questionable, because a given set of data can be used to support multiple conclusions."</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">The history of humanity is full of such misinterpretations, such as the visual illusion that the sun moves around the earth. "Sound, which is invisible and has complex properties, can easily lead to auditory illusions of the supernatural," he added. "This, in turn, leads to the more general question: what other illusions are we living under due to other phenomena that we are currently misinterpreting?"</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Presentation #2aAA11, "Virtual sound images and virtual sound absorbers misinterpreted as supernatural objects," by Stephen J. Waller will take place on Tuesday, October 28, 2014. The abstract can be found by searching for the presentation number here: <a href="https://asa2014fall.abstractcentral.com/planner.jsp" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;" title="https://asa2014fall.abstractcentral.com/planner.jsp">https://asa2014fall.abstractcentral.com/planner.jsp</a></span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <br /></div> <div id="story_source" style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px;"> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> The above story is based on <a href="http://www.newswise.com/articles/ancient-auditory-illusions-reflected-in-prehistoric-art" rel="nofollow" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a class="blue" href="http://acousticalsociety.org/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #7e7ea9; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Acoustical Society of America (ASA)</strong></a>. <em>Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.</em></div> <div> <em><br /></em></div> </div> </div>

Ancient auditory illusions reflected in prehistoric art?

Here are prehistoric paintings of hoofed animals in a cave with thunderous reverberations located in Bhimbetka, India. During the ...

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Where did all the oil go?

<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="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NRuxGJARRTE/VE_SlXganRI/AAAAAAAAB4s/FADFs3pf-Ts/s1600/2014102810085650.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NRuxGJARRTE/VE_SlXganRI/AAAAAAAAB4s/FADFs3pf-Ts/s1600/2014102810085650.jpg" height="630" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span id="caption" style="border: 0px; color: #222222; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">This image shows hydrocarbon contamination from Deepwater Horizon overlaid on sea floor bathymetry, highlighting the 1,250 square mile area identified in the study.</span></span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Due to the environmental disaster's unprecedented scope, assessing the damage caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been a challenge. One unsolved puzzle is the location of 2 million barrels of submerged oil thought to be trapped in the deep ocean. UC Santa Barbara's David Valentine and colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and UC Irvine have been able to describe the path the oil followed to create a footprint on the deep ocean floor. The findings appear today in the <em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 204); border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</em></div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> For this study, the scientists used data from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The United States government estimates the Macondo well's total discharge -- from the spill in April 2010 until the well was capped that July -- to be 5 million barrels.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> By analyzing data from more than 3,000 samples collected at 534 locations over 12 expeditions, they identified a 1,250-square-mile patch of the deep sea floor upon which 2 to 16 percent of the discharged oil was deposited. The fallout of oil to the sea floor created thin deposits most intensive to the southwest of the Macondo well. The oil was most concentrated within the top half inch of the sea floor and was patchy even at the scale of a few feet.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The investigation focused primarily on hopane, a nonreactive hydrocarbon that served as a proxy for the discharged oil. Researchers analyzed the spatial distribution of hopane in the northern Gulf of Mexico and found it was most concentrated in a thin layer at the sea floor within 25 miles of the ruptured well, clearly implicating Deepwater Horizon as the source.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> "Based on the evidence, our findings suggest that these deposits come from Macondo oil that was first suspended in the deep ocean and then settled to the sea floor without ever reaching the ocean surface," said Valentine, a professor of earth science and biology at UCSB. "The pattern is like a shadow of the tiny oil droplets that were initially trapped at ocean depths around 3,500 feet and pushed around by the deep currents. Some combination of chemistry, biology and physics ultimately caused those droplets to rain down another 1,000 feet to rest on the sea floor."</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Valentine and his colleagues were able to identify hotspots of oil fallout in close proximity to damaged deep-sea corals. According to the researchers, this data supports the previously disputed finding that these corals were damaged by the Deepwater Horizon spill.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> "The evidence is becoming clear that oily particles were raining down around these deep sea corals, which provides a compelling explanation for the injury they suffered," said Valentine. "The pattern of contamination we observe is fully consistent with the Deepwater Horizon event but not with natural seeps -- the suggested alternative."</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> While the study examined a specified area, the scientists argue that the observed oil represents a minimum value. They purport that oil deposition likely occurred outside the study area but so far has largely evaded detection because of its patchiness.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> "This analysis provides us with, for the first time, some closure on the question 'Where did the oil go and how?' " said Don Rice, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences. "It also alerts us that this knowledge remains largely provisional until we can fully account for the remaining 70 percent."</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> "These findings should be useful for assessing the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon spill as well as planning future studies to further define the extent and nature of the contamination," Valentine concluded. "Our work can also help to assess the fate of reactive hydrocarbons, test models of oil's behavior in the ocean and plan for future spills."</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Co-authors are G. Burch Fisher and Sarah C. Bagby, postdoctoral researchers in the Valentine Lab at UCSB; Robert K. Nelson, Christopher M. Reddy and Sean P. Sylva of WHOI; and Mary A. Woo of UC Irvine. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div> <div class="article-links share-left block unit" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 36px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </div> <br /> <h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #111111; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Source: <a href="http://www.ucsb.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #052b70; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">University of California - Santa Barbara</a></span></span></h2> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.0833em; line-height: 1.3846em; margin-bottom: 1.3846em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <br /></div> </div>

Where did all the oil go?

This image shows hydrocarbon contamination from Deepwater Horizon overlaid on sea floor bathymetry, highlighting the 1,250 square mile ar...

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How dinosaur arms turned into bird wings

<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="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YXwP60HpE9g/VE9bEl1666I/AAAAAAAAB4c/MDTvZqjjPqs/s1600/wristbones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YXwP60HpE9g/VE9bEl1666I/AAAAAAAAB4c/MDTvZqjjPqs/s1600/wristbones.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /> <figcaption class="field-photo-credit" style="color: #424242; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,"Liberation Sans",sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 4px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;">Since early dinosaurs, birds have reduced the number of bones in their wrist, but the origins and identity of those remaining are hard to trace / 2014 Robin Meadows, adapted from 2014 Botelho et al., PLoS Biology</span></figcaption><br /> <div> <br /></div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <br />Although we now appreciate that birds evolved from a branch of the dinosaur family tree, a crucial adaptation for flight has continued to puzzle evolutionary biologists. During the millions of years that elapsed, wrists went from straight to bent and hyperflexible, allowing birds to fold their wings neatly against their bodies when not flying. How this happened has been the subject of much debate, with substantial disagreement between developmental biologists, who study how the wings of modern birds develop in the growing embryo, and palaeontologists who study the bones of dinosaurs and early birds. A resolution to this impasse is now provided by an exciting new study publishing on September 30 in PLOS Biology.<br /><br />Underlying this striking evolutionary transformation change is a halving in the number of wrist bones, but developmental biologists and palaeontologists have different names for most of them, and seldom agree on the correspondence between specific dinosaur bones and those of their bird descendants. Indeed, each field has radically different data sources, methods, and research objectives, talking little to each other.<br /><br />The critical advance made in the new study involved combining these two strands of research. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the lab run by Alexander Vargas at the University of Chile has re-examined fossils stored at several museum collections, while at the same time collecting new developmental data from seven different species of modern birds. Joao Botelho, a Brazilian student in Vargas' lab, developed a revolutionary new technique that allows him to study specific proteins in 3D embryonic skeletons. By combining these data from both fossils and embryos, the research team has made a major step forward in clarifying how the bird wrist evolved.<br /><br />From early dinosaur ancestors with as many as nine wrist bones, birds have only kept four during the course of evolution, but which of the original bones are they? The identity of each of these bones was debated. For instance, the late Yale professor John Ostrom famously pointed out in the 1970's that the wrists of both birds and bird-like dinosaurs possess a very similar, half-moon shaped bone called the semilunate, and that this bone resulted from the merging of two bones present in dinosaurs. This formed part of Ostrom's then-controversial argument that birds descended from dinosaurs. However, the failure of developmental biologists to confirm this raised doubts that it was the same bone, and even that birds came from dinosaurs.<br /><br />Now, the new data obtained by the Vargas lab has revealed the first developmental evidence that the bird semilunate was formed by the fusion of the two dinosaur bones. They go on to show that another bone -- the pisiform -- was lost in bird-like dinosaurs, but then re-acquired in the early evolution of birds, probably as an adaptation for flight, where it allows transmission of force on the downstroke while restricting flexibility on the upstroke. Combined, the fossil and developmental data provide a compelling scenario for a rare case of evolutionary reversal.<br /><br />The study by the Vargas lab also settled the identity of the other two bones of the bird wrist, which were commonly misidentified in both fields. This emphasizes the downsides of not integrating all data sources, and reveals a situation perhaps akin to that of astronomy and experimental physics in the pursuit of cosmology: Together, palaeontology and development can come much closer to telling the whole story of evolution -- this integrative approach resolves previous disparities that have challenged the support for the dinosaur-bird link and reveals previously undetected processes, including loss of bones, fusion of bones, and re-evolution of a transiently lost bone.<br /> <br /> <h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: #111111; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <a href="http://www.plos.org/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #f29641; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">PLOS</a></h2> </div>

How dinosaur arms turned into bird wings

Since early dinosaurs, birds have reduced the number of bones in their wrist, but the origins and identity of those remaining are hard t...

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Monte Roraima "The Real Lost World"

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <img alt="Monte Roraima " border="0" height="376" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p21BAM_EFT0/VEYcgTyFpeI/AAAAAAAABw0/659f-d4sTwU/s1600/roraima-north-large.jpg" title="" width="640" /></div> <br /><h4 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Roraima is an interesting mountain located in the Guiana Highlands. </span></h4> <div style="text-align: left;"> The peak actually shares the border with Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana, but the mountain is almost always approached from the Venezuela side. The Brazil and Guyana sides are much more difficult. The mountain's highest point is Maverick Rock which is at and on the Venezuela side (thought some other sources may differ on this). <span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;" /></span>The Guiana Highlands is a very unusual mountain range covering parts of Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. The highlands are made of ancient sedimentary rock that is over two billion years old and are some of the oldest sedimentary rocks on the planet.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The mountain is known as a Tepui, which describes a flat-topped mountain with vertical sides. Many waterfalls spill off Roraima, and the other Tepuis; nearly everyone has heard of Angel Falls, which spills off another nearby Tepui. There are many interesting plants that grow on the summit, including many carnivorous plants, i.e., ones that eat insects. There is little soil on top because the constant rains wash it away. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;" /></span></div> <div style="margin: 0px auto; text-align: left; 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> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-06zseeVRV74/VEYciR7yiUI/AAAAAAAABw8/1Pt9m9U8f8k/s1600/Mount_Roraima_Venezuela1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Monte Roraima " border="0" height="472" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-06zseeVRV74/VEYciR7yiUI/AAAAAAAABw8/1Pt9m9U8f8k/s1600/Mount_Roraima_Venezuela1.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div> <h3 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Roraima is an interesting mountain located in the Guiana Highlands. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></span></span></h3> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The highest point in Guyana and the highest point of the Brazilian state of Roraima lie on the plateau, but Venezuela and Brazil have higher mountains elsewhere. The triple border point is at 5°12′08″N 60°44′07″W, but the mountain's highest point is Maverick Rock, 2,810 metres (9,219 ft), at the south end of the plateau and wholly within Venezuela.</span></span> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /> </span></span> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <img alt="Monte Roraima " border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1OgH3sHXMaI/VEYdKC9RFCI/AAAAAAAABxE/vdqLSAEivEk/s1600/mt-roraima-venezuela-pic.jpg" title="" width="640" /></div> </div>

Monte Roraima "The Real Lost World"

Roraima is an interesting mountain located in the Guiana Highlands. The peak actually shares the border with Venezuela, Brazil, and G...

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Hawaii volcano lava wave nears homes

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <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="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JzL1yQG3rn0/VE7CVIRG1xI/AAAAAAAAB4M/9Z3Siv0HIoI/s1600/article-urn-publicid-ap.org-d6aa1726c34f4162a22f4e84a220ec05-6SNEo7urM-HSK1-644_634x422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JzL1yQG3rn0/VE7CVIRG1xI/AAAAAAAAB4M/9Z3Siv0HIoI/s1600/article-urn-publicid-ap.org-d6aa1726c34f4162a22f4e84a220ec05-6SNEo7urM-HSK1-644_634x422.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="artSplitter" style="margin: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> <div class="imageCaption" id="ext-gen39" style="min-height: 1px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Red-hot danger: In this Sept. 1, 2014 photo released by the U.S. Geological Survey, fluid lava streams from the Kilauea volcano in Pahoa, Hawaii</span></div> </div> <div class="artSplitter mol-img-group" style="margin: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> <div class="mol-img" style="margin: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px;"> <div class="image-wrap fff-pic" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"> </div> </div> </div> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Smoldering lava from a slow-erupting volcano has reached within yards (several meters) of homes on Hawaii's Big Island, emergency officials said Monday as villagers braced to evacuate.</span></span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.4;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white;">The lava flow from the Kilauea volcano has been threatening nearby homes for weeks, and was 100 yards (91 meters) from the nearest house by early Monday. The lava front was moving at between 10-15 yards (9-14 m) an hour.</span><br /> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"Based on the current flow location, direction and advancement, residents in the flow path were placed on an evacuation advisory," said the County of Hawaii's Civil Defense force in an online update.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">The slow-moving waves of lava, burning everything in its path, had advanced some 275 yards (251 m) in the past 24 hours towards Pahoa town, on the eastern tip of the island, officials said.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi declared a state of emergency last month after the lava advanced to within a mile (1.6 km) of a residential area known as the Ka'ohe Homesteads.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Last week, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie requested a Presidential Disaster Declaration to unlock federal resources to help local emergency protective measures.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">As the lava threatens a main road in the area, measures needed include providing alternative routes and accommodating some 900 children that will be displaced by the lava, according to Abercrombie's office.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 0px 17px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Hawaii Island, or the Big Island, is the largest of the eight main islands which make up the Pacific US state—an archipelago that includes hundreds of smaller volcanic islands.</span></div> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #717171; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">© 2014 AFP</span></div>

Hawaii volcano lava wave nears homes

Red-hot danger: In this Sept. 1, 2014 photo released by the U.S. Geological Survey, fluid lava streams from the Kilauea volcano in Pa...

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A GPS from the chemistry set

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0m4E0rduY2o/VJHymhIwFsI/AAAAAAAAC6A/3tGWYcF-Gs8/s1600/gps2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0m4E0rduY2o/VJHymhIwFsI/AAAAAAAAC6A/3tGWYcF-Gs8/s1600/gps2.jpg" height="319" width="320" /></a></div> <strong><br /></strong> <strong><br /></strong> <strong><br /></strong> <strong>A handy effect</strong></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> This process is an example of the Marangoni effect, which works because the acid distributed in the maze reacts with the newly added, dyed alkaline solution. The latter is repelled by the mixture of alkaline liquid and acid in the maze and pushed to the source of the acidity at the exit, leaving a clear trail in its wake thanks to the pigment. In doing so, the dyed alkaline solution tends to opt for the shortest path. In the rush, however, it also takes alternative routes -- albeit with a considerably lower probability and thus with a weaker trace of color. "The advantage of this chemical computer over its electronic counterpart is that it finds all the possible routes virtually in parallel. A normal computer calculates step-by-step one possibility after another, which takes longer," explains Rita Tóth from Empa's Laboratory for High Performance Ceramics. Although methods to find such pathways using liquids already exist, the new technique is the first that works purely chemically and where a color trail shows the path immediately.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <strong>Anyone for pizza?</strong></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> As the next step, the research team is now looking to attempt larger and more complex mazes, the test object only being a few square centimeters in size. Nonetheless, the method has already passed a test "out in the real world": In a somewhat larger maze based on a Budapest neighborhood, the colorful alkaline solution traced the shortest route to its target, a pizza restaurant. Eventually, the system could also be used in transport planning. And scientist Tóth also envisages the potential for applications in experimental psychology, network and graph theory and robotics. At any rate, the team's results have already been met with a great deal of interest; the paper is one of the most read in the journal <em>Langmuir</em>.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> <br /></div> <div id="story_source" style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px;"> <div style="padding: 5px 0px;"> The above story is based on <a href="http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/3/152216/---/l=2" rel="nofollow" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a class="blue" href="http://www.empa.ch/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #7e7ea9; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Empa</strong></a>. <em>Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.</em></div> <div> <em><br /></em></div> </div> </div>

A GPS from the chemistry set

A handy effect This process is an example of the Marangoni effect, which works because the acid distributed in the maze reacts wi...

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Desert Streams: Deceptively Simple

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><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="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y6nDPDdVLgs/VE1yobVJPnI/AAAAAAAAB3E/BkpYGgyJwSI/s1600/141023142314-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y6nDPDdVLgs/VE1yobVJPnI/AAAAAAAAB3E/BkpYGgyJwSI/s1600/141023142314-large.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div id="caption" style="color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;"> Dryland channels exhibit very simple topography despite being shaped by volatile rainstorms.</div> <div> <br /></div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">That paradox has been resolved in newly published research conducted by Michael Singer and Katerina Michaelides, associate researchers at UC Santa Barbara's Earth Research Institute. The pair show that simple topography in dryland channels is maintained by complex interactions among rainstorms, the stream flows these storms generate in the river channel and sediment grains present on the riverbed. Their findings appear in the journal Geology.</span><br /><br />Desert streams flow only during infrequent but intense rainstorms, and when they do, only parts of the channel contain water, making the flow irregular and erratic. One rainstorm may erode sediment grains in one section of the channel, while another storm moves sediment in a different area.<br /><br />"Given this localized sediment movement during rainstorms, one might expect desert channels to contain mounds of sediment that undulate down the stream course reflecting the irregular flow, but they don't," Singer said. "The water produced in the channel only flows partially down the stream and then stops because it seeps into the riverbed, and there's not enough water from upstream to replace it, so it just disappears."<br /><br />Because desert river channels do not feature the river bars, pools or riffles common in perennial streams, they decline in elevation downstream very smoothly. According to the researchers' findings, feedback between two variables -- complex water and sediment movements -- shape such basins.<br /><br />Singer and Michaelides used data collected from the Rambla de Nogalte in southeastern Spain to model these dryland channel variables. The area has a semi-arid climate with mean annual rainfall of around 14 inches, which occurs during convective rainstorms, producing large floods that recur about once a decade.<br /><br />They found that dryland channel width fluctuates downstream. Their observations show that grain size (roughness) also fluctuates from sand to gravel a downstream direction.<br /><br />"There's feedback between this fluctuating width and fluctuating grain size," Singer said. "The stream flow is generated in a discontinuous pattern along the channel. Some rainstorms produce a bit of topography in some parts of the channel. Other spatial configurations of flow generated by storms destroy that topography so the variability of the rainstorms interacting with this channel are creating and destroying the topography constantly to keep it in this simple form."<br /><br />Singer and Michaelides also produced simulations of extreme flows to determine the volume of flow necessary to reshape the channel completely. They examined the longitudinal variability of sediment flow as well as sediment storage to find the channel-shaping threshold. This threshold reshapes the entire channel and makes it smooth again. "It's a really significant threshold that tells us the magnitude of the flood necessary to reshape the channel," Singer said.<br /><br />"Semi-arid and arid river systems are extremely important to the populations that live around them," he concluded. "Water resources are obviously a huge limitation in the development of societies, and a lot of water is being progressively diverted for irrigation, water use and other purposes, so those can further affect the spatial patterns of where flow is in these channels and potentially impact the processes of where topography develops in the river channel. Humans can inadvertently have an impact on the shape and form of river channels like these."<br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #070809; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.6000003814697px; padding: 5px 0px;"> </div> <u><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2014/014459/desert-streams-deceptively-simple" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.ucsb.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of California - Santa Barbara</a>. The original article was written by Julie Cohen. </span></i></u></div>

Desert Streams: Deceptively Simple

Dryland channels exhibit very simple topography despite being shaped by volatile rainstorms. That paradox has been resolved in new...

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Software models ocean currents for oil and gas search

<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="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RDeSJw9lkl8/VE0VtqL-j7I/AAAAAAAAB2k/uywNAk9wypQ/s1600/softwaremode.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RDeSJw9lkl8/VE0VtqL-j7I/AAAAAAAAB2k/uywNAk9wypQ/s1600/softwaremode.jpg" height="195" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><figure class="image-block" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(198, 198, 198); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 20px 0px 0px; text-align: start;"><figcaption class="image-block-caption" style="color: dimgrey; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 9px 0px 5px;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;">Streamline visualisation provides a 2D generalised representation of recorded electromagnetic fields within deep oceans. Credit: IBM Research</span></figcaption></figure></td></tr> </tbody></table> <figure class="image-block" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(198, 198, 198); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 20px 0px 0px;"><figcaption class="image-block-caption" style="color: dimgrey; margin: 0px; padding: 9px 0px 5px;"><div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Curtin University geophysics experts and co-authors Dr Andrew Pethick and Associate Professor Brett Harris used Dr Pethick's visualisation software to determine its impact on the design stages of marine controlled source electromagnetic methods (MCSEM).</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">The resulting <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/224/paper/EG13050.htm" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #267326; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">designs</a> may ultimately improve the representation of subsurface geology including oil and gas deposits.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"To understand what's going on very quickly for survey planning, it's really handy because it enables you to see what is physically happening with the direction of currents," Dr Pethick says.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"For a person that knows very little about EM, it's very important.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"It actually bridges an enormous conceptual gap that people have in understanding how the technology works.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"Until they see the streamlines they really don't have a clue about what's happening under the ground."</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Dr Harris says his colleague's software is used by people all over the world.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"You can go to his website and people have been able to download it and be able to visualise and understand streamlines in a way that there is no ready possibility without it."</span></div> <h3 style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; padding: 16px 0px 4px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Software improves receiver targets</span></h3> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Electromagnetic fields generated during a marine EM survey engulf thousands of cubic kilometres of ocean and sub-ocean geology.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Streamline visualisation provides a 2D generalised representation of recorded electromagnetic fields within deep oceans.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">This representation aids the placement of receivers that are dropped into the ocean and sink to the bottom during surveying and are subsequently recovered for data harvesting.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"[Streamline visualisation] was part of my PhD," Dr Pethick says.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"I had written a pretty comprehensive EM modelling and computation visualisation framework from scratch and it was just a matter of coding it up.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"The greater size and density the receiver network is, the better we can resolve the underlying geology.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"All of the technology does exist already but no one had really tried to apply streamlines in this case.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"The next step is perhaps moving towards a towing system.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">"Right now they're actually towing near the air but just beneath the water. Our research may indicate alternative locations."</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">A towed system consists of a transmitter and EM receivers, which are dragged behind a vessel within the ocean.</span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div> <div style="background-color: #fffefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div> </figcaption></figure></div>

Software models ocean currents for oil and gas search

Streamline visualisation provides a 2D generalised representation of recorded electromagnetic fields within deep oceans. Credit: IBM Rese...

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