Ancient Rocks Hold Evidence for Life Before Oxygen

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0ulZtaA-tJ4/WD6rjREKJ-I/AAAAAAAAKas/SqwMJLdb_DgEiV9C86sZNsE5aiuzPuA0gCLcB/s1600/Ancient%2Brocks%2Bhold%2Bevidence%2Bfor%2Blife%2Bbefore%2Boxygen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ancient Rocks Hold Evidence for Life Before Oxygen" border="0" height="460" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0ulZtaA-tJ4/WD6rjREKJ-I/AAAAAAAAKas/SqwMJLdb_DgEiV9C86sZNsE5aiuzPuA0gCLcB/s640/Ancient%2Brocks%2Bhold%2Bevidence%2Bfor%2Blife%2Bbefore%2Boxygen.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is a microscopic image of 2.5 billion-year-old sulfur-oxidizing bacterium.</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Somewhere between Earth's creation and where we are today, scientists have demonstrated that some early life forms existed just fine without any oxygen.</span></i><br /> <br /> While researchers proclaim the first half of our 4.5 billion-year-old planet's life as an important time for the development and evolution of early bacteria, evidence for these life forms remains sparse including how they survived at a time when oxygen levels in the atmosphere were less than one-thousandth of one percent of what they are today.<br /> <br /> Recent geology research from the University of Cincinnati presents new evidence for bacteria found fossilized in two separate locations in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.<br /> <br /> "These are the oldest reported fossil sulfur bacteria to date," says Andrew Czaja, UC assistant professor of geology. "And this discovery is helping us reveal a diversity of life and ecosystems that existed just prior to the Great Oxidation Event, a time of major atmospheric evolution." <br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3957834894" style="display: block;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> The 2.52 billion-year-old sulfur-oxidizing bacteria are described by Czaja as exceptionally large, spherical-shaped, smooth-walled microscopic structures much larger than most modern bacteria, but similar to some modern single-celled organisms that live in deepwater sulfur-rich ocean settings today, where even now there are almost no traces of oxygen.<br /> <br /> In his research published in the December issue of the journal Geology of the Geological Society of America, Czaja and his colleagues Nicolas Beukes from the University of Johannesburg and Jeffrey Osterhout, a recently graduated master's student from UC's department of geology, reveal samples of bacteria that were abundant in deep water areas of the ocean in a geologic time known as the Neoarchean Eon (2.8 to 2.5 billion years ago).<br /> <br /> "These fossils represent the oldest known organisms that lived in a very dark, deep-water environment," says Czaja. "These bacteria existed two billion years before plants and trees, which evolved about 450 million years ago. We discovered these microfossils preserved in a layer of hard silica-rich rock called chert located within the Kaapvaal craton of South Africa."<br /> <br /> With an atmosphere of much less than one percent oxygen, scientists have presumed that there were things living in deep water in the mud that didn't need sunlight or oxygen, but Czaja says experts didn't have any direct evidence for them until now.<br /> <br /> Czaja argues that finding rocks this old is rare, so researchers' understanding of the Neoarchean Eon are based on samples from only a handful of geographic areas, such as this region of South Africa and another in Western Australia.<br /> <br /> According to Czaja, scientists through the years have theorized that South Africa and Western Australia were once part of an ancient supercontinent called Vaalbara, before a shifting and upending of tectonic plates split them during a major change in the Earth's surface.<br /> <br /> Based on radiometric dating and geochemical isotope analysis, Czaja characterizes his fossils as having formed in this early Vaalbara supercontinent in an ancient deep seabed containing sulfate from continental rock. According to this dating, Czaja's fossil bacteria were also thriving just before the era when other shallow-water bacteria began creating more and more oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis.<br /> <br /> "We refer to this period as the Great Oxidation Event that took place 2.4 to 2.2 billion years ago," says Czaja.<br /> <br /> <b>Early recycling</b><br /> <br /> Czaja's fossils show the Neoarchean bacteria in plentiful numbers while living deep in the sediment. He contends that these early bacteria were busy ingesting volcanic hydrogen sulfide -- the molecule known to give off a rotten egg smell -- then emitting sulfate, a gas that has no smell. He says this is the same process that goes on today as modern bacteria recycle decaying organic matter into minerals and gases.<br /> <br /> "The waste product from one [bacteria] was food for the other," adds Czaja.<br /> <br /> "While I can't claim that these early bacteria are the same ones we have today, we surmise that they may have been doing the same thing as some of our current bacteria," says Czaja. "These early bacteria likely consumed the molecules dissolved from sulfur-rich minerals that came from land rocks that had eroded and washed out to sea, or from the volcanic remains on the ocean's floor.<br /> <br /> There is an ongoing debate about when sulfur-oxidizing bacteria arose and how that fits into the earth's evolution of life, Czaja adds. "But these fossils tell us that sulfur-oxidizing bacteria were there 2.52 billion years ago, and they were doing something remarkable."<br /> <br /> <i><u><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The above story is based on <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/bacteria.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.uc.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Cincinnati</a>. Original written by Melanie Schefft. </span></span></u></i></div>

Ancient Rocks Hold Evidence for Life Before Oxygen

This is a microscopic image of 2.5 billion-year-old sulfur-oxidizing bacterium. Somewhere between Earth's creation and where we are...

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Nitrogen in Ancient Rocks a Sign of Early Life

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ktEO7nDPmUg/WD2F24bWNJI/AAAAAAAAKaY/xvpol31LGFAURyeDot_nrS3O6-_HdDnYgCLcB/s1600/Scientists%2Bin%2BGreenland%2Bexcavating%2Brocks%2Bthat%2Bmay%2Bhold%2B3.8-billion-year-old%2Bevidence%2Bof%2Blife.%2BCredit%2BLaure%2BGauthiez.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nitrogen in Ancient Rocks a Sign of Early Life" border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ktEO7nDPmUg/WD2F24bWNJI/AAAAAAAAKaY/xvpol31LGFAURyeDot_nrS3O6-_HdDnYgCLcB/s640/Scientists%2Bin%2BGreenland%2Bexcavating%2Brocks%2Bthat%2Bmay%2Bhold%2B3.8-billion-year-old%2Bevidence%2Bof%2Blife.%2BCredit%2BLaure%2BGauthiez.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scientists in Greenland excavating rocks that may hold 3.8-billion-year-old evidence of life. Credit: Laure Gauthiez</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <br /> A spark from a lightning bolt, interstellar dust, or a subsea volcano could have triggered the very first life on Earth. But what happened next? Life can exist without oxygen, but without plentiful nitrogen to build genes -- essential to viruses, bacteria and all other organisms -- life on the early Earth would have been scarce.<br /> <br /> The ability to use atmospheric nitrogen to support more widespread life was thought to have appeared roughly 2 billion years ago. Now research from the University of Washington looking at some of the planet's oldest rocks finds evidence that 3.2 billion years ago, life was already pulling nitrogen out of the air and converting it into a form that could support larger communities.<br /> <br /> "People always had the idea that the really ancient biosphere was just tenuously clinging on to this inhospitable planet, and it wasn't until the emergence of nitrogen fixation that suddenly the biosphere become large and robust and diverse," said co-author Roger Buick, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. "Our work shows that there was no nitrogen crisis on the early Earth, and therefore it could have supported a fairly large and diverse biosphere." <br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3957834894" style="display: block;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> The authors analyzed 52 samples ranging in age from 2.75 to 3.2 billion years old, collected in South Africa and northwestern Australia. These are some of the oldest and best-preserved rocks on the planet. The rocks were formed from sediment deposited on continental margins, so are free of chemical irregularities that would occur near a subsea volcano. They also formed before the atmosphere gained oxygen, roughly 2.3 to 2.4 billion years ago, and so preserve chemical clues that have disappeared in modern rocks.<br /> <br /> Even the oldest samples, 3.2 billion years old -- three-quarters of the way back to the birth of the planet -- showed chemical evidence that life was pulling nitrogen out of the air. The ratio of heavier to lighter nitrogen atoms fits the pattern of nitrogen-fixing enzymes contained in single-celled organisms, and does not match any chemical reactions that occur in the absence of life.<br /> <br /> "Imagining that this really complicated process is so old, and has operated in the same way for 3.2 billion years, I think is fascinating," said lead author Eva Stüeken, who did the work as part of her UW doctoral research. "It suggests that these really complicated enzymes apparently formed really early, so maybe it's not so difficult for these enzymes to evolve."<br /> <br /> Genetic analysis of nitrogen-fixing enzymes have placed their origin at between 1.5 and 2.2 billion years ago.<br /> <br /> "This is hard evidence that pushes it back a further billion years," Buick said. Fixing nitrogen means breaking a tenacious triple bond that holds nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and joining a single nitrogen to a molecule that is easier for living things to use. The chemical signature of the rocks suggests that nitrogen was being broken by an enzyme based on molybdenum, the most common of the three types of nitrogen-fixing enzymes that exist now. Molybdenum is now abundant because oxygen reacts with rocks to wash it into the ocean, but its source on the ancient Earth -- before the atmosphere contained oxygen to weather rocks -- is more mysterious.<br /> <br /> The authors hypothesize that this may be further evidence that some early life may have existed in single-celled layers on land, exhaling small amounts of oxygen that reacted with the rock to release molybdenum to the water.<br /> <br /> "We'll never find any direct evidence of land scum one cell thick, but this might be giving us indirect evidence that the land was inhabited," Buick said. "Microbes could have crawled out of the ocean and lived in a slime layer on the rocks on land, even before 3.2 billion years ago."<br /> <br /> Future work will look at what else could have limited the growth of life on the early Earth. Stüeken has begun a UW postdoctoral position funded by NASA to look at trace metals such as zinc, copper and cobalt to see if one of them controlled the growth of ancient life.<br /> <br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This story is republished courtesy of NASA's Astrobiology Magazine. </span></i></u></div>

Nitrogen in Ancient Rocks a Sign of Early Life

Scientists in Greenland excavating rocks that may hold 3.8-billion-year-old evidence of life. Credit: Laure Gauthiez A spark from a l...

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Scientists have found the largest exposed fault on Earth

<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="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G8V9MMEmB5c/WD1tW4fikdI/AAAAAAAAKZc/DKXXVb0IwUAoJJtTFP7zsKo4RYEwT1ReQCLcB/s1600/Biggest%2Bexposed%2Bfault%2Bon%2BEarth%2Bdiscovered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G8V9MMEmB5c/WD1tW4fikdI/AAAAAAAAKZc/DKXXVb0IwUAoJJtTFP7zsKo4RYEwT1ReQCLcB/s640/Biggest%2Bexposed%2Bfault%2Bon%2BEarth%2Bdiscovered.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pulau Banta island in the Banta Sea. Credit: Jialiang Gao/Wikimedia</span></td></tr> </tbody></table><br /> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Geologists have for the first time seen and documented the Banda Detachment fault in eastern Indonesia and worked out how it formed.</span></i><br /> <br /> For the first time, researchers have confirmed the existence of the largest exposed fault on Earth, and it could explain how a 7.2-km-deep (4.5-mile) abyss formed in the Pacific Ocean.<br /> <br /> Discovered beneath the Banda Sea in eastern Indonesia, the massive fault plane runs right through the notorious Ring of Fire - an explosive region where roughly 90 percent of the world's earthquakes and 75 percent of all active volcanoes occur.<br /> <br /> For almost a century, scientists have known about the Weber Deep - a massive chasm lurking near the Maluku Islands of Indonesia that forms the deepest point of Earth’s oceans not within a trench. <br /> <br /> But until now, no one could figure out how it formed.<br /> <div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="3957834894" data-ad-format="auto"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /> </div>To investigate, geologists from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and Royal Holloway University of London analysed maps of the sea floor taken from the Banda Sea region in the Pacific Ocean.<br /> <br /> They discovered that rocks sitting the bottom of the sea were cut by hundreds of straight parallel scars.<br /> <br /> Simulations of the sea floor suggested that a massive piece of crust bigger than Belgium was at some point ripped apart by a massive crack - or fault - in the oceanic plates to form a deep depression in the ocean floor.<br /> <br /> The activity appeared to have left behind the biggest exposed fault plane ever detected on Earth, which the researchers have tentatively called the Banda Detachment.<br /> <br /> When a fault forms in Earth's crust, it forms two main features: a fault plane, which is the flat surface of a fault; and the fault line, which is the intersection of a fault plane with the ground surface. <br /> <br /> The team's simulations showed that the Banda Detachment fault plane was exposed over an area of 60,000 square kilometres (23,166 square miles) when the sea floor cracked.<br /> <br /> "We had made a good argument for the existence of this fault we named the Banda Detachment, based on the bathymetry [underwater topography] data and on knowledge of the regional geology," said one of the researchers, Gordon Lister from ANU.<br /> <br /> <br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ahXEbJCf1Ew/WD1vS_ke4OI/AAAAAAAAKZw/X-sVqE7M8yQ475Uy3yrztrbgwtDLz5-vACLcB/s1600/Diagram%2Bshowing%2Bthe%2BBanda%2BDetachment%2Bfault%2Bbeneath%2Bthe%2BWeber%2BDeep%2Bbasin.%2BANU.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ahXEbJCf1Ew/WD1vS_ke4OI/AAAAAAAAKZw/X-sVqE7M8yQ475Uy3yrztrbgwtDLz5-vACLcB/s640/Diagram%2Bshowing%2Bthe%2BBanda%2BDetachment%2Bfault%2Bbeneath%2Bthe%2BWeber%2BDeep%2Bbasin.%2BANU.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diagram showing the Banda Detachment fault beneath the Weber Deep basin. Credit: ANU</td></tr> </tbody></table><br /> But as far as the researchers were concerned, this massive fault didn't exist until they saw evidence of it with their own eyes.<br /> <br /> When they sailed out in the Pacific Ocean in eastern Indonesia, they identified prominent landforms in the water that were formed by the Banda Detachment fault plane.<br /> <br /> "I was stunned to see the hypothesised fault plane, this time not on a computer screen, but poking above the waves," says one of the team, Jonathan Pownall from ANU. "The discovery will help explain how one of Earth's deepest sea areas became so deep."<br /> <br /> The team says the fact that the Weber Deep abyss formed right where the Banda Detachment was exposed could help researchers figure out how it formed.<br /> <br /> "Our research found that a 7 km-deep abyss beneath the Banda Sea off eastern Indonesia was formed by extension along what might be Earth's largest-identified exposed fault plane," says Pownall.<br /> <br /> The discovery could also help geologists predict the movements of one of the most tectonically active regions in the world - the Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000-km (25,000-mile) stretch of ocean dotted with no less than 452 volcanoes, which is around 75 percent of the world's total.<br /> <br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/researchers-find-biggest-exposed-fault-on-earth" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Australian National University</a>. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The research has been published in <a href="http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/44/11/947" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Geology.</a></span></i></u></div>

Scientists have found the largest exposed fault on Earth

Pulau Banta island in the Banta Sea. Credit: Jialiang Gao/Wikimedia Geologists have for the first time seen and documented the Banda Det...

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What's up with Madagascar?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eNLVUAnzkys/WD1dvpyysKI/AAAAAAAAKZM/THum_MXWR5wuAHpe-_9ZzwlQojC_1GGZACLcB/s1600/Why%2Bare%2Bthere%2Bvolcanoes%2Bon%2Ban%2Bisland%2Bthat%2Bisn%2527t%2Bnear%2Bany%2Btectonic%2Bboundaries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="594" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eNLVUAnzkys/WD1dvpyysKI/AAAAAAAAKZM/THum_MXWR5wuAHpe-_9ZzwlQojC_1GGZACLcB/s640/Why%2Bare%2Bthere%2Bvolcanoes%2Bon%2Ban%2Bisland%2Bthat%2Bisn%2527t%2Bnear%2Bany%2Btectonic%2Bboundaries.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Somali Plate</td></tr> </tbody></table><br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why are there volcanoes on an island that isn't near any tectonic boundaries?</span></b><br /> <br /> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Madagascar, the big island off the east coast of Africa with the lemurs and baobabs, is thought to be sitting in the middle of an old tectonic plate, and so, by the rules of plate tectonics, should be tectonically quiet: few earthquakes and no volcanoes.</span></i><br /> <br /> But it's not. The island has been away from tectonic action for the past 80 million years, said Martin Pratt, research scientist in earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, yet it experiences about 500 earthquakes per year.<br /> <br /> The island also has volcanoes that have been active within the recent geologic past. "Having active volcanoes in Madagascar is like having erupting volcanoes in St. Louis," said Michael Wysession, professor of earth and planetary sciences. "You have to ask yourself, 'What are they doing there?'"<br /> <br /> Since this part of the world is geologically complex, there are lots of interesting possible explanations for the volcanoes. To figure it out, the geologists needed to be able to examine not just the island's accessible surface, but also what lies beneath the rigid crust and upper mantle.<br /> <br /> To image Earth's interior, geologists use a technique called seismic tomography that is similar to the medical CT scan, probing Earth's strictire with seismic waves from distant earthquakes and ambient noise. But remote and politically unstable Madagascar was largely unexplored by seismic methods until recently.<br /> <div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="3957834894" data-ad-format="auto"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /> </div>Starting in 2010, however, three groups, including one led by Washington University seismologists Wysession and Doug Wiens, began to deploy seismic arrays on Madagascar, on nearby islands in the Mozambique channel (between the island and Africa), and on the ocean floor east of Madagascar.<br /> <br /> In an article published online Nov. 22 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the Washington University scientists report that they found three areas of hot rock within the mantle beneath three separate volcanic provinces on the island.<br /> <br /> They also see signs that the bottom of the lithosphere beneath the central volcanic province has peeled off. As the cold rock sank into the mantle, hotter rock flowed around it to the center and the south of the island. The crust, unburdened, bobbed higher. The northern volcanic province, meanwhile, probably taps a different heat source.<br /> <br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A busted-up chunk of an ancient continent</span></b><br /> <br /> Madagascar, originally part of the ancient continent Gondwana, was formed in two steps. The island, together with India, pulled away from Africa 150 million years ago, stretching and thinning the crust on the island's west coast before it finally snapped off. The thinned crust on the west coast sagged and the dips filled with sediments, forming deep basins of sedimentary rocks.<br /> <br /> Then, about 90 million years ago, when the mini-continent migrated over the Marion hotspot (a mantle plume that now lies beneath the Antarctic plate to the south), brief but voluminous eruptions covered the island in lava. The blast of heat is thought to have cracked the overriding continent into two parts, Madagascar and India, which scraped past the east coast of Madagascar on its way north toward Asia, leaving a very straight coastline there.<br /> <br /> But the volcanism in the central, northern, and southern provinces are much younger than the basaltic remains of the 90-million-year-old eruption still found around the perimeter of Madagascar. So the question was: Where did they come from?<br /> <br /> <b><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What the images show</span></i></b><br /> <br /> Lead-author Pratt used three complementary methods to analyze surface waves (seismic waves trapped near Earth's surface), which are created by distant earthquakes and from sources of seismic noise, such as ocean storms.<br /> <br /> "His approach is clever and creative," Wysession said. "He's taken three really different data sets, some good at high frequencies that give you better resolution at shallow depths, and some better at low frequencies that give you better resolution at greater depths, and he's put them all together. It's a bit like combining an X-ray, an MRI and a CT scan to get a clearer image."<br /> <br /> The images show three low-velocity seismic anomalies corresponding to the upwelling of hotter mantle rock along the island's backbone.<br /> <br /> "We knew about the named volcanic provinces in the center and north," Wysession said. "But we didn't know about the one in the southwest. When we saw the third blob in the images, we checked the literature and discovered that, sure enough, there was volcanic activity there as recently as 9 million years ago."<br /> <br /> The cause of the three hot regions in the mantle is a mystery, however. Though there is some indication from the tomographic images that the regions might be connected, particularly the southern two, further modeling of deeper structure will be needed to confirm.<br /> <br /> One origin of the hot regions previously has been proposed to be hot rock rising through the mantle as the Comores hot spot, which has created a set of volcanic islands just west of the north end of the island.<br /> <br /> The authors have a different idea, however, and it comes from the way that the central and southwestern provinces appear to be connected at depth.<br /> <br /> "If you look at the images that Martin has made," Wysession said, "you can see a horseshoe shape where the central hot mantle anomaly swings west and then comes back east again, connecting the central and southern provinces.<br /> <br /> The deflecting obstacle seems to be a slab of colder rock. "We think the lithosphere (the crust and rigid upper mantle) has delaminated, and the bottom of it fell off," Wysession said. "As the cold, dense slab began to sink, hotter rock flowed up and in to replace it, buoying the central province and, as it tilted, blocking flow to the south."<br /> <br /> But what caused the bottom of the lithosphere to peel off? "We think it may have been the Marion hotspot," Wysession said. "The underside of the plate was heated by this huge blow torch 95 million years ago, weakening the rock enough that it was able to peel off. So we're still seeing collateral damage from this ancient event."<br /> <br /> This idea also has the advantage of explaining the unusually high elevations of the northern half of the island. Once the heavy bottom of the plate fell off, it stopped pulling down the crust, which rebounded upward as much as a kilometer as hot rock from below took the place of the delaminated slab.<br /> <br /> Something similar happened underneath the Great Basin of the western United States, he said, where the bottom of the lithosphere also split off, forming a large blob of cold material sinking down through the mantle below the surface of central Nevada. There, the blow torch that delaminated the plate was an ocean spreading center that was overridden by the North American plate, Wysession said.<br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://source.wustl.edu/2016/11/whats-up-with-madagascar/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="https://wustl.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Washington University in St. Louis</a>. Original written by Diana Lutz. </span></i></u><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /> </span></span></div>

What's up with Madagascar?

The Somali Plate Why are there volcanoes on an island that isn't near any tectonic boundaries? Madagascar, the big island off the ...

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Ancient Seaweed Fossils Some of the Oldest of Multicellular Life

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KMMemsWvNx0/WDwbkBBHtqI/AAAAAAAAKYw/LCCKRPkKVZo-p33XOSNUCkXBPn2LtHAYgCLcB/s1600/Ancient%2Bseaweed%2Bfossils%2Bsome%2Bof%2Bthe%2Boldest%2Bof%2Bmulticellular%2Blife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ancient Seaweed Fossils Some of the Oldest of Multicellular Life" border="0" height="458" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KMMemsWvNx0/WDwbkBBHtqI/AAAAAAAAKYw/LCCKRPkKVZo-p33XOSNUCkXBPn2LtHAYgCLcB/s640/Ancient%2Bseaweed%2Bfossils%2Bsome%2Bof%2Bthe%2Boldest%2Bof%2Bmulticellular%2Blife.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chinggiskhaania bifurcata is the scientific name of one of the new kinds of multicellular algae recently found preserved as ancient fossils.</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Researcher unearths find from newly discovered Precambrian site</span></b><br /> <br /> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Honing in on when life on Earth evolved from single-celled to multicellular organisms is no easy task. Organisms that old lacked many distinguishing characteristics of modern life forms, making their fossils exceptionally rare.</span></i><br /> <br /> But University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee paleontologist Stephen Dornbos and his research partners have discovered new clues in the quest. The team found fossils of two species of previously unknown ancient multicellular marine algae, what we now know as seaweed -- and they're among the oldest examples of multicellular life on Earth.<br /> <br /> Their age is estimated to be more than 555 million years old, placing the fossils in the last part of Precambrian times, called the Ediacaran Period. They provide a crucial view of Earth's earliest evolution of multicellular life, which scientists now think started millions of years earlier than previously thought.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3957834894" style="display: block;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> "This discovery helps tell us more about life in a period that is relatively undocumented," said Dornbos, UWM associate professor of geosciences and first author on the paper. "It can help us correlate the changes in life forms with what we know about the Earth's ancient environments. It is a major evolutionary step toward life as we know it today."<br /> <br /> Scientists think that an explosion of animal diversity and complexity began near the start of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago. But Dornbos said this fossil find is the latest example of multicellular life forms appearing in the preceding Ediacaran Period.<br /> <br /> Certain kinds of sedimentary rocks, called Burgess Shale-type (BST) deposits, have the right characteristics to preserve soft-bodied organisms as thin carbon films. During the Cambrian Period, BST deposits are more common, and they preserve fossils of increasingly complex animals. But only a handful of Ediacaran BST deposits are known globally.<br /> <br /> Team members were searching for Ediacaran fossils in western Mongolia limestone when they uncovered a new BST deposit. That's where they found the seaweed fossils.<br /> <br /> Dornbos' collaborators on the fieldwork, funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and NASA's Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, were Tatsuo Oji and Akihiro Kanayama of the Nagoya University Museum in Japan, and Sersmaa Gonchigdorj of the Mongolian University of Science and Technology in Ulaanbaatar.<br /> <br /> BST fossils from the Ediacaran usually fall into two categories: multicellular algae, like seaweed, and fossils that are extremely difficult to classify, often the remains of extinct types of organisms. Consequently, Dornbos said, determining exactly what is preserved in Ediacaran fossil deposits can be hotly contested.<br /> <br /> "If you find a fossil from this time frame, you really need strong support for your interpretation of what it was," he said. "And the farther back you go in geologic time, the more contested the fossil interpretations are."<br /> <br /> <br /><u><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="http://www.newswise.com/articles/ancient-seaweed-fossils-some-of-the-oldest-of-multicellular-life" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www4.uwm.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee</a>. </span></i></u></div>

Ancient Seaweed Fossils Some of the Oldest of Multicellular Life

Chinggiskhaania bifurcata is the scientific name of one of the new kinds of multicellular algae recently found preserved as ancient fossi...

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Scientists Reveal the Likely Cause of Rare Southeast US Earthquakes

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-foxQ3mPaHJQ/WDrK_eGcwyI/AAAAAAAAKXk/6YpzZfgvxdEWAaX46mjjr6Au17QTSEyEgCLcB/s1600/Scientists%2BReveal%2Bthe%2BLikely%2BCause%2Bof%2BRare%2BSoutheast%2BUS%2BEarthquakes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="438" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-foxQ3mPaHJQ/WDrK_eGcwyI/AAAAAAAAKXk/6YpzZfgvxdEWAaX46mjjr6Au17QTSEyEgCLcB/s640/Scientists%2BReveal%2Bthe%2BLikely%2BCause%2Bof%2BRare%2BSoutheast%2BUS%2BEarthquakes.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Researchers believe the quakes could be caused by pieces of the Earth's mantle breaking off and sinking into the planet in the affected area (shown here). They say pieces of the mantle have most likely been breaking off from underneath the plate since at least 65 million years ago. This map shows the study area in detail.</span></td></tr> </tbody></table><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Giant chunks of the Earth's mantle are falling off and causing quakes across the southeastern US - and more are coming, warn researchers</b></span></li> </ul><i>If you understand the basics of earthquakes, you wouldn’t expect to hear about any activity in the southeastern United States. Why? Because it is located within the interior of the North American Plate, far away from any plate boundaries where earthquakes usually happen.</i><br /> <br /> The southeastern United States should, by all means, be relatively quiet in terms of seismic activity. It’s located in the interior of the North American Plate, far away from plate boundaries where earthquakes usually occur. But the area has seen some notable seismic events – most recently, the 2011 magnitude-5.8 earthquake near Mineral, Virginia that shook the nation’s capital.<br /> <br /> Now scientists report in a new study a likely explanation for this unusual activity: pieces of the mantle under this region have been periodically breaking off and sinking down into the Earth. This thins and weakens the remaining plate, making it more prone to slipping that causes earthquakes. The study authors conclude this process is ongoing and likely to produce more earthquakes in the future.<br /> <div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="3957834894" data-ad-format="auto"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /> </div>“Our idea supports the view that this seismicity will continue due to unbalanced stresses in the plate,” said Berk Biryol, a seismologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lead author of the new study. “The [seismic] zones that are active will continue to be active for some time.” The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Solid Earth, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.<br /> <br /> Compared to earthquakes near plate boundaries, earthquakes in the middle of plates are not well understood and the hazards they pose are difficult to quantify. The new findings could help scientists better understand the dangers these earthquakes present.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Old plates and earthquakes</b></span><br /> <br /> Tectonic plates are composed of Earth’s crust and the uppermost portion of the mantle. Below is the asthenosphere: the warm, viscous conveyor belt of rock on which tectonic plates ride.<br /> <br /> Earthquakes typically occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where one plate dips below another, thrusts another upward, or where plate edges scrape alongside each other. Earthquakes rarely occur in the middle of plates, but they can happen when ancient faults or rifts far below the surface reactivate. These areas are relatively weak compared to the surrounding plate, and can easily slip and cause an earthquake.<br /> <br /> Today, the southeastern U.S. is more than 1,056 miles from the nearest edge of the North American Plate, which covers all of North America, Greenland and parts of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. But the region was built over the past billion years by periods of accretion, when new material is added to a plate, and rifting, when plates split apart. Biryol and colleagues suspected ancient fault lines or pieces of old plates extending deep in the mantle following episodes of accretion and rifting could be responsible for earthquakes in the area.<br /> <br /> “This region has not been active for a long time,” Biryol said. “We were intrigued by what was going on and how we can link these activities to structures in deeper parts of the Earth.”<br /> <br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A CAT scan of the Earth</span></b><br /> <br /> To find out what was happening deep below the surface, the researchers created 3D images of the mantle portion of the North American Plate. Just as doctors image internal organs by tracing the paths of x-rays through human bodies, seismologists image the interior of the Earth by tracing the paths of seismic waves created by earthquakes as they move through the ground. These waves travel faster through colder, stiffer, denser rocks and slower through warmer, more elastic rocks. Rocks cool and harden as they age, so the faster seismic waves travel, the older the rocks.<br /> <div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="3957834894" data-ad-format="auto"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /> </div>The researchers used tremors caused by earthquakes more than 2,200 miles away to create a 3D map of the mantle underlying the U.S. east of the Mississippi River and south of the Ohio River. They found plate thickness in the southeast U.S. to be fairly uneven – they saw thick areas of dense, older rock stretching downward and thin areas of less dense, younger rock.<br /> <br /> “This was an interesting finding because everybody thought that this is a stable region, and we would expect regular plate thickness,” Biryol said.<br /> <br /> At first, they thought the thick, old rocks could be remnants of ancient tectonic plates. But the shapes and locations of the thick and thin regions suggested a different explanation: through past rifting and accretion, areas of the North American Plate have become more dense and were pulled downward into the mantle through gravity. At certain times, the densest parts broke off from the plate and sank into the warm asthenosphere below. The asthenosphere, being lighter and more buoyant, surged in to fill the void created by the missing pieces of mantle, eventually cooling to become the thin, young rock in the images.<br /> <br /> The researchers concluded this process is likely what causes earthquakes in this otherwise stable region: when the pieces of the mantle break off, the plate above them becomes thinner and more prone to slip along ancient fault lines. Typically, the thicker the plate, the stronger it is, and the less likely to produce earthquakes.<br /> <br /> According to Biryol, pieces of the mantle have most likely been breaking off from underneath the plate since at least 65 million years ago. Because the researchers found fragments of hard rocks at shallow depths, this process is still ongoing and likely to continue into the future, potentially leading to more earthquakes in the region, he said.<br /> <br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://uncnews.unc.edu/2016/05/03/unc-chapel-hill-scientists-find-likely-cause-recent-southeast-u-s-earthquakes/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Material </a>provided by University of North Carolina and published in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JB012698/abstract" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Journal of Geophysical Research</a> – Solid Earth</span></i></u></div>

Scientists Reveal the Likely Cause of Rare Southeast US Earthquakes

Researchers believe the quakes could be caused by pieces of the Earth's mantle breaking off and sinking into the planet in the affecte...

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Walking Whale’ Fossil Discovered In Peru’s Ocucaje Desert

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qQX9Km99kYE/WDq_rWUxdpI/AAAAAAAAKW8/hr3ByjjzcnsgSHI4yKcVBnAfutqFZb8kACLcB/s1600/An%2Barcheologist%2Bbrushes%2Bthe%2Bfossilized%2Bjaw%2Bof%2Ba%2Bwhale%2Blying%2Bon%2Bthe%2Bdesert%2Bpavement%2Bof%2BOcucaje%252C%2B310%2Bkm%2Bsouth%2Bof%2BLima.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Walking Whale’ Fossil Discovered In Peru’s Ocucaje Desert" border="0" height="408" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qQX9Km99kYE/WDq_rWUxdpI/AAAAAAAAKW8/hr3ByjjzcnsgSHI4yKcVBnAfutqFZb8kACLcB/s640/An%2Barcheologist%2Bbrushes%2Bthe%2Bfossilized%2Bjaw%2Bof%2Ba%2Bwhale%2Blying%2Bon%2Bthe%2Bdesert%2Bpavement%2Bof%2BOcucaje%252C%2B310%2Bkm%2Bsouth%2Bof%2BLima.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Geologist brushes the fossilized jaw of a whale lying on the desert pavement of Ocucaje, 310 km south of Lima</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <h3 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paleontologists in Peru have unearthed the fossil of a 40 million-year-old “walking whale.”</span></b></span></h3> Found in the Ocucaje Desert in southern Peru, the fossils belong to a group called Achaeocetes, or ancient whales, that possess both land- and sea-dwelling characteristics. Over time, the ancient land animals adapted to water environments where their legs became fin-like and their bodies began to resemble modern sea mammals like dolphins and whales, ITN reports.<br /> <br /> “We already knew about the paleontological richness of Ocucaje dating back 10 million to 12 million years,” paleontologist Rodolfo Salas said about the find. “Now we can say that the most important primitive sea mammal deposit in South America is at Ocucaje.”<br /> <br /> The whale’s remains are the oldest ever found in South America; other whale fossils from this time period have been found in Egypt, Pakistan, India and North America, euronews reports. The skull, which resembles that of a wolf or crocodile, may help researchers understand the link between modern whales and their ancestors.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> The first whale ancestor was a hairy, four-legged omnivore that evolved into a range of amphibious species 50 million years ago, scientists say. They lost their spine and hind legs 5 million years later.<br /> <br /> This marks the second discovery of an ancient whale fossil this year. In August, on the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia, scientists excavated a 15 million-year-old whale skull measuring about six feet long, the Washington Post reports. The skeleton, believed to come from an extinct baleen whale, was a rare find.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SMZrgtkibZg/WDrBv2PknVI/AAAAAAAAKXM/GzPSPsqZcQ0J3MLLBgaLiHEiISzWMoMeQCLcB/s1600/whale%2Bfossils.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Walking Whale’ Fossil Discovered In Peru’s Ocucaje Desert" border="0" height="328" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SMZrgtkibZg/WDrBv2PknVI/AAAAAAAAKXM/GzPSPsqZcQ0J3MLLBgaLiHEiISzWMoMeQCLcB/s640/whale%2Bfossils.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the first time that such an old sea mammal has been found in South America</td></tr> </tbody></table> “To have such a large and complete specimen is pretty uncommon,” John Nance, the paleontology collections manager at the Calvert Marine Museum in Southern Maryland, said. “In a marine environment, the bones are usually scavenged and scattered all about," he said. "[With this,] the really interesting thing is we have all the postcranial material — the vertebrae, the ribs, the flipper bones. It will give us a more complete picture of what these animals looked like.”<br /> <br /> Another standout among the 15 or more ancient whale fossils that have been discovered in the Ocucaje desert was the 3.6 million-year-old remains of a minke whale. “It is a species known only in Peru, paleontologist Cesar Chacaltana told the Daily Mail about the fossil, which weighed about 1,100 pounds and measured 19 feet long. And there are more specimens to be found here, paleontologists believe. “There is probably a greater number of fossils in the sand, but it takes high-tech equipment to locate and recover them,” Chacaltana said.<br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /> <br /></div>

Walking Whale’ Fossil Discovered In Peru’s Ocucaje Desert

Geologist brushes the fossilized jaw of a whale lying on the desert pavement of Ocucaje, 310 km south of Lima Paleontologists in Per...

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Mexico's Popocatepetl spews ash miles into the air

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UadcpaCfr0k/WDlpmTrM3rI/AAAAAAAAKWk/EcwMCI_SJ2EB_9k_7umIXGbK62abfhwNQCLcB/s1600/Mexico%2527s%2BPopocatepetl%2Bspews%2Bash%2Bmiles%2Binto%2Bthe%2Bair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UadcpaCfr0k/WDlpmTrM3rI/AAAAAAAAKWk/EcwMCI_SJ2EB_9k_7umIXGbK62abfhwNQCLcB/s640/Mexico%2527s%2BPopocatepetl%2Bspews%2Bash%2Bmiles%2Binto%2Bthe%2Bair.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Popocatépetl volcano (archive photo) By CEDRIC DE ALICOQUE</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <br /> Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano surprised observers with a startling sight Friday: a massive column of ash billowing in the air.<br /><br />An explosion sent steam, gas and ash 5 km (3.1 miles) above the volcano's crater, officials said. Luis Felipe Puente, Mexico's director of civil protection, shared photos and videos on social media of the plume spreading through the sky.<br /><br />Authorities warned people to stay away from the volcano, particularly its crater. It's likely ash will fall in nearby towns, officials said. Already, ash has fallen in two municipalities in Puebla state, Felipe said.<br /><br />The volcano erupted in April, spewing smoke, ash and lava.<br /><br />Popocatépetl is one of an estimated 1,500 potentially active volcanoes.<br /><br />The volcano, which is located about 70 km (43 miles) southeast of Mexico City, had been dormant for decades until its eruption in 1994. Since then, its rumblings have become a party of daily life for are residents.<br /><br />"People in the city get afraid. The fear does not exist here," José Cortés Agustín told CNNMexico in 2013. "He (the volcano) would not hurt us. He gives us beautiful images that there's no reason to fear."<br /> <br /> <b><i>CNN</i></b></div>

Mexico's Popocatepetl spews ash miles into the air

 Popocatépetl volcano (archive photo) By CEDRIC DE ALICOQUE Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano surprised observers with a startling si...

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Subduction Zone Geometry: Mega-earthquake Risk Indicator

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kvzMu19liow/WDgsQ19dPXI/AAAAAAAAKWQ/eOZrlgWtGP4lz7VwiZ4iDziYWxkJegmjACLcB/s1600/SubductionScheme.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Subduction Zone Geometry: Mega-earthquake Risk Indicator" border="0" height="314" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kvzMu19liow/WDgsQ19dPXI/AAAAAAAAKWQ/eOZrlgWtGP4lz7VwiZ4iDziYWxkJegmjACLcB/s640/SubductionScheme.png" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Subduction zone geometry: Mega-earthquake risk indicator</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <br /> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mega-earthquakes (with a magnitude greater than 8.5) mainly occur on subduction faults where one tectonic plate passes under another. But the probability of such earthquakes does not appear to be even across these zones. </span></i><br /> <br /> In a study published in the journal Science, researchers from the University of Oregon and Géoazur laboratory (CNRS/Université Nice Sophia Antipolis/Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur/IRD) show that mega-earthquakes mostly occur on the flattest subduction zones. Thus, the Philippines, Salomon Islands and Vanuatu areas would not be favorable to mega-earthquakes, unlike South America, Indonesia and Japan. The discovery of this new indicator should improve earthquake monitoring and seismic and tsunami risk prevention.<br /> <br /> At the point where two tectonic plates converge, an area known as the subduction zone can form where one of the plates passes on top of the other. Rocks do not slide over one another easily and the movement of tectonic plates can be blocked along the entire length of such interaction zones for periods exceeding a thousand years. This 'slip deficit' results in an accumulation of energy, which is released abruptly during earthquakes.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> A theory that held sway for many years suggested that mega-earthquakes mostly occurred in subduction zones where plates converged rapidly and those where the subducting plate was relatively young. However, the mega-earthquakes of Sumatra-Andaman in 2004 and Tohoku-Oki in 2011, which generated deadly tsunamis, go against this theory: in the first case, the speed of plate movement is relatively slow (3 to 4 cm per year) and in the second, the Pacific plate that subducts under Japan is more than 120 million years old. A new question therefore arose: can all subduction zones generate mega-earthquakes?<br /> <br /> In this new study, the researchers examined another parameter: subduction zone geometry. By comparing the degree of curvature of the subducting plates in great historical earthquakes, they discovered that the maximum magnitude of earthquakes recorded in each subduction zone was inversely proportional to the degree of curvature of the fault. In other words, the flatter the contact between the two plates, the more likely it is that mega-earthquakes will occur.<br /> <br /> Earthquakes take place once the energy accumulated as a result of the slip deficit exceeds a certain threshold. The researchers showed that the greater the curvature of the subduction fault, the more this threshold varies along the subduction zone. A heterogeneous threshold produces more frequent earthquakes, but these affect a smaller spatial area and are therefore of lower magnitude. In contrast, a homogeneous rupture threshold over a large portion of a fault has a greater chance of resulting in a simultaneous rupture of the whole blocked zone and, consequently, a greater chance of generating a mega-earthquake.<br /> <br /> As a consequence, subduction zones such as the Philippines, Salomon Islands or Vanuatu do not appear likely to generate mega-earthquakes. Others, however, such as Peru, Java or Mexico, which have not seen very large earthquakes over the last 200-300 years, appear to have all the necessary characteristics for a mega-earthquake in the future.<br /> <br /> <br /> <i><u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=170311&CultureCode=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.cnrs.fr/index.php" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CNRS (Délégation Paris Michel-Ange)</a>. </span></span></u></i></div>

Subduction Zone Geometry: Mega-earthquake Risk Indicator

Subduction zone geometry: Mega-earthquake risk indicator Mega-earthquakes (with a magnitude greater than 8.5) mainly occur on subduct...

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The World's Rarest Minerals Are Finally Cataloged

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3C1OF9V6e6c/WDbiqYHHpaI/AAAAAAAAKVo/h4wH5swY5KkHoGcORMkK0Qu6uRJEV-VZgCLcB/s1600/Nevadaite-rare-mineral-1200x897.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The World's Rarest Minerals Are Finally Cataloged" border="0" height="478" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3C1OF9V6e6c/WDbiqYHHpaI/AAAAAAAAKVo/h4wH5swY5KkHoGcORMkK0Qu6uRJEV-VZgCLcB/s640/Nevadaite-rare-mineral-1200x897.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nevadaite is one of the world’s rarest minerals. It is formed from the elements vanadium and copper under very specific and extreme environmental conditions. The mineral crystals are a bright blue color but microscopic. Nevadaite is only found in two locations—Eureka County, Nevada, and a copper mine in Kyrgyzstan. (Credit: American Mineralogist)</span></i></td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <br /> Geologists have sifted through over 5,000 minerals known to date and identified a handful of the world’s rarest minerals, many times rarer than diamonds. These minerals were created in extreme instances where you had to have the perfect ratio and amount of elements in specific speciations, ideal temperature and pressure and let’s not forget time. The combination of these factors produce some out of this world minerals, many of which are more rare than the most expensive gemstones in the world.<br /> <br /> Some of the world’s rarest minerals are so small in quantity. The world supply could fit on a quarter, with the whole world’s supply being smaller than the world’s largest uncut diamond. The key defining feature to categorize an extremely rare mineral is that it is found in five or fewer sites around the globe, with many of the minerals on the list only being found in one known location on Earth.<br /> <br /> Due to the extreme environment many of these minerals were formed, some will melt at normal atmospheric conditions, evaporate entirely or decompose in sunlight. However, the clues these minerals provide scientists are indicative of extreme conditions found within the Earth’s crust. In addition, clues as to the biological history of the Earth is linked to many of these rare minerals.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3957834894" style="display: block;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> Dr. Robert Hazen from the Carnegie Institute recently published a paper in American Mineralogist outlining the nature and significance of the world’s rarest minerals. Hazen identified four key criteria that describe rare minerals.<br /> <ul style="text-align: left;"> <li>Specific and extreme temperature and pressure, often with limited ranges during mineralization.</li> <li>Presence of extremely rare elements that are not often found on Earth’s surface or outer crust.</li> <li>The presence of unusual ambient conditions, where the mineral would rapidly break down under normal ambient conditions.</li> <li>Sample bias that comes about when there is a lack of crystal faces to detect, microscopic minerals that go unnoticed, locations that are under sampled and hard to get to, etc.</li> </ul> <br /> Dr. Hazen points out that many of the gems portrayed as rare are in fact not considered mineralogically rare, often times found abundantly in many places around the world.<br /> <blockquote class="tr_bq"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“However, diamond, ruby, emerald, and other precious gems are found at numerous localities and are sold in commercial quantities, and thus are not rare in the sense used in this contribution. Uses of the word “rare” in the context of “rare earth elements” or “rare metals” are similarly misleading, as many thousands of tons of these commodities are produced annually.”</span></blockquote> Of the total 5,090 minerals cataloged, less than 100 of those minerals make up approximately 99% of the Earth’s crust, and just a few speciations of Feldspar make up about 60%. The subset of extremely rare minerals is often intertwined with biological processes or a result of biogeochemistry. <br /> <br /> One of the rarest minerals in the world is Fingerite, only known to exist near the summit of the Izalco Volcano in El Salvador. This extremely rare mineral is a specific combination of vanadium and copper that require a very narrow range of environmental conditions to form. On top of that, it’s so unstable that every time it rains, Fingertie washes away.<br /> <br /> <br /> <i><u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Published in the journal <a href="http://ammin.geoscienceworld.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">American Mineralogist</a>.</span></u></i></div>

The World's Rarest Minerals Are Finally Cataloged

Nevadaite is one of the world’s rarest minerals. It is formed from the elements vanadium and copper under very specific and extreme envir...

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New Study Finds Water Deeper in Earth Than Scientists Previously Believed

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GNlGcTJraQc/WDRFtwQvGXI/AAAAAAAAKVY/bPJ75BzUAKYHkARKqB66Rr9tUfVvYC6fQCLcB/s1600/Ringwoodite%2Bis%2Bthought%2Bto%2Bform%2Bbetween%2B410km%2Band%2B660km%2Bbeneath%2Bthe%2BEarth%2527s%2Bsurface.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="New Study Finds Water Deeper in Earth Than Scientists Previously Believed" border="0" height="494" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GNlGcTJraQc/WDRFtwQvGXI/AAAAAAAAKVY/bPJ75BzUAKYHkARKqB66Rr9tUfVvYC6fQCLcB/s640/Ringwoodite%2Bis%2Bthought%2Bto%2Bform%2Bbetween%2B410km%2Band%2B660km%2Bbeneath%2Bthe%2BEarth%2527s%2Bsurface.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ringwoodite is thought to form between 410km and 660km beneath the Earth's surface</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Targeting mysteries of deep Earth: Water deeper in planet than scientists previously believed</span></b><br /> <br /> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A mineral far below Earth's surface may hold the key to how much water is stored in the planet, a Florida State University researcher says.</span></i><br /> <br /> In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, FSU Assistant Professor of Geology Mainak Mookherjee reports that water exists far deeper in Earth than scientists previously thought.<br /> <br /> Mookherjee and Andreas Hermann from the University of Edinburgh estimate that in the deep Earth -- roughly 400 to 600 kilometers into the mantle -- water is stored and transported through a high-pressure polymorph of the mineral brucite.<br /> <br /> Previously, scientists thought brucite was not thermodynamically stable that deep in Earth. "This opens up a Pandora's Box for us," Mookherjee said.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> "We didn't think water could be stored by hydrous minerals such as brucite at these depths. But now that we know it's there, we need to figure out how much water could be effectively stored inside it."<br /> <br /> Based on high-pressure experimental studies, scientists knew minerals that transported water -- such as brucite -- had limited stability and that these minerals decomposed in the deep Earth. As they decomposed, they released the water, which is recycled back to surface via volcanic activity.<br /> <br /> But this discovery of a new high-pressure phase of brucite indicates that water could be efficiently transported to far deeper realms without decomposition.<br /> <br /> "We had to do quantum-mechanical calculations on thousands of potential structures until we found the one we now reported," Hermann said. "It really is remarkable that such a well-studied mineral as brucite has something so surprising to offer."<br /> <br /> Water plays a critical role in sustaining geological activity below Earth's surface. Scientists have been working for years to quantify the oceans' worth of water that lay hidden in the crust and mantle.<br /> <br /> "For the activity of the planet, deep Earth water is equally important to water on the surface," Mookherjee said. "My goal is to understand how much water is stored in the deep Earth. If the planet becomes dry on the inside, the planet dies because geodynamic activity within the planet ceases."<br /> <br /> Mookherjee said he and Hermann plan to follow up on this paper with additional simulations to better understand the physical properties of brucite at that depth and try to decipher the amount of water that is potentially stored in the deep Earth along the cold-subduction zones.<br /> <br /> <br /> <i><u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://news.fsu.edu/news/science-technology/2016/11/21/fsu-researcher-targeting-mysteries-deep-earth/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="https://www.fsu.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Florida State University</a>. </span></span></u></i></div>

New Study Finds Water Deeper in Earth Than Scientists Previously Believed

Ringwoodite is thought to form between 410km and 660km beneath the Earth's surface Targeting mysteries of deep Earth: Water deeper...

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Life in Earth's soils may be older than believed

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_OJ8oy_BB6E/WDGaC8pDPhI/AAAAAAAAKTo/oBuF-wBX-58RywYvehkgam6eAVGX-8nrQCLcB/s1600/Life%2Bin%2BEarth%2527s%2Bsoils%2Bmay%2Bbe%2Bolder%2Bthan%2Bbelieved.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_OJ8oy_BB6E/WDGaC8pDPhI/AAAAAAAAKTo/oBuF-wBX-58RywYvehkgam6eAVGX-8nrQCLcB/s640/Life%2Bin%2BEarth%2527s%2Bsoils%2Bmay%2Bbe%2Bolder%2Bthan%2Bbelieved.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karijini National Park, Australia. The ancient soils from Australia's Pilbara region (west of Karijini National Park) are similar to those found recently by the Mars rover Curiosity.</td></tr> </tbody></table><br /> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Way before trees or lichens evolved, soils on Earth were alive, as revealed by a close examination of microfossils in the desert of northwestern Australia, reports a team of University of Oregon researchers.</span></i><br /> <br /> These tiny fossils require a microscope to see and probably represent whole organisms. The 3,000 million-year-old Australian rocks have long been thought to be of marine origin. However, "a closer look at the dusty salt minerals of the rocks suggests they had to have experienced evaporation on land," said UO paleontologist Gregory Retallack, lead author on a study in the December issue of the international journal Gondwana Research.<br /> <br /> Other mineral and chemical tracers found in the rocks also required weathering in soils of the distant geological past, he said.<br /> <br /> "Life was not only present but thriving in soils of the early Earth about two thirds of the way back to its formation from the solar nebula," Retallack said. The origin of the solar system -- and Earth -- occurred some 4.6 billion years ago.<br /> <div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="3957834894" data-ad-format="auto"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /> </div>The study outlines a microbiome of at least five different kinds of microfossils recognized from their size, shape and isotopic compositions. The largest and most distinctive microfossils are spindle-shaped hollow structures of mold-like actinobacteria, still a mainly terrestrial group of decomposers that are responsible for the characteristic earthy smell of garden soil.<br /> <br /> Other sphere-shaped fossils are similar to purple sulfur bacteria, which photosynthesize organic compounds in the absence of oxygen while leaving abundant sulfate minerals in the soil.<br /> <br /> "With cell densities of over 1,000 per square millimeter and a diversity of producers and consumers, these microfossils represent a functioning terrestrial ecosystem, not just a few stray cells," said Retallack, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and director of paleontology collections at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History. "They are evidence that life in soils was critical to the cycles of carbon, phosphorus, sulfur and nitrogen very early in the history of the planet."<br /> <br /> The new discoveries by the UO team are potentially controversial because many scientists have long pointed to stromatolites, a life form that emerged 3.7 billion years ago, and other marine life as evidence of life that evolved in the sea and found their way into intertidal rock formations.<br /> <br /> Retallack referred to the memoir "Lab Girl" published this year by Hope Jahren, a geobiologist at the University of Hawaii, who wrote: "For several billion years, the whole of the Earth's land surface was completely barren. Even after life had richly populated the oceans, there is no clear evidence for any life on land."<br /> <br /> "The newly recognized microfossils may have supplied some evidence at last," Retallack said.<br /> <br /> The ancient soils with sulfate salts and microfossils come from the Pilbara region of Western Australia. They are superficially similar to those found recently by the Mars rover Curiosity. "They may," he said, "be useful as guides for the discovery of life on other planets."<br /> <br /> Critical to the new discoveries were advanced imaging and analyses performed with the cluster of instruments in the Center for Advanced Materials Characterization of Oregon, commonly known as CAMCOR, at the UO.<br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-study-finds-earths-soils-hosted-life-early" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="https://uoregon.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Oregon</a>.</span></i></u></div>

Life in Earth's soils may be older than believed

Karijini National Park, Australia. The ancient soils from Australia's Pilbara region (west of Karijini National Park) are similar to t...

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The World’s Most Complex Crystal Never Repeats

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KDmUVgzlcaw/WDF8RIwWg_I/AAAAAAAAKTM/1_0RpHFXTyg65fnJwjz7y2OZuCWvGOIzQCLcB/s1600/The%2Bworld%25E2%2580%2599s%2Bmost%2Bcomplex%2Bcrystal%2Bnever%2Brepeats.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The World’s Most Complex Crystal Never Repeats" border="0" height="358" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KDmUVgzlcaw/WDF8RIwWg_I/AAAAAAAAKTM/1_0RpHFXTyg65fnJwjz7y2OZuCWvGOIzQCLcB/s640/The%2Bworld%25E2%2580%2599s%2Bmost%2Bcomplex%2Bcrystal%2Bnever%2Brepeats.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A Ho-Mg-Zn icosahedral quasicrystal formed as a pentagonal dodecahedron, the dual of the icosahedron. Unlike the similar pyritohedron shape of some cubic-system crystals such as pyrite, the quasicrystal has faces that are true regular pentagons</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The most complicated crystal structure ever produced in a computer simulation is a lesson in how complexity can emerge from simple rules.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The “icosahedral quasicrystal” looks ordered to the eye, but has no repeating pattern. At the same time, it’s symmetric when rotated, similar to a soccer ball with five-fold and six-fold patches.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> Researchers say this property, called “icosahedral symmetry,” is frequently found on small scales around a single point, like in virus shells or buckyballs—molecules of 60 carbon atoms.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it is forbidden in a conventional crystal.</span></b></div> <div style="margin: 0px auto; text-align: left; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!--insidepost--><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3957834894" style="display: block;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> Like trying to tile a bathroom floor with pentagons, icosahedra do not nicely fill space, says Michael Engel, a research investigator in the chemical engineering department at University of Michigan and first author of the study that is published in Nature Materials.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> </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="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V4yKRPbhV8A/WDF9NgnhciI/AAAAAAAAKTU/Xt2T39gCoEkhKsHastVSkoE-4ooIylCigCLcB/s1600/icosahedral_quasicrystal_770.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V4yKRPbhV8A/WDF9NgnhciI/AAAAAAAAKTU/Xt2T39gCoEkhKsHastVSkoE-4ooIylCigCLcB/s400/icosahedral_quasicrystal_770.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">“If icosahedral quasicrystals could be made from nano- and micro-meter sized particles, they could be useful in a variety of applications, including communication and display technologies, and even camouflage,” says Sharon Glotzer. (Credit: Michael Engel/University of Michigan)</td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> “An icosahedral quasicrystal is nature’s way of achieving icosahedral symmetry in the bulk. This is only possible by giving up periodicity, which means order by repetition. The result is a highly complicated structure.”<h4 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Camouflage and displays?</span></h4> <div style="text-align: left;"> Icosahedral quasicrystals, commonly found in metal alloys, earned the chemist who discovered them more than 30 years ago a Nobel Prize. But engineers are still searching for efficient ways to make them with other materials.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> Due to their high symmetry under rotation, they can have a property called a “photonic band gap.” A photonic band gap occurs when the spacing between the particles is similar to that of light. Particles arranged in this way could trap and route light coming from all directions.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> “If icosahedral quasicrystals could be made from nano- and micro-meter sized particles, they could be useful in a variety of applications, including communication and display technologies, and even camouflage,” says Sharon Glotzer, professor of chemical engineering.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> While these applications are tantalizing, they’re very much speculation. The researchers say the most exciting aspect of the findings is the insight they provide into how icosahedral quasicrystals form.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> “When researchers study quasicrystals in the lab, they typically lack direct information about where the atoms are. They look at how the materials scatter light to figure that out. No one has ever gotten one with icosahedral symmetry to self-assemble thermodynamically in a computer model that’s not built by hand, and researchers have been trying for decades,” Glotzer says.</div> <h4 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Golden Ratio</span></h4> <div style="text-align: left;"> The simulation, which will allow researchers for the first time to observe how icosahedral symmetry develops, was done using only one type of particle, which is unique. Typically, two or even three atomic elements are required to achieve a quasicrystal structure.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></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="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U65QM6vh8oY/WDF9wsLk7HI/AAAAAAAAKTY/wQzvlhuCEL8Sd6JP9p0EUeuGRH365OwqgCLcB/s1600/Patterns%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bquasicrystal%2Breflect%2Bthe%2BGolden%2BRatio..jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U65QM6vh8oY/WDF9wsLk7HI/AAAAAAAAKTY/wQzvlhuCEL8Sd6JP9p0EUeuGRH365OwqgCLcB/s400/Patterns%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bquasicrystal%2Breflect%2Bthe%2BGolden%2BRatio..jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patterns in the quasicrystal reflect the Golden Ratio. The ratio was also found in the relationship of the distances of particle interactions. (Credit: Michael Engel/University of Michigan)</td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="text-align: left;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> Even though the end product shows long-range order, the particles only interacted with those up to three particle-distances away. When the researchers looked closer, they found that the Golden Ratio governed those interactions.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The Golden Ratio, which is about 1.61, is a mathematically and artistically important number that was first studied by the ancient Greeks. It’s related to the Fibonacci Sequence—the simple progression of numbers beginning with 0 and 1 in which the next number is the sum of the previous two—so 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc. It’s visible in the arrangement of petals in flowers, seeds in a pinecone, branches in trees, and spirals of nautilus shells, for example.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> “These findings help answer fundamental questions that are important in all of nature: how do you get really complex arrangements of atoms and molecules from essentially local information? This is a beautiful example of something incredibly rich in structure emerging from very simple rules,” Glotzer says.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The US Army Research Office, the Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation funded the work.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <u><b><i><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">The study was published Published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v14/n1/abs/nmat4152.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nature Materials</a>.</span></i></b></u></div> </div>

The World’s Most Complex Crystal Never Repeats

A Ho-Mg-Zn icosahedral quasicrystal formed as a pentagonal dodecahedron, the dual of the icosahedron. Unlike the similar pyritohedron sha...

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Asteroid Impacts Could Create Habitats for Life

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tTB1zgfihrY/WC7dvcrPS8I/AAAAAAAAKSs/4onOGuCRq3M7elIEuFsgVTnmYWwNAO8cwCLcB/s1600/Artist%2527s%2Breconstruction%2Bof%2BChicxulub%2Bcrater%2Bsoon%2Bafter%2Bimpact%252C%2B66%2Bmillion%2Byears%2Bago..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tTB1zgfihrY/WC7dvcrPS8I/AAAAAAAAKSs/4onOGuCRq3M7elIEuFsgVTnmYWwNAO8cwCLcB/s640/Artist%2527s%2Breconstruction%2Bof%2BChicxulub%2Bcrater%2Bsoon%2Bafter%2Bimpact%252C%2B66%2Bmillion%2Byears%2Bago..jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artist's reconstruction of Chicxulub crater soon after impact, 66 million years ago.<br /> DETLEV VAN RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE SOURCE</td></tr> </tbody></table> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Dinosaur-killing asteroid turned planet Earth inside-out</span></b><br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Scientists studying the Chicxulub crater have shown how large asteroid impacts deform rocks in a way that may produce habitats for early life.</span></i><br /> <br /> Around 65 million years ago a massive asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico causing an impact so huge that the blast and subsequent knock-on effects wiped out around 75 per cent of all life on Earth, including most of the dinosaurs. This is known as the Chicxulub impact.<br /> <br /> In April and May 2016, an international team of scientists undertook an offshore expedition and drilled into part of the Chicxulub impact crater. Their mission was to retrieve samples from the rocky inner ridges of the crater -- known as the 'peak ring' -- drilling 506 to 1335 metres below the modern day sea floor to understand more about the ancient cataclysmic event.<br /> <br /> Now, the researchers have carried out the first analysis of the core samples. They found that the impact millions of years ago deformed the peak ring rocks in such a way that it made them more porous, and less dense, than any models had previously predicted.<br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3957834894" style="display: block;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> Porous rocks provide niches for simple organisms to take hold, and there would also be nutrients available in the pores, from circulating water that would have been heated inside the Earth's crust. Early Earth was constantly bombarded by asteroids, and the team have inferred that this bombardment must have also created other rocks with similar physical properties. This may partly explain how life took hold on Earth.<br /> <br /> The study, which is published today in the journal Science, also confirmed a model for how peak rings were formed in the Chicxulub crater, and how peak rings may be formed in craters on other planetary bodies.<br /> <br /> The team's new work has confirmed that the asteroid, which created the Chicxulub crater, hit the Earth's surface with such a force that it pushed rocks, which at that time were ten kilometres beneath the surface, farther downwards and then outwards. These rocks then moved inwards again towards the impact zone and then up to the surface, before collapsing downwards and outwards again to form the peak ring. In total they moved an approximate total distance of 30 kilometres in a matter of a few minutes.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--BOiuxfHX4s/WC7bTM1EPdI/AAAAAAAAKSk/aVW8ZwgA_H8xq8J4uTl1DcfhuIyGurAGQCLcB/s1600/Asteroid%2Bimpacts%2Bcould%2Bcreate%2Bniches%2Bfor%2Bearly%2Blife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--BOiuxfHX4s/WC7bTM1EPdI/AAAAAAAAKSk/aVW8ZwgA_H8xq8J4uTl1DcfhuIyGurAGQCLcB/s640/Asteroid%2Bimpacts%2Bcould%2Bcreate%2Bniches%2Bfor%2Bearly%2Blife.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Split drill cores collected from the peak ring of Chicxulub crater. The left two cores consist of basement granite. The right two cores are impact melt rocks that were created by the heat associated with the impact.</td></tr> </tbody></table> <span id="goog_1729225863"></span><br /> Professor Joanna Morgan, lead author of the study from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, said: "It is hard to believe that the same forces that destroyed the dinosaurs may have also played a part, much earlier on in Earth's history, in providing the first refuges for early life on the planet. We are hoping that further analyses of the core samples will provide more insights into how life can exist in these subterranean environments."<br /> <br /> The next steps will see the team acquiring a suite of detailed measurements from the recovered core samples to refine their numerical simulations. Ultimately, the team are looking for evidence of modern and ancient life in the peak-ring rocks. They also want to learn more about the first sediments that were deposited on top of the peak ring, which could tell the researchers if they were deposited by a giant tsunami, and provide them with insights into how life recovered, and when life actually returned to this sterilised zone after the impact.<br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=170089&CultureCode=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.imperial.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Imperial College London</a>. </span></i></u><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <br /></div>

Asteroid Impacts Could Create Habitats for Life

Artist's reconstruction of Chicxulub crater soon after impact, 66 million years ago. DETLEV VAN RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE SOURCE Dinosaur...

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Small earthquakes could help warn of the next big quake 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="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d00ToqBNoDc/WC7WVOdNsuI/AAAAAAAAKSU/V64UG4EYyO8Asyf4DjR-HXhQZrukxqggwCLcB/s1600/Small%2Bearthquakes%2Bcould%2Bhelp%2Bwarn%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bnext%2Bbig%2Bquake%2Bin%2BAustralia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d00ToqBNoDc/WC7WVOdNsuI/AAAAAAAAKSU/V64UG4EYyO8Asyf4DjR-HXhQZrukxqggwCLcB/s640/Small%2Bearthquakes%2Bcould%2Bhelp%2Bwarn%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bnext%2Bbig%2Bquake%2Bin%2BAustralia.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Earthquake activity in our region since 1973, showing small clusters of seismically active regions near Perth, Adelaide and the east coast. Credit: Solomon Buckman, Author provided</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <b><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Small earthquakes can point to a region where larger, destructive and potentially deadly quakes may occur. </span></i></b><br /> <br /> Australians rely on government organisations to protect us from and advise us of natural dangers that are reasonably foreseeable. We expect that authorities will respond in a timely fashion if our house is threatened by bush fire.<br /> <br /> If a cyclone is looming then we expect to get several days warning, if it’s a severe thunderstorm then a few hours warning at least. But can we ever expect the same degree of forewarning for large and potentially damaging earthquakes?<br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Do all quakes matter?</b></span><br /> <br /> Earthquakes occur every day throughout Australia and most of them are so small that they’re not felt. Geoscience Australia (GA), Australia’s federal government geophysical authority, is responsible for monitoring and analysing most earthquakes that occur in Australia.<br /> <br /> The only requirement of GA is that it advise any emergency management stakeholders if a significant earthquake of magnitude 3.5 or greater occurs within Australia, and it does this quite diligently.<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>But what about the hundreds of smaller earthquakes that are occurring but go unnoticed? Are they so insignificant that they can be ignored?</span><br /> <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><br /> <!-- insidepost --><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-slot="3957834894" style="display: block;"></ins><br /> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /></div> In the decade before 2015 the GA earthquake catalogue for the region within 300km of Bundaberg lists only 13 events, ranging in magnitude from 2.0 to 4.4. Yet over that same period, for the same region, our Central Queensland Seismology Research Group (CQSRG) reported more than 160 earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 0.0 to 4.4.<br /> <br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Big quakes can kill and cause damage</span></b><br /> <br /> On February 15, 2015, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake erupted just a few kilometres north west of Mt Perry, inland from Bundaberg. This was strongly felt throughout Central Queensland, up to Mackay and down to the northern Brisbane suburbs. For comparison, the 1989 Newcastle earthquake was magnitude 5.6, and resulted in 13 deaths. The Mt Perry event may have been smaller, but it was also potentially damaging.<br /> <br /> The only reason it caused no significant damage on this occasion was possibly due to its location in remote cattle grazing country, far from any densely populated centre. Subsequent to the Mt Perry earthquake, GA deployed a seismic monitoring network of four stations, to record aftershocks. This network was in place for three weeks, and was able to capture many aftershocks to augment the organisation’s database.<br /> <br /> CQSRG also recorded a similar number during that period, but has continued monitoring up to the present time, and recorded more than 200 earthquakes down to magnitude 0.1. Comparison of the GA and CQSRG catalogues in the decade prior to the Mt Perry event suggests that low magnitude events in the immediate area were precursor indicators of the subsequent larger event.<br /> <br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Small quakes as a warning</span></b><br /> <br /> Although it is not possible from the pattern of the precursor events to accurately predict when and where a larger event may happen, there was sufficient low level activity to warrant closer monitoring and possibly to advise governments that a “watch and wait” situation was in progress.<br /> <br /> In July/August 2015, three earthquakes of magnitudes 5.4, 5.3 and 5.1 occurred out to sea, off Fraser Island. The aftershocks of these events are shown in the images above, the GA data is first followed by our CQSRG data.<br /> <br /> The events in the GA data are more closely clustered than the CQSRG data suggesting that the locational uncertainties are smaller in the GA data. But the CQSRG data shows many more low magnitude events, and even hints at a third cluster just north west of Gin Gin, between Mt Perry and Bundaberg, possibly another area to keep a watch on.<br /> <br /> <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Missing precursor warning?</span></b><br /> <br /> No precursor earthquakes were recorded in the decade prior to the three larger Fraser Island earthquakes. Why were similar low level events not recorded offshore from Fraser Island in the years leading up to August 2015, as happened for the Mt Perry events?<br /> <br /> The answer may be that the nearest earthquake monitoring station to the Fraser Island earthquakes is the CQSRG station more than 250km away, just south west of Gin Gin. At that distance it is not capable of detecting low magnitude earthquakes that may have been occurring out to sea.<br /> <br /> GA does have a monitoring station at Eidsvold, 320km from the Fraser Island earthquakes but, like the CQSRG station, this was too far away to detect low magnitude quakes. If there had been stations at Bundaberg and Maryborough, and if someone was actively monitoring, there is a possibility that precursor earthquakes may have been detected, and acted as a warning that something bigger was coming.<br /> <br /> Mt Perry and Fraser Island are not unique. The same can be said for the rest of Queensland and the rest of Australia. For example, prior to August 2016 no earthquakes are noted in the GA catalogue for the area to the east of Bowen and north of Airlie Beach.<br /> <br /> Then in August 2016, one of the largest earthquakes to be recorded on the east coast of mainland Australia erupted there. The magnitude 5.8 quake was followed by hundreds of significant aftershocks.<br /> <br /> Establishing infrastructure to monitor for low magnitude earthquakes is a costly exercise. It would require monitoring stations every 50 km or so. At a cost of A$25,000 or more per station we are talking millions of dollars of investment.<br /> <br /> But this needs to be considered against the social and economic damage bill if a big earthquake strikes near to an urbanised centre or a critical industry hub such as Gladstone for example.<br /> <br /> We can’t prevent large and damaging earthquakes from happening, but with proper monitoring of low level earthquakes we may get a better idea where they will occur in the future.<br /> <br /> Small earthquakes do count, so we do need to start counting them sooner rather than later.<br /> <br /> <u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This article was originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-earthquakes-could-help-warn-of-the-next-big-quake-in-australia-68753" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. </span></i></u></div>

Small earthquakes could help warn of the next big quake in Australia

 Earthquake activity in our region since 1973, showing small clusters of seismically active regions near Perth, Adelaide and the east coa...

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Dino-bird Fossil Had Sparkly Feathers 'To Attract Mate '

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fIuxd8MisOY/WC2TVa3dspI/AAAAAAAAKR8/t5DbFP6obCct5bDszGGI2ITXr5DcPR65gCLcB/s1600/Dino-bird%2Bfossil%2Bhad%2Bsparkly%2Bfeathers%2B%2527to%2Battract%2Bmate%2B%2527.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fIuxd8MisOY/WC2TVa3dspI/AAAAAAAAKR8/t5DbFP6obCct5bDszGGI2ITXr5DcPR65gCLcB/s640/Dino-bird%2Bfossil%2Bhad%2Bsparkly%2Bfeathers%2B%2527to%2Battract%2Bmate%2B%2527.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The fossil, Bohaiornithidae, is exceptionally well preserved</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An extinct bird that lived about 120 million years ago had iridescent feathers that it may have used to attract a mate, fossil evidence shows.</span></i></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The prehistoric bird, which was found recently in China, may have puffed up its feathers like a peacock.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The bird's feathers are "remarkably preserved", including the chemical that gave them sparkle.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The animal belongs to a group of early birds known as enantiornithines, which lived during the Age of the Dinosaurs.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> All known specimens come from rocks in Liaoning, China, which have yielded numerous fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds and pterosaurs.</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 style="text-align: left;"> "Many enantiornithine birds possessed ornate feathers," said lead researcher Dr Jennifer Peteya of the University of Akron, Ohio, US.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> "This new specimen shows that some enantiornithines also had iridescent feathers and unlike most modern birds, these flashy ornaments developed before the animal was fully grown."</div> <h4 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prehistoric plumage</span></h4> <div style="text-align: left;"> Scientists have limited knowledge of the plumage of birds from the time of the dinosaurs.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> Melanosomes can be seen in the fossil - microscopic structures that give rise to a broad range of colours in modern birds.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> They also produce iridescent effects, according to the way they reflect light.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> This is the first time evidence for iridescence has been found in enantiornithines, said Dr Stig Walsh, senior curator of vertebrate palaeobiology at National Museums Scotland.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> The colouration is used by birds today mostly for sexual selection.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> "Although this particular individual was a very young adult, its tail feathers were already long and formed a kind of streamer," said Dr Walsh, who is not connected with the research.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> "Again, this kind of extravagant feather array, like the tail feathers of peacocks, is usually used for mate attraction.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> "It seems this bird was an adolescent out on its first attempt to 'pull', so to speak."</div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <i><u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The research is published in the journal <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1475-4983" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Palaeontology.</a></span></u></i></div> </div>

Dino-bird Fossil Had Sparkly Feathers 'To Attract Mate '

The fossil, Bohaiornithidae, is exceptionally well preserved An extinct bird that lived about 120 million years ago had iridescent f...

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