February 2020

Rare Lizard Fossil Preserved in Amber

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A tiny lizard forefoot of the genus Anolis is trapped in amber that is about 15 to 20 million years old. Credit: Jonas Barthel</td></tr>
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The tiny forefoot of a lizard of the genus Anolis was trapped in amber about 15 to 20 million years ago. Every detail of this rare fossil is visible under the microscope. But the seemingly very good condition is deceptive: The bone is largely decomposed and chemically transformed, very little of the original structure remains. The results, which are now presented in the journal PLOS ONE, provide important clues as to what exactly happens during fossilization.<br />
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How do fossils stay preserved for millions of years? Rapid embedding is an important prerequisite for protecting the organisms from access by scavengers, for example. Decomposition by microorganisms can for instance be prevented by extreme aridity. In addition, the original substance is gradually replaced by minerals. The pressure from the sediment on top of the fossil ensures that the fossil is solidified. "That's the theory," says Jonas Barthel, a doctoral student at the Institute for Geosciences at the University of Bonn. "How exactly fossilization proceeds is currently the subject of intensive scientific investigation."<br />
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Amber is considered an excellent preservative. Small animals can be enclosed in a drop of tree resin that hardens over time. A team of geoscientists from the University of Bonn has now examined an unusual find from the Dominican Republic: The tiny forefoot of a lizard of the genus Anolis is enclosed in a piece of amber only about two cubic centimeters in size. Anolis species still exist today.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Vertebrate inclusions in amber are very rare</span></h4>
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The Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History has entrusted the exhibit to the paleontologists of the University of Bonn for examination. "Vertebrate inclusions in amber are very rare, the majority are insect fossils," says Barthel. </div>
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The scientists used the opportunity to investigate the fossilization of the seemingly very well preserved vertebrate fragment. Since 2018 there is a joint research project of the University of Bonn with the German Research Foundation, which contributes to the understanding of fossilization using experimental and analytical approaches. The present study was also conducted within the framework of this project.<br />
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The researchers had thin sections prepared for microscopy at the Institute for Evolutionary Biology at the University of Bonn. The claws and toes are very clearly visible in the honey-brown amber mass, almost as if the tree resin had only recently dripped onto them—yet the tiny foot is about 15 to 20 million years old.<br />
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Scans in the micro-computer tomograph of the Institute for Geosciences revealed that the forefoot was broken in two places. One of the fractures is surrounded by a slight swelling. "This is an indication that the lizard had perhaps been injured by a predator," says Barthel. The other fracture happened after the fossil was embedded—exactly at the place where a small crack runs through the amber.<br />
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The analysis of a thin section of bone tissue using Raman spectroscopy revealed the state of the bone tissue. The mineral hydroxyapatite in the bone had been transformed into fluoroapatite by the penetration of fluorine. Barthel: "This is surprising, because we assumed that the surrounding amber largely protects the fossil from environmental influences." However, the small crack may have encouraged chemical transformation by allowing mineral-rich solutions to find their way in. In addition, Raman spectroscopy shows that collagen, the bone's elastic component, had largely degraded. Despite the seemingly very good state of preservation, there was actually very little left of the original tissue structure.<br />
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"We have to expect that at least in amber from the Dominican Republic, macromolecules are no longer detectable," says the supervisor of the study, Prof. Dr. Jes Rust from the Institute for Geosciences. It was not possible to detect more complex molecules such as proteins, but final analyses are still pending. The degradation processes in this amber deposit are therefore very advanced, and there is very little left of the original substance.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Acids in tree resin attack bone</span></h4>
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Amber is normally considered an ideal preservative: Due to the tree resin, we have important insights into the insect world of millions of years. But in the lizard's bone tissue, the resin might even have accelerated the degradation processes: Acids in the tree secretion have probably attacked the apatite in the bone—similar to tooth decay.</div>
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228843" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by  <a href="https://www.uni-bonn.de/the-university" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Bonn.</a></span></i></u></div>
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Rare Lizard Fossil Preserved in Amber

A tiny lizard forefoot of the genus Anolis is trapped in amber that is about 15 to 20 million years old. Credit: Jonas Barthel The t...

Extreme Heat of Vesuvius Eruption Turned a Man's Brain to 'Glass'

Natural Disasters, Researches 6:54 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fragment of glassy black material extracted from the cranial cavity 
of a victim of the volcanic eruption at Herculaneum in the year 79. 
(Image: © The New England Journal of Medicine 2019 )</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A man who died in Herculaneum during the historic Vesuvius eruption was found with an exploded skull and glass-like brain tissue.</span><br />
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The man died alone, lying on his stomach and probably asleep, as hot ash flowed down from Mount Vesuvius. He was likely the sole victim in an otherwise empty town, abandoned by most of its residents as the volcano began spewing just uphill.<br />
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Nearly two millennia after that deadly eruption in A.D. 79, a team of Italian researchers has found that there’s more of him left than just his bones. The heat of the eruption, they said, turned the victim’s brain into glass.<br />
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Shards of solid black material found on his skull, they wrote in Thursday’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, underwent a process called vitrification: Extreme high temperatures from the volcano liquefied the man’s brain, which then cooled quickly and turned into bits of glass.<br />
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“It’s the very first time that vitrified brain remains have been found,” Pier Paolo Petrone, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Naples Federico II, said.<br />
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That may be because of the man’s lonely death.<br />
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Most of his neighbors in the ancient seaside town of Herculaneum, about 11 miles north of Pompeii, had succumbed to the volcano’s eruption on the beach. In waterfront chambers along the Gulf of Naples, hundreds of victims were buried and killed by an initial surge of fine ash, Petrone said.<br />
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The caretaker, however, was one of the few who appear to have stayed about 550 yards further inland, closer to Vesuvius. The researchers say he was killed in the volcano’s first pyroclastic surge, which made the town reach temperatures of 968 degrees Fahrenheit, but wasn’t buried until later waves of crushed volcanic rock flowed through Herculaneum.<br />
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(Most of Vesuvius’s victims in A.D. 79 had lived in the much larger city of Pompeii, where 2,000 out of 20,000 residents died by asphyxiation from the smoke and spewing ash, scientists say.)<br />
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In the 1960s, archaeologists found the man’s bones while digging through a structure belonging to the College of the Augustales, an imperial order devoted to the Roman emperor Augustus. He was thought to be 25 years old and working as a guard for the college, the only victim who died inside.<br />
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His skeleton was charred and cracked into many pieces, and decades would go by until researchers found anything more.<br />
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In October 2018, during one of Petrone’s frequent trips to the Herculaneum ruins to study the college and preserve the man’s bones, the victim’s skull grabbed his attention.<br />
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“I saw something shining inside the head,” he said, “and it was these small, glassy black fragments that were just attached inside the skull.”<br />
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Resembling obsidian stone, they were unlike anything else he had seen, even after studying dozens of other Vesuvius victims.<br />
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“This must be the brain,” he thought to himself.<br />
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Piero Pucci, a biochemist at the Center for Genetic Engineering in Naples, tested the unknown material and found the presence of fatty acids matching those found in human hair. But animals and vegetables also contain that substance, so it wasn’t enough to confirm the brain theory.<br />
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In their Thursday journal article, Petrone, Pucci and their colleagues said they could now confirm it. The fragments also contained proteins that are common in brain tissue, they wrote, and, crucially, those proteins were found only near his skull.<br />
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Solid black shards encrusted on the man’s skull contained proteins common in brain tissue, researchers found, and had undergone vitrification and transformed into glass.<br />
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Archaeologists rarely encounter preserved brain tissue, Petrone said, and when they do, the brain matter is only preserved as a soaplike substance. His team’s discovery marks the first time brains from any human or animal have been found fossilized as glass.<br />
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Petrone said the finding confirms his theory about how the extreme heat coming from Vesuvius killed people. Steam coming from their boiling blood created extreme pressure in their skulls, causing their heads to explode.<br />
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Not all scientists agree on that theory. Some think fractured skulls are a result of falling debris, and others now say that the volcano victims in Herculaneum were “baked” through longer exposure to heat, The Post’s Michael E. Ruane reported.<br />
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Petrone said he also discovered a spongy mass around the ancient caretaker’s chest bones, showing that the first surge of lava from Vesuvius was so hot that it probably burned the man’s body fat.<br />
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There may be more to uncover through the glass brains, though. In nature, the process of vitrification has only been found on vegetable remains, and it’s considered the most effective way to preserve human cells and tissues.<br />
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“It can perfectly preserve structures,” he said, “so it’s possible to imagine that we’re going to find more than just proteins.”<br />
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1909867" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="http://www.massmed.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Massachusetts Medical Society.</a></span></i></u></div>

Extreme Heat of Vesuvius Eruption Turned a Man's Brain to 'Glass'

Fragment of glassy black material extracted from the cranial cavity of a victim of the volcanic eruption at Herculaneum in the year 79. ...

Ancient Armadillo The Size Of A Car Discovered By Farmer In Argentina

Earth History, Fossils 7:51 PM

Ancient Armadillo The Size Of A Car Discovered By Farmer In Argentina

Credit: CEN The fossils of four ancient armadillos the size of cars have been discovered by a farmer in Argentina. A farmer in Argen...

Billion-year-old Seaweed is Oldest Green Plant Fossil Ever Found

Earth History, evolution 6:09 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Green seaweeds, which may have looked like this when they were alive, might be ancestors to all land plants<br />
Photo: Dinghua Yang</td></tr>
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Billion-year-old fossil seaweeds found in China could be the ancestors of all land plants. The tiny seaweeds have branching structures and disc-shaped features to fix them to rocks, making them the oldest complex plants yet discovered.<br />
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Virginia Tech paleontologists have made a remarkable discovery in China: 1 billion-year-old micro-fossils of green seaweeds that could be related to the ancestor of the earliest land plants and trees that first developed 450 million years ago.<br />
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The micro-fossil seaweeds -- a form of algae known as Proterocladus antiquus -- are barely visible to the naked eyed at 2 millimeters in length, or roughly the size of a typical flea. Professor Shuhai Xiao said the fossils are the oldest green seaweeds ever found. They were imprinted in rock taken from an area of dry land -- formerly ocean -- near the city of Dalian in the Liaoning Province of northern China. Previously, the earliest convincing fossil record of green seaweeds were found in rock dated at roughly 800 million years old.<br />
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The findings -- led by Xiao and Qing Tang, a post-doctoral researcher, both in the Department of Geosciences, part of the Virginia Tech College of Science -- are featured in the latest issue of Nature Ecology & Evolution.<br />
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"These new fossils suggest that green seaweeds were important players in the ocean long before their land-plant descendants moved and took control of dry land," Xiao said.<br />
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"The entire biosphere is largely dependent on plants and algae for food and oxygen, yet land plants did not evolve until about 450 million years ago," Xiao said. "Our study shows that green seaweeds evolved no later than 1 billion years ago, pushing back the record of green seaweeds by about 200 million years. What kind of seaweeds supplied food to the marine ecosystem?"<br />
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Shuhai said the current hypothesis is that land plants -- the trees, grasses, food crops, bushes, even kudzu -- evolved from green seaweeds, which were aquatic plants. Through geological time -- millions upon millions of years -- they moved out of the water and became adapted to and prospered on dry land, their new natural environment. "These fossils are related to the ancestors of all the modern land plants we see today."<br />
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However, Xiao added the caveat that not all geobiologists are on the same page -- that debate on the origins of green plants remains debated. "Not everyone agrees with us; some scientists think that green plants started in rivers and lakes, and then conquered the ocean and land later," added Xiao, a member of the Virginia Tech Global Change Center.<br />
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There are three main types of seaweed: brown (Phaeophyceae), green (Chlorophyta), and red (Rhodophyta), and thousands of species of each kind. Fossils of red seaweed, which are now common on ocean floors, have been dated as far back as 1.047 billion years old.<br />
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"There are some modern green seaweeds that look very similar to the fossils that we found," Xiao said. "A group of modern green seaweeds, known as siphonocladaleans, are particularly similar in shape and size to the fossils we found."<br />
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Photosynthetic plants are, of course, vital to the ecological balance of the planet because they produce organic carbon and oxygen through photosynthesis, and they provide food and the basis of shelter for untold numbers of mammals, fish, and more. Yet, going back 2 billion years, Earth had no green plants at all in oceans, Xiao said.<br />
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It was Tang who discovered the micro-fossils of the seaweeds using an electronic microscope at Virginia Tech's campus and brought it to Xiao's attention. To more easily see the fossils, mineral oil was dripped onto the fossil to create a strong contrast.<br />
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"These seaweeds display multiple branches, upright growths, and specialized cells known as akinetes that are very common in this type of fossil," he said. "Taken together, these features strongly suggest that the fossil is a green seaweed with complex multicellularity that is circa 1 billion years old. These likely represent the earliest fossil of green seaweeds. In short, our study tells us that the ubiquitous green plants we see today can be traced back to at least 1 billion years."<br />
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According to Xiao and Tang, the tiny seaweeds once lived in a shallow ocean, died, and then became "cooked" beneath a thick pile of sediment, preserving the organic shapes of the seaweeds as fossils. Many millions of years later, the sediment was then lifted up out of the ocean and became the dry land where the fossils were retrieved by Xiao and his team, which included scientists from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology in China.<br />
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/02/science-billion_year_old_seaweed.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.vt.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Virginia Tech</a>.</span></i></u></div>

Billion-year-old Seaweed is Oldest Green Plant Fossil Ever Found

Green seaweeds, which may have looked like this when they were alive, might be ancestors to all land plants Photo: Dinghua Yang Billi...

Earth Has a New Geologic Age: The Chibanian

Earth History, Geology, Researches 7:25 PM

Earth Has a New Geologic Age: The Chibanian

A photo shows the cliffside in Japan's Chiba prefecture that's part of a line of sediment that recorded the geologic history of t...

Frozen Bird Found in Siberia is 46,000 Years Old

Earth History, Fossils 5:32 PM

Frozen Bird Found in Siberia is 46,000 Years Old

This 46,000-year-old 'ice bird' was so well preserved that fossil hunters mistook it for an unfortunate creature that 'died y...

Rare And Fleeting 'Volcanoes' Have Been Erupting at Lake Michigan

USA, volcano 5:57 PM

Rare And Fleeting 'Volcanoes' Have Been Erupting at Lake Michigan

"Ice volcanoes" can be seen erupted on Sunday along the shore of Lake Michigan. (National Weather Service Grand Rapids) &#...

Chalcanthite: Facts About Chalcanthite

Mineral, Mineralogy, Minerals 8:29 PM

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Chalcanthite is a richly colored blue/green water-soluble sulfate mineral <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">CuSO<sub>4</sub>·5H<sub>2</sub>O</span>. It is commonly found in the late-stage oxidation zones of copper deposits. Due to its ready solubility, chalcanthite is more common in arid regions.<br />
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If a Chalcanthite crystal looks to good to be <b>natural</b>, it probably is, as good natural crystals are very hard to come across. Natural Chalcanthite crystals are very rare in nature.<br />
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Well-formed crystals are easily grown <b>synthetically </b>from copper sulfate solutions. This can be done by dissolving a readily available chemical salt called copper sulfate, and then letting the water evaporate.<br />
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Chalcanthite is a <b>pentahydrate </b>and the most common member of a group of similar hydrated sulfates, the chalcanthite <b>group</b>. These other sulfates are identical in chemical composition to chalcanthite, with the exception of replacement of the copper ion by either manganese as <b>jokokuite</b>, iron as <b>siderotil</b>, or magnesium as <b>pentahydrite</b>. <br />
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Its blue crystals dehydrate to an opaque greenish-white powder on exposure to <b>dry air.</b><br />
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Chalcanthite specimens must be kept away from water and moist conditions, since a chemical effect with water causes them to eventually crumble or dissolve.<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Locality </span></b><br />
In the U.S., the most prominent locality for Chalcanthite specimens is the Planet Mine, La Paz Co., Arizona. Other Arizona occurrences include Bisbee, Cochise Co.; Ajo and Tiger, Pinal Co.; Globe, Gila Co.; Morenci, Greenlee Co; and the Patagonia District, Santa Cruz Co. Also occurs in Bingham Canyon, Salt Lake Co., Utah; and Ducktown, Polk Co., Tennessee.<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Note of caution: </span></b></span>Chalcanthite is poisonous and should not be taste-tested, unless the lick is minor and it is spit out and rinsed immediately.<br />
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<b>See also:</b><br />
<a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2019/10/crystal-habits-and-forms.html" target="_blank">Crystal Habits and Forms</a><br />
<a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2018/10/chrysanthemum-stone-natural-flower-stone.html" target="_blank">Chrysanthemum Stone: Natural Flower Stone</a></div>

Chalcanthite: Facts About Chalcanthite

Beautiful Chalcanthite from Planet Mine, La Paz Co., Arizona Photo: @allans_minerals/Instagram Chalcanthite is a richly colored ...

Huge-clawed Predatory Dinosaur Discovery in Victoria

dinosaur, Earth History, Fossils 7:55 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fossilised 20 centimetre long hand claw of theropod discovered at Eric the West site on Victoria’s Otway Coast. Image credit: Stephen Poropat © Museums Victoria.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Swinburne and Museums Victoria have announced the discovery of several theropod bones, including a 20 centimetre long hand claw, from the Otway Coast of Victoria.  </span><br />
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The bones were found in the Eumeralla Formation, a geological deposit that is approximately 107 million years old.<br />
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Fossils of theropods – the group of dinosaurs that includes such famous predators as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, as well as modern birds – are relatively rare in Australia. The new Victorian specimens were discovered at a site known as ‘Eric the Red West’ on the Otway Coast between 2011 and 2017, by volunteers working on Dinosaur Dreaming team’s annual digs.<br />
<br />
These digs are held each February and are coordinated by husband and wife paleontologists, Swinburne’s Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich and Dr Thomas Rich from Museums Victoria.<br />
<br />
Previously, the Eric the Red West site had produced the skeleton of Diluvicursor pickeringi, a unique species of ornithopod dinosaur that was described and named in 2018.<br />
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The new theropod fossils were found isolated rather than as part of a skeleton. This is because they were carried some distance from where the theropods died by ancient, deep, fast-flowing rivers. These rivers snaked through the then-narrow rift valley (now Bass Strait) that opened as Australia and Tasmania separated during the Early Cretaceous period, more than 110 million years ago.<br />
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Victorian bones resemble bones from western Queensland<br />
Many of the theropod bones found at the Eric the Red West site are from a group of theropods called megaraptorids. Intriguingly, they look almost identical to those of the Australian megaraptorid theropod Australovenator wintonensis from western Queensland.<br />
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Australovenator lived around ten million years after – and thousands of kilometres further north than – the Victorian megaraptorid. This suggests that megaraptorid theropods roamed over a large part of Australia and for a long period of time.<br />
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The research on the new Victorian theropod remains was led by Swinburne’s Dr Stephen Poropat as part of a postdoctoral research fellowship in vertebrate palaeontology.<br />
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According to Dr Poropat, who has conducted research on Australian dinosaurs for several years, the presence of megaraptorid theropods in Victoria that are nearly indistinguishable from Australovenator – but older than it by around ten million years – is unusual.<br />
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“The similarities between the Victorian megaraptorid remains and Australovenator are striking,” Dr Poropat says.<br />
<br />
“If we had found these theropod bones in Queensland, we would probably have called them Australovenator wintonensis. But they’re from Victoria, which prompts the question: ‘Could one dinosaur species exist for more than ten million years, across eastern Australia?’ Maybe.”<br />
<br />
“This is important, because it tells us that Australian megaraptorid theropods weren’t entirely dependent on sauropods for food,” says Dr. Poropat.<br />
<br />
“We find megaraptorid teeth with sauropod carcasses in central Queensland all the time, but they seem to have been doing just fine in Victoria where sauropods seem to have been absent.”<br />
<br />
So were megaraptorid theropods relying on another food source in Victoria? Dr. Poropat thinks so. “Adult sauropods were many times heavier than adult megaraptorids, so attacking them would have been dangerous. What we do know is that another group of plant-eating dinosaurs—the ornithopods—were abundant in Victoria (based on bones) and in central Queensland (based on footprints).<br />
<br />
“Although ornithopods might have been ideal meals for megaraptorids in both regions, Queensland’s megaraptorids had another food choice—sauropod steaks! Whether they were fresh or on rotting carcasses, they would have been a pretty tempting item to have on the menu!”<br />
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The new theropod bones are held at Melbourne Museum. Another field trip to the Eric the Red West site is planned for November 2019. Dr. Poropat hopes that more megaraptorid bones might yet be found there.<br />
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<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://www.swinburne.edu.au/news/latest-news/2019/10/huge-clawed-predatory-dinosaur-discovery-in-victoria.php" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.swinburne.edu.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Swinburne University of Technology.</a></span></i></u></div>

Huge-clawed Predatory Dinosaur Discovery in Victoria

Fossilised 20 centimetre long hand claw of theropod discovered at Eric the West site on Victoria’s Otway Coast. Image credit: Stephen Por...

More Than 99 Carats of Arkansas Diamonds Found at Park in 2019

Diamonds, Mining 6:21 PM

More Than 99 Carats of Arkansas Diamonds Found at Park in 2019

Pat Choate, of Jacksonville, found a 3.29-carat brown diamond she named "Illusive Dream," calling it a dream come true after ma...

What is Irradiated Black Quartz, Is it Safe?

gemstones, Mineralogy 6:10 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Rocks4passion</td></tr>
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<br />
Quartz may be the<b> second most common mineral</b> on our planet’s crust, but everyone from the ancient Egyptians and Australian Aborigines to modern-day New Age practitioners believe that this crystal holds mystical or healing properties.<br />
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<b>Black quartz</b> is a <a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2016/04/major-varieties-of-quartz.html" target="_blank">variety of quartz </a>that ranges in clarity from almost complete transparency to an almost-opaque black crystal.<br />
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Like other quartz gems, it is a <b>silicon dioxide</b> crystal. The smoky colour results from free silicon formed from the silicon dioxide by natural irradiation.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Color</span></h4>
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The color of smoky quartz is caused by irradiation and traces of aluminum built into its crystal lattice. Aluminum replaces silicon to form a [AlO<sub>4</sub>]<sup>-</sup> group instead of [SiO<sub>4</sub>]. To compensate for the imbalance of charge in the lattice, small monovalent cations (H<sup>+</sup>, Li<sup>+</sup> or Na<sup>+</sup>) are built into the lattice, as well. High energy radiation transfers the extra electron from [AlO<sub>4</sub>]<sup>-</sup> to the cation, and a color center is formed. Interestingly, H+ seems to interfere with this process, and higher concentrations of built-in hydrogen inhibit the formation of color-centers. In normal geological environments this process can only take place at temperatures below 50°C, otherwise the rate of color center destruction surpasses that of color center formation. So the color of the crystals appeared long after the crystals have grown. It is estimated that it takes several million years for a crystal to assume a deep color in a granite of average composition.<br />
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True smoky quartz will lose its color when heated to about 200°C, and the color will occur again when the crystal is irradiated with x<sup>-</sup> or gamma-rays.<br />
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It's still common practice to <b>artificially </b>irradiate colorless quartz and sell it as smoky quartz.<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is irradiated smoky quartz safe?</span></h4>
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There is <b>no radiation hazard</b> associated with irradiated smoky quartz. Irradiating a crystal will cause some energy to be stored in the crystal structure, which can change the optical properties, typically observed as a change in color. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Occurrence</span></h4>
Smoky quartz is usually found in <b>intrusive igneous</b> and certain high grade metamorphic rocks, like granite and orthogneiss, as these contain traces of radioactive elements whose radiation cause the coloration.<br />
Smoky quartz from volcanic rocks is more <b>uncommon</b>, here amethyst and colorless quartz dominate.<br />
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Smoky quartz from sedimentary rocks is very <b>unusual</b>. Their content of radioactive elements is usually very low. Much of the "smoky" quartz reported from sedimentary rocks is actually not true smoky quartz, but quartz containing black or brown <a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2017/01/types-of-mineral-inclusions-with-photos.html" target="_blank"><b>inclusions</b></a>.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Varieties</span></h4>
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<b>Cairngorm:</b> Synonym if Smoky Quartz. This term is used mostly in Scotland, specifically for the deposit in the Cairngorm Mountains where it is found.<br />
<b>Morion:</b>  Morion is a very dark brown to black opaque variety. Morion is the German, Danish, Spanish and Polish synonym for smoky quartz.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Morion, a variety of smoky quartz<br />
Photo: Dario Crespi </td></tr>
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<br />
<b>See also:</b><br />
<a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2017/06/how-is-aura-rainbow-quartz-made.html" target="_blank">How Is Aura Rainbow Quartz Made?</a><br />
<a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2018/07/what-causes-pink-color-of-rose-quartz.html" target="_blank">What Causes the Pink Color of Rose Quartz?</a><br />
<br /></div>
</div>

What is Irradiated Black Quartz, Is it Safe?

Photo: Rocks4passion Quartz may be the second most common mineral on our planet’s crust, but everyone from the ancient Egyptians ...

New Research Reveals Violent Birth of Continent Zealandia

Earth History, Tectonic 8:00 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Continent Zealandia</td></tr>
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Recent seafloor drilling has revealed that the "hidden continent " of Zealandia -- a region of continental crust twice the size of India submerged beneath the southwest Pacific Ocean -- experienced dramatic elevation changes between about 50 million and 35 million years ago. New findings from this expedition, published today in Geology, propose this topographic upheaval may have been due to a widespread reactivation of ancient faults linked to formation of the western Pacific's infamous Ring of Fire.<br />
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Since the 1970s the prevailing scientific wisdom has been that Zealandia's unusually low profile is due to the thinning of its crust as it separated from Gondwana, the ancient supercontinent that included Antarctica and Australia, around 85 million years ago.<br />
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After these tectonic fireworks, says Rupert Sutherland, a geophysicist at New Zealand's Victoria University of Wellington and the paper's lead author, this model has Zealandia "doing nothing but gently cooling and subsiding."<br />
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But fossils in the drillcores collected in 2017 by International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 371 indicate that during the early Cenozoic, portions of northern Zealandia rose 1-2 kilometers while other sections subsided about the same amount before the entire continent sank another kilometer deep underwater.<br />
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The timing of these topographic transformations, say Sutherland and his co-authors, coincides with a global reorganization of tectonic plates evidenced by the bend in the Emperor-Hawaii seamount chain, the reorientation of numerous mid-ocean ridges, and the onset of subduction -- and the related volcanism and seismicity -- in a belt that still encircles much of the western Pacific.<br />
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Although subduction drives Earth's plate tectonic cycle, says Sutherland, scientists don't yet understand how it starts. The drilling expedition to Zealandia may offer new insights into this fundamental process.<br />
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"One of the amazing things about our observations," says Sutherland, "is that they reveal the early signs of the Ring of Fire were almost simultaneous throughout the western Pacific." Because this timing predates the global tectonic plate reorganization, he says, scientists need to find an explanation for how subduction began across such a broad area in such a short time.<br />
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Sutherland and his co-authors propose a new mechanism: a 'subduction rupture event,' which they argue is similar to a massive, super-slow earthquake. The researchers believe the event resurrected ancient subduction faults that had lain dormant for many millions of years.<br />
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"We don't know where or why," says Sutherland, "but something happened that locally induced movement, and when the fault started to slip, like in an earthquake the motion rapidly spread sideways onto adjacent parts of the fault system and then around the western Pacific."<br />
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But unlike an earthquake, Sutherland says, the subduction rupture event may have taken more than a million years to unfold. "Ultimately," he says, "Zealandia's sedimentary record should help us determine how and why this event happened and what the consequences were for animals, plants, and global climate."<br />
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The process has no modern analogue, according to Sutherland, and because the subduction rupture event is linked to a time of rapid, global plate tectonic change, other instances of such change in the geologic record may imply that comparable events have occurred in the past. "Geologists generally assume that understanding the present is the key to understanding the past," he says. "But at least in this instance, this may not hold."<br />
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on  <a href="https://www.geosociety.org/GSA/News/pr/2020/20-03.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.geosociety.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Geological Society of America</a>.</span></i></u></div>

New Research Reveals Violent Birth of Continent Zealandia

Continent Zealandia Recent seafloor drilling has revealed that the "hidden continent " of Zealandia -- a region of contine...

Oldest Record Of Primitive Bee With Pollen Dates Back 100 Million Years

amber, Earth History, Fossils 7:16 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">100-million-year-old Discoscapa apicula. The bee is carrying four beetle triungulins. Credit: George Poinar Jr., OSU College of Science.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fossilised insect from 100 million years ago is oldest record of primitive bee with pollen</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beetle parasites clinging to a primitive bee 100 million years ago may have caused the flight error that, while deadly for the insect, is a boon for science today.</span><br />
In a paper published online in the journal Palaeodiversity, Oregon State University’s Professor George Poinar Jr. described a new family, genus and species of pollen-collecting bee found in a piece of 99-million-year-old amber (mid-Cretaceous period) excavated from a mine in Myanmar.<br />
The female bee, which became stuck in tree resin and thus preserved in amber, has been identified by Oregon State University researcher George Poinar Jr. as a new family, genus and species.<br />
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The mid-Cretaceous fossil from Myanmar provides the first record of a primitive bee with pollen and also the first record of the beetle parasites, which continue to show up on modern bees today.<br />
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The findings, published in BioOne Complete, shed new light on the early days of bees, a key component in evolutionary history and the diversification of flowering plants.<br />
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Insect pollinators aid the reproduction of flowering plants around the globe and are also ecologically critical as promoters of biodiversity. Bees are the standard bearer because they're usually present in the greatest numbers and because they're the only pollinator group that feeds exclusively on nectar and pollen throughout their life cycle.<br />
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Bees evolved from apoid wasps, which are carnivores. Not much is known, however, about the changes wasps underwent as they made that dietary transition.<br />
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Poinar, professor emeritus in the OSU College of Science and an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn more about the biology and ecology of the distant past, classified the new find as Discoscapa apicula, in the family Discoscapidae.<br />
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The fossilized bee shares traits with modern bees—including plumose hairs, a rounded pronotal lobe, and a pair of spurs on the hind tibia—and also those of apoid wasps, such as very low-placed antennal sockets and certain wing-vein features.<br />
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"Something unique about the new family that's not found on any extant or extinct lineage of apoid wasps or bees is a bifurcated scape," Poinar said, referring to a two-segment antennae base. "The fossil record of bees is pretty vast, but most are from the last 65 million years and look a lot like modern bees. Fossils like the one in this study can tell us about the changes certain wasp lineages underwent as they became palynivores—pollen eaters."<br />
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Numerous pollen grains on Discoscapa apicula show the bee had recently been to one or more flowers.<br />
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"Additional evidence that the fossil bee had visited flowers are the 21 beetle triungulins—larvae—in the same piece of amber that were hitching a ride back to the bee's nest to dine on bee larvae and their provisions, food left by the female," Poinar said. "It is certainly possible that the large number of triungulins caused the bee to accidently fly into the resin."<br />
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<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/fossilized-insect-100-million-years-ago-oldest-record-primitive-bee-pollen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://oregonstate.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Oregon State University</a>.</span></i></u></div>

Oldest Record Of Primitive Bee With Pollen Dates Back 100 Million Years

100-million-year-old Discoscapa apicula. The bee is carrying four beetle triungulins. Credit: George Poinar Jr., OSU College of Science. ...

Biggest Turtle That Ever Lived Had 10 Foot Shell With Horns

extinction, Fossils 6:15 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The huge extinct freshwater turtle Stupendemys geographicus,  Palaeontologist Rodolfo Sanchez lies alongside a carapace of the giant turtle Stupendemys geographicus, from Urumaco, Venezuela. Photograph: University of Zurich/Edwin Cadena/PA</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Car-sized Turtle Fossils Unearthed </span></b><br />
Scientists have unearthed new fossils of one of the largest turtles that ever lived: a car-sized reptile which prowled the lakes and rivers of what is now northern South America from about 13m years ago to 7m years ago.<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
The tropical region of South America is one of the world's hot spots when it comes to animal diversity. The region's extinct fauna is unique, as documented by fossils of giant rodents and crocodylians -including crocodiles, alligators, caimans and gavials -- that inhabited what is today a desert area in Venezuela. Five to ten million years ago, this was a humid swampy region teeming with life. One of its inhabitants was Stupendemys geographicus, a turtle species first described in the mid-1970s.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Giant turtle 100 times heavier than its closest relative</span></h4>
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Researchers of the University of Zurich (UZH) and fellow researchers from Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil have now reported exceptional specimens of the extinct turtle recently found in new locations across Venezuela and Colombia. </div>
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"The carapace of some Stupendemys individuals reached almost three meters, making it one of the largest, if not the largest turtle that ever existed," says Marcelo Sánchez, director of the Paleontological Institute and Museum of UZH and head of the study. The turtle had an estimated body mass of 1,145 kg -- almost one hundred times that of its closest living relative, the big-headed Amazon river turtle.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Males carried horns on their carapace</span></h4>
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In some individuals, the complete carapace showed a peculiar and unexpected feature: horns. "The two shell types indicate that two sexes of Stupendemys existed -- males with horned shells, and females with hornless shells," concludes Sánchez. According to the paleobiologist, this is the first time that sexual dimorphism in the form of horned shells has been reported for any of the side-necked turtles, one of the two major groups of turtles world-wide.<br />
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Despite its tremendous size, the turtle had natural enemies. In many areas, the occurrence of Stupendemys coincides with Purussaurus, the largest caimans. This was most likely a predator of the giant turtle, given not only its size and dietary preferences, but also as inferred by bite marks and punctured bones in fossil carapaces of Stupendemys.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Turtle phylogeny thoroughly revised</span></h4>
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Since the scientists also discovered jaws and other skeleton parts of Stupendemys, they were able to thoroughly revise the evolutionary relationships of this species within the turtle tree of life. "Based on studies of the turtle anatomy, we now know that some living turtles from the Amazon region are the closest living relatives," says Sánchez. Furthermore, the new discoveries and the investigation of existing fossils from Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela indicate a much wider geographic distribution of Stupendemys than previously assumed. The animal lived across the whole of the northern part of South America.</div>
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<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://www.media.uzh.ch/en/Press-Releases/2020/Giant-Turtle.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.uzh.ch/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Zurich</a>.</span></i></u></div>
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