Mineral Often Found on Mars Discovered Deep in Antarctic Ice

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jTxomgXAAK8/YBWISAkDwgI/AAAAAAAAS0w/-z4l4Kp4XOUY_9E-YHd4MKiterppLfIxwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1220/Jarosite-114913%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="1220" height="616" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jTxomgXAAK8/YBWISAkDwgI/AAAAAAAAS0w/-z4l4Kp4XOUY_9E-YHd4MKiterppLfIxwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h616/Jarosite-114913%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Martian mineral, rare on Earth, found locked in Antarctic ice" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jarosite crystal. photo by: Christian Rewitzer<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Martian mineral, rare on Earth, found locked in Antarctic ice </span><br /></p><p>Scientists boring more than a mile deep into Antarctic ice have unearthed a mineral that's rarely seen on Earth but found in abundance on Mars, Science Magazine reported.<br /><br />An international team of researchers has found evidence of the mineral jarosite in ice cores extracted from Antarctica. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers describe how the discovery came about and why they believe it could bolster theories regarding the presence of the same mineral on the surface of Mars.<br /><br />Jarosite is very rarely found on Earth—it is generally seen in mining waste that has been exposed to air and rain. The researchers with this new effort were not looking for it in their ice cores—they were focused on minerals in deep ice cores that might help to better understand ice age cycles. But when they came across the yellow-brown mineral, their interest was piqued. X-ray absorption testing and electron microscopy showed it be jarosite.<br /><br />The researchers suggest the mineral formed in ice pockets that also held small amounts of dust. Under the ice, they had eroded, the researchers noted. The finding brought to mind another site where jarosite is found—the surface of Mars. </p><p>It was found there by the Opportunity rover back in 2004 and has been found to be abundant. Finding jarosite on Mars created a lot of excitement at NASA and around the world, because prior research had shown that water must be present for jarosite formation.<br /><br />The discovery of jarosite on Mars led scientists to come up with theories to explain how it might have originated. Some suggested it might have been left behind as salty water evaporated. Others suggested that Mars might have been covered by a massive ice blanket billons of years ago. They further suggested that jarosite could have formed in ice pockets. </p><p>That would have been possible, they noted, if the ice blanket grew slowly with dust blowing onto it. At the time the theory was formulated, it was difficult to test because it had never been found to form that way anywhere else, including Earth.<br /><br />Now that jarosite has been found deep in Antarctic ice, the latter theory will likely become the most prominent. The researchers note that the theory still has one glitch—the ice in Antarctica contains very small amounts of jarosite—on Mars, the mineral is found in large slabs. The researchers suggest that the difference might be explained by the huge amounts of dust on the Martian surface.</p><p> </p><p><u><i>The study was published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20705-z" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nature Communications.</a></i></u><br /></p>

Mineral Often Found on Mars Discovered Deep in Antarctic Ice

Jarosite crystal. photo by: Christian Rewitzer   Martian mineral, rare on Earth, found locked in Antarctic ice Scientists boring more than a...

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The Atlantic Ocean Is Getting Wider Every Year

<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tTf6GPy364Q/YBQ55_ArnXI/AAAAAAAAS0k/Z1cSk2mlvzM0EQ2-PUDWr8SPxLNhRa4owCLcBGAsYHQ/s1206/The%2BAtlantic%2BOcean%2BIs%2BGetting%2BWider%2BEvery%2BYear.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Atlantic Ocean Is Getting Wider Every Year" border="0" data-original-height="973" data-original-width="1206" height="516" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tTf6GPy364Q/YBQ55_ArnXI/AAAAAAAAS0k/Z1cSk2mlvzM0EQ2-PUDWr8SPxLNhRa4owCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h516/The%2BAtlantic%2BOcean%2BIs%2BGetting%2BWider%2BEvery%2BYear.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> The Atlantic Ocean Is Getting Wider Every Year, Pushing the Americas Away From Europe and Africa</span></p><p>An upsurge of matter from deep beneath the Earth's crust could be pushing the continents of North and South America further apart from Europe and Africa, new research has found.<br /><br />The plates attached to the Americas are moving apart from those attached to Europe and Africa by four centimetres per year. In between these continents lies the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a site where new plates are formed and a dividing line between plates moving to the west and those moving to the east; beneath this ridge, material rises to replace the space left by the plates as they move apart.<br /><br />Conventional wisdom is that this process is normally driven by distant gravity forces as denser parts of the plates sink back into the Earth. However, the driving force behind the separation of the Atlantic plates has remained a mystery because the Atlantic ocean is not surrounded by dense, sinking plates.<br /><br />Now a team of seismologists, led by the University of Southampton, have found evidence of an upwelling in the mantle -- the material between the Earth's crust and its core -- from depths of more than 600 kilometres beneath the Mid Atlantic ridge, which could be pushing the plates from below, causing the continents to move further apart.<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <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> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />Upwellings beneath ridges are typically thought to originate from much shallower depths of around 60 km.<br /><br />The findings, published in the journal Nature provide a greater understanding of plate tectonics which causes many natural disasters around the world, including earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.<br /><br />Over two research cruises on the RV Langseth and RRV Discovery, the team deployed 39 seismometers at the bottom of the Atlantic as part of the PI-LAB (Passive Imaging of the Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary) experiment and EURO-LAB (Experiment to Unearth the Rheological Oceanic Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary). The data provides the first large scale and high-resolution imaging of the mantle beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.<br /><br />This is one of only a few experiments of this scale ever conducted in the oceans and allowed the team to image variations in the structure of the Earth's mantle near depths of 410 km and 660 km -- depths that are associated with abrupt changes in mineral phases. The observed signal was indicative of a deep, sluggish and unexpected upwelling from the deeper mantle.<br /><br />Lead author, Matthew Agius, a former post-doctoral fellow at the University of Southampton and currently at Università degli studi Roma Tre said: "This was a memorable mission that took us a total of 10 weeks at sea in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The incredible results shed new light in our understanding of how the Earth interior is connected with plate tectonics, with observations not seen before."<br /><br />Dr Kate Rychert and Dr Nick Harmon from the University of Southampton and Professor Mike Kendall from the University of Oxford led the experiment and were the chief scientists on the cruises. The experiment was funded by NERC (Natural Environment Research Council, UK) and the ERC (European Research Council).<br /><br />Dr Harmon said: "There is a growing distance between North America and Europe, and it is not driven by political or philosophical differences -- it is caused by mantle convection!"<br /><br />As well as helping scientists to develop better models and warning systems for natural disasters, plate tectonics also has an impact on sea levels, and therefore affects climate change estimates over geologic times scales.<br /><br />Dr Rychert said: "This was completely unexpected. It has broad implications for our understanding of Earth's evolution and habitability. It also demonstrates how crucial it is to gather new data from the oceans. There is so much more to explore!"<br /><br />Professor Mike Kendall added: "This work is exciting and that it refutes long held assumptions that mid-ocean ridges might play a passive role in plate tectonics. It suggests that in places such as the Mid-Atlantic, forces at the ridge play an important role in driving newly-formed plates apart."<p></p><p> </p><p><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> The above story is based on <a href="https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2021/01/atlantic-plate-tectonics.page" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span></span>provided by<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span></span><a href="http://www.southampton.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><b style="border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;">University of Southampton</b></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">.</span></span></i></u></p>

The Atlantic Ocean Is Getting Wider Every Year

   The Atlantic Ocean Is Getting Wider Every Year, Pushing the Americas Away From Europe and Africa An upsurge of matter from deep beneath t...

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Study Shows What Earth's Future Supercontinent Will Look Like

<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ugCCw7jR9QM/YA7x1_qs5EI/AAAAAAAASz0/Cc0NFzEcazE-GQBXDjbwp39WJDKfhhdYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/Future%2BSupercontinents%2BMight%2BBe%2BLike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="1200" height="314" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ugCCw7jR9QM/YA7x1_qs5EI/AAAAAAAASz0/Cc0NFzEcazE-GQBXDjbwp39WJDKfhhdYQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h314/Future%2BSupercontinents%2BMight%2BBe%2BLike.jpg" title="Future Supercontinents Might Be Like" width="640" /></a></div>   <br /><p></p><p>Some 200 million years ago, the supercontinent of Pangea split apart and created the continents we see on Earth today, separated by vast oceans. It’s easy to think these mighty landmasses are here to stay, but it looks like another supercontinent could grace our planet in the future.  <br /></p><p>Long ago, all the continents were crammed together into one large land mass called Pangea. Pangea broke apart about 200 million years ago, its pieces drifting away on the tectonic plates — but not permanently. The continents will reunite again in the deep future. And a new study, which will be presented December 8 during an online poster session at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union, suggests that the future arrangement of this supercontinent could dramatically impact the habitability and climate stability of Earth. The findings also have implications for searching for life on other planets.<br /><br />The study, which has been submitted for publication, is the first to model the climate on a supercontinent in the deep future.<br /><br />Scientists aren’t exactly sure what the next supercontinent will look like or where it will be located. One possibility is that, 200 million years from now, all the continents except Antarctica could join together around the north pole, forming the supercontinent “Amasia.” Another possibility is that “Aurica” could form from all the continents coming together around the equator in about 250 million years.<br /><br />In the new study, researchers used a 3D global climate model to simulate how these two land mass arrangements would affect the global climate system. The research was led by Michael Way, a physicist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, an affiliate of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.<br /><br />The team found that, by changing atmospheric and ocean circulation, Amasia and Aurica would have profoundly different effects on the climate. The planet could end up being 3 degrees Celsius warmer if the continents all converge around the equator in the Aurica scenario.<br /><br />In the Amasia scenario, with the land amassed around both poles, the lack of land in between disrupts the ocean conveyor belt that currently carries heat from the equator to the poles. As a result, the poles would be colder and covered in ice all year long. And all of that ice would reflect heat out into space.<br /><br />With Amasia, “you get a lot more snowfall,” explained Way. “You get ice sheets, and you get this very effective ice-albedo feedback, which tends to lower the temperature of the planet.”<br /><br />In addition to cooler temperatures, Way suggested that sea level would probably be lower in the Amasia scenario, with more water tied up in the ice caps, and that the snowy conditions could mean that there wouldn’t be much land available for growing crops.<br /><br />Aurica, by contrast, would probably be a bit beachier, he said. The land concentrated closer to the equator would absorb the stronger sunlight there, and there would be no polar ice caps to reflect heat out of Earth’s atmosphere — hence the higher global temperature.<br />    </p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yE6tc4FQH_k/YA7wdGMqDoI/AAAAAAAASzo/8zw-p5Xj4788ovNKPD9XImnkUQSFNvy4wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1029/aurica-amasia%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="771" data-original-width="1029" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yE6tc4FQH_k/YA7wdGMqDoI/AAAAAAAASzo/8zw-p5Xj4788ovNKPD9XImnkUQSFNvy4wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/aurica-amasia%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How land could be distributed in the Aurica supercontinent (top) versus Amasia. The future land configurations are shown in gray, with modern-day outlines of the continents for comparison. Credit: Way et al.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br />Although Way likens Aurica’s shores to the paradisiacal beaches of Brazil, “the inland would probably be quite dry,” he warned. Whether or not much of the land would be farmable would depend on the distribution of lakes and what types of precipitation patterns it experiences — details that the current paper doesn’t delve into, but could be investigated in the future.<br /><br />The simulations showed that temperatures were right for liquid water to exist on about 60% of Amasia’s land, as opposed to 99.8% of Aurica’s — a finding that could inform the search for life on other planets. One of the main factors that astronomers look for when scoping out potentially habitable worlds is whether or not liquid water could survive on the planet’s surface. When modeling these other worlds, they tend to simulate planets that are either completely covered in oceans, or else whose terrain looks like that of modern-day Earth. The new study, however, shows that it’s important to consider land mass arrangements while estimating whether temperatures fall in the ‘habitable’ zone between freezing and boiling.<br /><br />Although it may be 10 or more years before scientists can ascertain the actual land and sea distribution on planets in other star systems, the researchers hope that having a larger library of land and sea arrangements for climate modeling could prove useful in estimating the potential habitability of neighboring worlds.<br /><br />Hannah Davies and Joao Duarte from the University of Lisbon, and Mattias Green from Bangor University in Wales were co-authors on this research.<br /><br /></p><p>The above story is based on <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/12/01/climate-supercontinent-deep-future/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.columbia.edu/content/copyright" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Columbia University</a>.<br /></p>

Study Shows What Earth's Future Supercontinent Will Look Like

   Some 200 million years ago, the supercontinent of Pangea split apart and created the continents we see on Earth today, separated by vast ...

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Gemologist Discovers Rock That Looks Like Cookie Monster

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XCPfOIHXciw/YBGLqrxym1I/AAAAAAAAS0A/629TTh2-R4A7XDEc2_koBJI8zk0MwthSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1261/Gemologist%2BDiscovers%2BRock%2BThat%2BLooks%2BLike%2BCookie%2BMonster%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Gemologist Discovers Rock That Looks Like Cookie Monster" border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="1261" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XCPfOIHXciw/YBGLqrxym1I/AAAAAAAAS0A/629TTh2-R4A7XDEc2_koBJI8zk0MwthSwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/Gemologist%2BDiscovers%2BRock%2BThat%2BLooks%2BLike%2BCookie%2BMonster%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Gemologist Discovers Rock That Looks Like Cookie Monster" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gemologist Discovers Rock That Looks Like Cookie Monster. Dead ringer for Cookie Monster? (Image credit: Kennedy News & Media)</td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><p></p><p>You never know what you're going to get when you crack open a geode-like rock called an agate, but a new specimen is even more surprising than usual: It looks just like Cookie Monster. <br /><br />The agate, found in Soledade, a precious stone hotspot in southern Brazil, is a dead ringer for the blue, googly-eyed Sesame Street Muppet. After its owner, California mineral collector Mike Bowers, posted about the agate on Facebook, it went viral, with write-ups in newspapers from Australia to Israel to the United States. <br /><br />"I didn't realize that Cookie Monster was so well known and part of the world cultural heritage!" Bowers told Live Science. He's since been contacted by the actor who plays Cookie Monster on "Sesame Street," he said.</p><p><br /><b><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2020/01/this-is-rock-not-slice-of-cheesecake.html" target="_blank">See: This is a Rock, Not a Slice of Cheesecake</a></b></p><p><b>  </b><br />The agate came to Bowers in November via Brazilian gemologist Lucas Fassari, who had acquired it in a batch of many agates from Soledade. Bowers immediately purchased the Cookie Monster agate, but didn't post it online until Jan. 16, as he was ill with COVID-19. <br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <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> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br /><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2016/08/types-of-agate-with-photos.html" target="_blank">Agates </a>are a form of quartz, the crystalline form of silicon dioxide, that develop within cavities in volcanic rocks. The cavities are formed by gas bubbles in hot lava. Over time, as the lava cools, water infused with silicon dioxide percolates through the cavities. As the water evaporates, the silicon dioxide is left behind on the cavity walls, creating colorful layers of crystals. The colors are caused by chemical impurities in the silicon dioxide and by the spacing of the crystals.<br /><br />Some agates completely fill their volcanic voids, but many leave small spaces inside, lined with sparkly, inward-facing quartz crystals. In the case of the Cookie Monster agate, these voids just happen to look like a pair of Muppet eyes and an enthusiastically grinning mouth. <br /><br />"It is somewhat uncommon to find a face shape in <a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2016/08/types-of-agate-with-photos.html" target="_blank">agates</a>, but in many instances it's like looking at the clouds. You kind of see a face," Bowers said. "What makes the Cookie Monster unique is there is just no doubt: Clear-cut, it is Cookie Monster, no explanation required." <br /><br />Another unique feature of the Cookie Monster agate is that the face appears on both sides of the cut stone, Bowers added. Usually the voids are not lined up so neatly as to create a mirror image. <br /><br />For now, Bowers said, he plans to keep the stone. It may eventually end up in a museum or in the hands of a high-end collector, he said. <br /><br />"It is totally unique and awesome to see everyone loving this stone as much as we do," he said. <br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2016/10/funny-weird-agate-specimens-you-should.html" target="_blank">See also: Funny Weird Agate Specimens You Should See</a></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2020/05/thunderegg-ordinary-rocks-with-crystal.html" target="_blank">Thunderegg: Ordinary Rocks With Crystal Surprise Inside! </a><br /><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b> </b></span><br /></p>

Gemologist Discovers Rock That Looks Like Cookie Monster

Gemologist Discovers Rock That Looks Like Cookie Monster. Dead ringer for Cookie Monster? (Image credit: Kennedy News & Media)   You nev...

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Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be the World's Largest Land Animal Ever

<p></p> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KnFldcd8jFA/YBGVK2bS0MI/AAAAAAAAS0U/YQM10354sqg-yLIrTsJ97hY3AvFjajQoACLcBGAsYHQ/s1384/Dinosaur%2BUnearthed%2BIn%2BArgentina%2BCould%2BBe%2BThe%2BWorld%2527s%2BLargest%2BLand%2BAnimal%2BEver%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be the World's Largest Land Animal Ever" border="0" data-original-height="1384" data-original-width="1217" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KnFldcd8jFA/YBGVK2bS0MI/AAAAAAAAS0U/YQM10354sqg-yLIrTsJ97hY3AvFjajQoACLcBGAsYHQ/w562-h640/Dinosaur%2BUnearthed%2BIn%2BArgentina%2BCould%2BBe%2BThe%2BWorld%2527s%2BLargest%2BLand%2BAnimal%2BEver%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be the World's Largest Land Animal Ever" width="562" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be the World's Largest Land Animal Ever. Paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of a 98 million-year-old titanosaur in Neuquén Province in Argentina's northwest Patagonia.<br />Jose Luis Carballido/CTyS-UNLaM Science Outreach Agency<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Experts have uncovered the remains of a gigantic dinosaur in Argentina, and believe it could be one of the largest creatures to have ever walked the Earth.<br /><br />A team of researchers with Naturales y Museo, Universidad de Zaragoza and Universidad Nacional del Comahue has found evidence that suggests the remains of a dinosaur discovered in Argentina in 2012 may represent a creature that was the largest ever to walk the Earth. In their paper published in the journal Cretaceous Research, the group describes the fossilized remains that have been found so far and what they have revealed.<br /><br />The largest creature ever to live is believed to be the blue whale—the largest of which grow to 33.6 meters long. The biggest land creatures are believed to have been the dinosaurs—of them, the titanosaur (as their name suggests) is believed to be the largest. And of those, Argentinosaurus represents the largest that left enough evidence for it to be classified the heaviest—at approximately 36.5 meters in length and weighing in at a hundred tons, it would have dwarfed today's land animals by a considerable amount. </p><p></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <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> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div> <br /><p></p><p>Researchers studying Patagotitan fossils (another titanosaur found in Patagonia) have suggested some of them might have broken the record for the largest, but there was insufficient fossil evidence to prove it. In either case, the researchers studying the new remains have begun to believe that they have found an even bigger titanosaur.<br /><br />Thus far, the dinosaur has been dated back to 98 million years ago (putting it in the Late Jurassic to the early Cretaceous). The fossils found include 24 vertebrae, all belonging to a giant tail, parts of a pelvis and a pectoral girdle. </p><p>The huge size of each suggests the dinosaur was a very large titanosaur—one that might be bigger than Argentinosaurus. That claim cannot be confirmed, however, until leg bones are found. Their size will allow the researchers to make estimates of the animals' body weight.<br /><br />Titanosaurs belong to the sauropod family, which means they were herbivores, had massive bodies and long necks and tails. Such dinosaurs would have had few worries from meat-eating enemies if they managed to grow to full size. </p><p>Their fossils have been found on all continents except Antarctica. The researchers conclude by noting that more digging in the area will likely reveal more fossils from the same dinosaur and perhaps evidence of its true size.<br /><br />Patagotitans may have been the world's largest terrestrial animal of all time, and weighed up to 77 tons, while Argentinosaurus were similarly gargantuan, and measured up to 40 meters (131 feet) and weighed up to 110 tons -- weighing more than 12 times more than an African elephant (up to 9 tons).<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p>Experts believe that the specimen strongly suggests the co-existence of larger titanosaurs together with medium-sized titanosaurs and small-sized rebbachisaurids at the beginning of the Late Cretaceous period, which began 101 million years ago.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>"These size differences could indeed explain the existence of such sauropod diversity in the Neuquén Basin during the Late Cretaceous in terms of niche partitioning," they wrote.<br />Researchers said that, while they don't believe the creature to belong to a new species, they have so far been unable to assign it to a known genus of dinosaur.<br /><br />The research was conducted by Argentina's The Zapala Museum, Museo de La Plata, Museo Egidio Feruglio and the universities of Río Negro and Zaragoza.</p><p> <br /><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://www.conicet.gov.ar/cientificos-del-conicet-hallan-un-gigantesco-dinosaurio-cuello-largo-en-neuquen/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar/">The Zapala Museum</a>.</u></i><br /></p>

Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be the World's Largest Land Animal Ever

  Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be the World's Largest Land Animal Ever. Paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of a...

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Why Is Wave Rock Shaped Like a Wave?

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-htcl0Pzp__8/YAr4FexmeZI/AAAAAAAASzE/n8v9N441-_gml7tKrTCGaDNEU_F8QHPvwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1408/Why%2BIs%2BWave%2BRock%2BShaped%2BLike%2Ba%2BWave%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Why Is Wave Rock Shaped Like a Wave?" border="0" data-original-height="1070" data-original-width="1408" height="486" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-htcl0Pzp__8/YAr4FexmeZI/AAAAAAAASzE/n8v9N441-_gml7tKrTCGaDNEU_F8QHPvwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h486/Why%2BIs%2BWave%2BRock%2BShaped%2BLike%2Ba%2BWave%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Why Is Wave Rock Shaped Like a Wave?" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Why Is Wave Rock Shaped Like a Wave. Wave Rock Western Australia</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">It's all about erosion—but not as we know it.<br /><br />The story of Wave Rock begins millions of years ago, as rock met water—but probably not in the way you'd expect.<br /><br />"Wave Rock is an upstanding part of a huge ancient crustal mass called the Yilgarn Craton," says David Newsome, Professor of Geotourism at Murdoch University.<br /><br />You've probably seen the Yilgarn Craton before and haven't realized it. It's the enormous chunk of the planet's crust that makes up most of southwestern Australia.<br /><br />That rock has been around for a long, long time. Although it's stable, it's not indestructible—and that's the key to Wave Rock's mysterious shape.<br /><br />"It's just the vast expanse of time, where there's been no subsequent mountain building, no volcanism, no earthquakes, no uplift. The land that once covered Wave Rock was just gradually worn away," says David.<br /><br />"At the end of the day, this particularly hard piece of rock then ends up as an upstanding piece in the landscape."<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <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> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />Beneath the fields of eroded bits and pieces, the remaining rock was weathered into domes beneath the ground. Erosion, over a vast expanse of time, exposed the granite domes to the surface, and the structure we now call Wave Rock began to form.<br /><br />Straight off the top of my dome<br /><br />Because of its shape, it's easy to assume that wave rock formed because of flowing water or blowing wind—but that doesn't seem to be the case.<br /><br />For starters, there's not enough wind or flowing water in the area to cause that much erosion, even over millions of years.<br /><br />But the biggest clue is that, according to geologists, the landform's wave shape continues below the current ground level, for at least a meter, without flattening out. There's only one conclusion that makes sense:<br /><br />"It was born underground," says David. "The granite formed deep under the ground and was then revealed. Post formation, the landscape has been eroded back, exposing the magnificent rock itself."<br /><br />So how does a spectacular shape like that form?<br /><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Eroding me softly</h4><p style="text-align: left;">It turns out water doesn't have to be moving to eat away solid granite. Just sitting around and dissolving the minerals that hold it together, over millions of years, is enough.<br /><br />"At that particular site, there was a fracture under the ground that weakened the rock," says David. "That rock is covered in soil and unconsolidated material called regolith."<br /><br />That soil hangs on to water, just like the soil around a pot plant.<br /><br />"Under the ground, there was all this weathering going on, because the water was slowly but surely breaking down the rocks. The fracture was a weak zone, so it sort of worked faster there than it did anywhere else," says David.<br /><br />And just like your houseplant, it dries out at the top first. The bottom layer stays wetter for longer.<br /><br />"So it starts to eat into the side of the main dome over time," says David.<br /><br />With this theory, over millennia, the bottom dissolves more than the top. Peel the sandy covering away, and you're left with … well, this:<br /><br />New wave<br /><br />According to David, appreciating geology is like appreciating wine or fine art.<br /><br />"Wave Rock has something to offer all of us because it has these secrets that just need to be brought out."<br /><br />Standing at the base, it is undeniably cool to know that Wave Rock emerged fully formed from the Earth, like some kind of Greek God on an epic journey.<br /><br />"When you know the granite that makes up Wave Rock is 2.7 billion years old—that is a pretty profound concept," agrees David.<br /><br />This knowledge can also help us understand some of the stuff we can't see, happening beneath our feet.<br /><br />A quick walk around the rock reveals that there's still a lot of sand out there—and there's plenty more rock left in this patch of the Yilgarn Craton. That means it's possible—likely even—that, as you visit, more Wave Rocks are forming right under your feet.<br /><br />Just like the first one, these new waves will take millions of years to form, so we should appreciate the one we've got.<br /><br />"It's important that it's not defaced, doesn't have stuff hammered into it or people riding bikes over it and climbing on it and stuff like that.<br /><br />"Wave Rock … its key asset is its wildness, what it represents as a natural feature," says David. "Deep within us, there's something there that gives us recognition that we evolved in nature."<br /><br />"And I'm of the opinion that, in the future, we're going to be yearning for that wildness more than ever." </p><p><br /></p><p><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://particle.scitech.org.au/earth/why-is-wave-rock-shaped-like-a-wave/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://particle.scitech.org.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Particle</a>.</u></i><br /></p>

Why Is Wave Rock Shaped Like a Wave?

Why Is Wave Rock Shaped Like a Wave. Wave Rock Western Australia It's all about erosion—but not as we know it. The story of Wave Rock be...

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Tiny, Mineral Grains Could Explain a Fundamental Tectonic Force

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RqEUzIRWb1I/YAmtBPw1oZI/AAAAAAAASyo/SNfRqcVvayEUvRQQAlsMXTKMhi4XFG3FACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Tiny%252C%2BMineral%2BGrains%2BCould%2BExplain%2Ba%2BFundamental%2BTectonic%2BForce.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="1280" height="356" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RqEUzIRWb1I/YAmtBPw1oZI/AAAAAAAASyo/SNfRqcVvayEUvRQQAlsMXTKMhi4XFG3FACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h356/Tiny%252C%2BMineral%2BGrains%2BCould%2BExplain%2Ba%2BFundamental%2BTectonic%2BForce.jpg" title="Mylonite from near Røragen, Norway" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mylonite from near Røragen, Norway. Photo: Mikenorton<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><p></p><p>Subduction happens when one tectonic plate slides under another plate and then sinks into the Earth’s mantle. Its role in geological and measures is huge: It is the main engine for tectonic motion. It builds mountains, triggers quakes, structures volcanoes, and drives the geologic carbon cycle.<br /><br />Yet, scientists have been uncertain about what initiates <b>subduction</b>. <br /><br />A new study suggests that tiny, mineral grains — squeezed and mixed over millions of years — set in motion the chain of events that plunge massive tectonic plates deep into the Earth’s interior.<br /><br />The theory, proposed by Yale scientists David Bercovici and Elvira Mulyukova, may provide an origin story for subduction, one of the most fundamental forces responsible for the dynamic nature of the planet.<br /><br />The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<br /><br />Subduction occurs when one tectonic plate slides underneath another plate and then sinks into the Earth’s mantle. Its role in major geological processes is immense: It is the main engine for tectonic motion. It builds mountains, triggers earthquakes, forms volcanoes, and drives the geologic carbon cycle.<br /><br />Yet researchers have been uncertain about what initiates subduction.<br /><br />“Why Earth even has subduction, unlike other terrestrial planets as far as we know, is a mystery,” said Bercovici, Yale’s Frederick William Beinecke Professor and chair of Earth and Planetary Sciences.<br /><br />“Mantle rock near the surface that has cooled for hundreds of millions of years has two competing effects,” he said. “While it’s gotten colder and heavier and wants to sink, it’s also gotten stiffer and doesn’t want to sink. The stiffening effect should win out, as it does on most planets, but on Earth, for some reason, it doesn’t.”<br /><br />According to the theoretical model developed by Bercovici and Mulyukova, a research scientist at Yale, subduction may initiate at the margins between Earth’s sea floor and continents.<br /></p><p>   </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-syAWfl80-wM/YAmtsfMlXHI/AAAAAAAASy0/POCtJvAjLqsijInsrtIAeICamErnwiilwCLcBGAsYHQ/s766/ynews-grain-mix-passive-margin%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="766" height="370" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-syAWfl80-wM/YAmtsfMlXHI/AAAAAAAASy0/POCtJvAjLqsijInsrtIAeICamErnwiilwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h370/ynews-grain-mix-passive-margin%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A conceptual sketch of the ocean basin setting for the new model. Inset images from a computer model show mineral fraction, grain size, and weakness. (Credit: Elvira Mulyukova and David Bercovici)<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />The model shows that tectonic stresses in an oceanic plate cause its mineral grains to mix with each other, become damaged, and eventually shrink. Over a period of approximately 100 million years, this process weakens the oceanic plate and makes it susceptible to vertical shear and bending — which are associated with the start of subduction.<br /><br />“The real bottleneck for tectonic plate activity on a terrestrial planet is how fast its massive, rocky layers can deform,” said Mulyukova. “The rocks can deform only as fast as their tiny mineral grains allow. Our model explains how these changes in mineral grains can dramatically weaken the rock and make subduction possible on a planet like Earth.”<p></p><p> </p><p><i><u><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The above story is based on <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2021/01/18/going-grains-explain-fundamental-tectonic-force#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20suggests%20that,deep%20into%20the%20Earth's%20interior.&text=Its%20role%20in%20major%20geological,main%20engine%20for%20tectonic%20motion." rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="http://www.yale.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Yale University. </a></span></u></i><br /></p>

Tiny, Mineral Grains Could Explain a Fundamental Tectonic Force

Mylonite from near Røragen, Norway. Photo: Mikenorton   Subduction happens when one tectonic plate slides under another plate and then sinks...

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Stunning Heart-Shaped Amethyst Geode Discovered by Miners in Uruguay

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bNQoDhHa2ac/YCU_KW2nPgI/AAAAAAAAS10/0rL5gohLA7Yf1Gl3FoCcwTusuNwPfnhNwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1386/Stunning%2BHeart-Shaped%2BAmethyst%2BGeodes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Stunning Heart-Shaped Amethyst Geode Discovered by Miners in Uruguay" border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="1386" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bNQoDhHa2ac/YCU_KW2nPgI/AAAAAAAAS10/0rL5gohLA7Yf1Gl3FoCcwTusuNwPfnhNwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/Stunning%2BHeart-Shaped%2BAmethyst%2BGeodes.jpg" title="Stunning Heart-Shaped Amethyst Geode Discovered by Miners in Uruguay" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stunning Heart-Shaped Amethyst Geode Discovered by Miners in Uruguay. The New Treasure | Photo by: Uruguay Minerals</td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>There are probably thousands of heart-shaped gems manufactured for gifts on Valentine’s Day, but this amethyst crystal didn’t need any carving or polishing. When miners broke it open they found an extraordinary heart already prepared by Mother Earth.<br /><br />Miners in Uruguay just dug up a massive crystal in a new mine that held a secret inside. <br /><br />Workers discovered the amazing quartz geode at the border of Uruguay and Brazil when they split open a rock to discover a beautiful purple heart on each side of it.<br /><br />Uruguay Minerals had just begun excavation at the Santa Rosa mine in the Catalan area in Artigas, and weren’t sure if anything of value would be uncovered.<br /><br />The land with its rugged terrain of basalt provided difficult conditions under which to work—but their struggle was rewarded with ‘a pearl of great price’.<br /><br />“What a treasure!” exclaimed Marcos Lorenzelli of Uruguay Minerals, who said it was the first time the company had ever found such a once-in-a-lifetime gemstone.<br /><br />Lorenzelli told GNN they have already received a bid of $120,000 for the matching pair of rocks. Due to the basalt, Lorenzelli estimates the weight to be over 150 pounds (80kg).<br /><br /> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sS8ehWGwjRI/YCU-ZbtfU2I/AAAAAAAAS1s/WNoJ6ebhF28rJeGtggRkx5pT55s45yn3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s962/Stunning%2BHeart-Shaped%2BAmethyst%2BGeode.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="962" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sS8ehWGwjRI/YCU-ZbtfU2I/AAAAAAAAS1s/WNoJ6ebhF28rJeGtggRkx5pT55s45yn3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h266/Stunning%2BHeart-Shaped%2BAmethyst%2BGeode.jpeg" title="Stunning Heart-Shaped Amethyst Geode Discovered by Miners in Uruguay" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By Marcos Lorenzelli – Uruguay Minerals Instagram<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><b><a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2020/05/thunderegg-ordinary-rocks-with-crystal.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Thunderegg: Ordinary Rocks With Crystal Surprise Inside! </a></b><br /><p></p>

Stunning Heart-Shaped Amethyst Geode Discovered by Miners in Uruguay

Stunning Heart-Shaped Amethyst Geode Discovered by Miners in Uruguay. The New Treasure | Photo by: Uruguay Minerals   There are probably tho...

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50 Million-Year-Old Fossil Assassin Bug Has Unusually Well-preserved Anatomy

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v5fpTvtCuJY/YAG5m62UC6I/AAAAAAAASwU/-86v5D-4mp4kbcbf_bZrXV3GGGy7yV7ZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/50%2BMillion-year-old%2BFossil%2BAssassin%2BBug%2BHas%2BUnusually%2BWell-preserved%2BAnatomy%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="50 Million-year-old Fossil Assassin Bug Has Unusually Well-preserved Anatomy" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v5fpTvtCuJY/YAG5m62UC6I/AAAAAAAASwU/-86v5D-4mp4kbcbf_bZrXV3GGGy7yV7ZgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/50%2BMillion-year-old%2BFossil%2BAssassin%2BBug%2BHas%2BUnusually%2BWell-preserved%2BAnatomy%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Recovered from the Green River Formation in present-day Colorado, this fossil represents a new genus and species of predatory insects known as assassin bugs. Researchers named the specimen Aphelicophontes danjuddi. A small beetle was also fossilized with the specimen.<br />Photos by Daniel Swanson</td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> The fossil of an ancient assassin bug preserves its anatomy in remarkable detail, researchers report.</span></p><p>The fossilized insect is tiny and its genital capsule, called a pygophore, is roughly the length of a grain of rice. It is remarkable, scientists say, because the bug’s physical characteristics – from the bold banding pattern on its legs to the internal features of its genitalia – are clearly visible and well-preserved. Recovered from the Green River Formation in present-day Colorado, the fossil represents a new genus and species of predatory insects known as assassin bugs.<br /><br />The find is reported in the journal Papers in Palaeontology.<br /><br />Discovered in 2006 by breaking open a slab of rock, the fossilized bug split almost perfectly from head to abdomen. The fracture also cracked the pygophore in two. A fossil dealer later sold each half to a different collector, and the researchers tracked them down and reunited them for this study.<br /><br />Being able to see a bug’s genitalia is very helpful when trying to determine a fossil insect’s place in its family tree, said Sam Heads, a paleontologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey and self-described fossil insect-genitalia expert who led the research with Daniel Swanson, a graduate student in entomology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.<br /><br />Species are often defined by their ability to successfully mate with one another, and small differences in genitalia can lead to sexual incompatibilities that, over time, may result in the rise of new species, Swanson said. This makes the genitalia a good place to focus to determine an insect species.<br /><br />But such structures are often obscured in compression fossils like those from the Green River Formation.<br /><br />“To see these fine structures in the internal genitalia is a rare treat,” Swanson said. “Normally, we only get this level of detail in species that are living today.”<br /><br />The structures visible within the pygophore include the basal plate, a hardened, stirrup-shaped structure that supports the phallus, he said. The fossil also preserved the contours of the phallotheca, a pouch into which the phallus can be withdrawn.<br /><br />The find suggests that the banded assassin bugs, a group to which the new specimen is thought to belong, are about 25 million years older than previously thought, Swanson said.<br /><br />“There are about 7,000 species of assassin bug described, but only about 50 fossils of these bugs are known,” he said. “This just speaks to the improbability of even having a fossil, let alone one of this age, that offers this much information.”<br /><br />This is not the oldest fossil bug genitalia ever discovered, however.<br /><br />“The oldest known arthropod genitalia are from a type of bug known as a harvestman that is 400-412 million years old, from the Rhynie Chert of Scotland,” Heads said. “And there are also numerous fossil insects in amber as old as the Cretaceous Period with genitalia preserved.<br /><br />“However, it is almost unheard of for internal male genitalia to be preserved in carbonaceous compressions like ours,” he said.<br /><br />The researchers named the new assassin bug Aphelicophontes danjuddi. The species name comes from one of the fossil collectors, Dan Judd, who donated his half of the specimen to the INHS for study.</p><p> <br /><u><i>The above story is based on <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Rzy25YcHGN0J:https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/848450653+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://illinois.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Illinois.</a></i></u><br /></p>

50 Million-Year-Old Fossil Assassin Bug Has Unusually Well-preserved Anatomy

Recovered from the Green River Formation in present-day Colorado, this fossil represents a new genus and species of predatory insects known ...

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57,000-Year-Old Frozen Remains of Wolf Pup Found in Canada

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7OxMpcWF6bw/X_siW1vqrYI/AAAAAAAASwI/YzFBWMfezdg2TmLmCwuU8a79OhklALRfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1800/57%252C000-Year-Old%2BFrozen%2BRemains%2Bof%2BWolf%2BPup%2BFound%2Bin%2BCanada%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1800" height="346" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7OxMpcWF6bw/X_siW1vqrYI/AAAAAAAASwI/YzFBWMfezdg2TmLmCwuU8a79OhklALRfgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h346/57%252C000-Year-Old%2BFrozen%2BRemains%2Bof%2BWolf%2BPup%2BFound%2Bin%2BCanada%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: Government of Yukon</td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">A wolf cub that was found mummified in northern Canada lived at least 56,000 years ago, scientists say.</h4><p>Hidden in permafrost for tens of thousands of years, the female cub was discovered by a gold miner near Dawson city in Yukon territory in 2016. She has since been named Zhur, meaning wolf, by the local Tr'ondek Hwech'in people. <br /></p><p>While water blasting at a wall of frozen mud in Yukon, Canada, a gold miner made an extraordinary discovery: a perfectly preserved wolf pup that had been locked in permafrost for 57,000 years. The remarkable condition of the pup, named Zhùr by the local Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in people, gave researchers a wealth of insights about her age, lifestyle, and relationship to modern wolves. <br /><br />"She's the most complete wolf mummy that's ever been found. She's basically 100% intact--all that's missing are her eyes," says first author Julie Meachen, an associate professor of anatomy at Des Moines University. "And the fact that she's so complete allowed us to do so many lines of inquiry on her to basically reconstruct her life."<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"> <script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block; text-align:center;" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="6157425841"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />One of the most important questions about Zhùr that the researchers sought to answer was how she ended up preserved in permafrost to begin with. It takes a unique combination of circumstances to produce a permafrost mummy.<br /><br />"It's rare to find these mummies in the Yukon. The animal has to die in a permafrost location, where the ground is frozen all the time, and they have to get buried very quickly, like any other fossilization process," says Meachen. "If it lays out on the frozen tundra too long it'll decompose or get eaten."<br /><br />Another important factor is how the wolf died. Animals that die slowly or are hunted by predators are less likely to be found in pristine condition. "We think she was in her den and died instantaneously by den collapse," says Meachen. "Our data showed that she didn't starve and was about 7 weeks old when she died, so we feel a bit better knowing the poor little girl didn't suffer for too long."<br /><br />In addition to learning how Zhùr died, the team were also able to analyze her diet. As it turns out, her diet was heavily influenced by how close she lived to water. "Normally when you think of wolves in the Ice Age, you think of them eating bison or musk oxen or other large animals on land. One thing that surprised us was that she was eating aquatic resources, particularly salmon."<br /><br />Analyzing Zhùr's genome also confirmed that she is descended from ancient wolves from Russia, Siberia, and Alaska, who are the ancestors of modern wolves as well. Although analyzing Zhùr gave the researchers many answers about wolves of the past, there remain some outstanding questions about Zhùr and her family.<br /><br />"We've been asked why she was the only wolf found in the den, and what happened to her mom or siblings," says Meachen. "It could be that she was an only pup. Or the other wolves weren't in the den during the collapse. Unfortunately, we'll never know."<br /><br />The specimen holds special significance for the local Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in people, who have agreed to place Zhùr on display at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse. She is cleaned and conserved so she will stay intact for years to come, allowing her to travel to other Yukon locations as well. And the research team predicts there may be more and more permafrost mummies found in the coming years.<br /><br />"One small upside of climate change is that we're going to find more of these mummies as permafrost melts," says Meachen. "That's a good way for science to reconstruct that time better, but it also shows us how much our planet is actually warming. We really need to be careful."</p><p> </p><p><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> The above story is based on <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31686-9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31686-9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Current Biology.</a></span></i></u><br /></p>

57,000-Year-Old Frozen Remains of Wolf Pup Found in Canada

Credit: Government of Yukon   A wolf cub that was found mummified in northern Canada lived at least 56,000 years ago, scientists say. Hidden...

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Geyser Activity Does Not Foretell Yellowstone Volcanic Eruptions

<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oK5JnjGCAw0/X_SHW1yARhI/AAAAAAAASv4/CNjCpgJ3mLM1Shz_D3ZEFrbEERDmPEV1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/The%2B2018%2Breawakening%2Band%2Beruption%2Bdynamics%2Bof%2BSteamboat%2BGeyser%252C%2Bthe%2Bworld%25E2%2580%2599s%2Btallest%2Bactive%2Bgeyser%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The 2018 reawakening and eruption dynamics of Steamboat Geyser, the world’s tallest active geyser" border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oK5JnjGCAw0/X_SHW1yARhI/AAAAAAAASv4/CNjCpgJ3mLM1Shz_D3ZEFrbEERDmPEV1wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/The%2B2018%2Breawakening%2Band%2Beruption%2Bdynamics%2Bof%2BSteamboat%2BGeyser%252C%2Bthe%2Bworld%25E2%2580%2599s%2Btallest%2Bactive%2Bgeyser%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /><p></p><p>When Yellowstone National Park's Steamboat Geyser—which shoots water higher than any active geyser in the world—reawakened in 2018 after three and a half years of dormancy, some speculated that it was a harbinger of possible explosive volcanic eruptions within the surrounding geyser basin. These so-called hydrothermal explosions can hurl mud, sand and rocks into the air and release hot steam, endangering lives; such an explosion on White Island in New Zealand in December 2019 killed 22 people.<br /><br />A new study by geoscientists who study geysers throws cold water on that idea, finding few indications of underground magma movement that would be a prerequisite to an eruption. The geysers sit just outside the nation's largest and most dynamic volcanic caldera, but no major eruptions have occurred in the past 70,000 years.<br /><br />"Hydrothermal explosions—basically hot water exploding because it comes into contact with hot rock—are one of the biggest hazards in Yellowstone," said Michael Manga, professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and the study's senior author. "The reason that they are problematic is that they are very hard to predict; it is not clear if there are any precursors that would allow you to provide warning."<br /><br />He and his team found that, while the ground around the geyser rose and seismicity increased somewhat before the geyser reactivated and the area currently is radiating slightly more heat into the atmosphere, no other dormant geysers in the basin have restarted, and the temperature of the groundwater propelling Steamboat's eruptions has not increased. Also, no sequence of Steamboat eruptions other than the one that started in 2018 occurred after periods of high seismic activity.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"> <script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block; text-align:center;" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="6157425841"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />"We don't find any evidence that there is a big eruption coming. I think that is an important takeaway," he said.<br /><br />Manga, who has studied geysers around the world and created some in his own laboratory, set out with his colleagues to answer three main questions about Steamboat Geyser: Why did it reawaken? Why is its period so variable, ranging from 3 to 17 days? and Why does it spurt so high?<br /><br />The team found answers to two of those questions. By comparing the column heights of 11 different geysers in the United States, Russia, Iceland and Chile with the estimated depth of the reservoir of water from which their eruptions come, they found that the deeper the reservoir, the higher the eruption jet. Steamboat Geyser, with a reservoir about 25 meters (82 feet) below ground, has the highest column—up to 115 meters, or 377 feet—while two geysers that Manga measured in Chile were among the lowest—eruptions about a meter (3 feet) high from reservoirs 2 and 5 meters below ground.<br /><br />"What you are really doing is you are filling a container, it reaches a critical point, you empty it and then you run out of fluid that can erupt until it refills again," he said. "The deeper you go, the higher the pressure. The higher the pressure, the higher the boiling temperature. And the hotter the water is, the more energy it has and the higher the geyser."<br /><br />To explore the reasons for Steamboat Geyser's variability, the team assembled records related to 109 eruptions going back to its reactivation in 2018. The records included weather and stream flow data, seismometer and ground deformation readings, and observations by geyser enthusiasts. They also looked at previous active and dormant periods of Steamboat and nine other Yellowstone geysers, and ground surface thermal emission data from the Norris Geyser Basin.<br /><br />They concluded that variations in rainfall and snow melt were probably responsible for part of the variable period, and possibly for the variable period of other geysers as well. In the spring and early summer, with melting snow and rain, the underground water pressure pushes more water into the underground reservoir, providing more hot water to erupt more frequently. During winter, with less water, lower groundwater pressure refills the reservoir more slowly, leading to longer periods between eruptions. Because the water pushed into the reservoir comes from places even deeper than the reservoir, the water is decades or centuries old before it erupts back to the surface, he said.<br /><br />In October, Manga's team members demonstrated the extreme impact water shortages and drought can have on geysers. They showed that Yellowstone's iconic Old Faithful Geyser stopped erupting entirely for about 100 years in the 13th and 14th centuries, based on radiocarbon dating of mineralized lodgepole pine trees that grew around the geyser during its dormancy. Normally the water is too alkaline and the temperature too high for trees to grow near active geysers. The dormancy period coincided with a lengthy warm, dry spell across the Western U.S. called the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which may have caused the disappearance of several Native American civilizations in the West.<br /><br />"Climate change is going to affect geysers in the future," Manga said.<br /><br />Manga and his team were unable to determine why Steamboat Geyser started up again on March 15, 2018, after three years and 193 days of inactivity, though the geyser is known for being far more variable than Old Faithful, which usually goes off about every 90 minutes. They could find no definitive evidence that new magma rising below the geyser caused its reactivation.<br /><br />The reactivation may have to do with changes in the internal plumbing, he said. Geysers seem to require three ingredients: heat, water and rocks made of silica—silicon dioxide. Because the hot water in geysers continually dissolves and redeposits silica—every time Steamboat Geyser erupts, it brings up about 200 kilograms, or 440 pounds of dissolved silica. Some of this silica is deposited underground and may change the plumbing system underneath the geyser. Such changes could temporarily halt or reactivate eruptions if the pipe gets rerouted, he said.<br /><br />Manga has experimented with geysers in his lab to understand why they erupt periodically, and at least in the lab, it appears to be caused by loops or side chambers in the pipe that trap bubbles of steam that slowly dribble out, heating the water column above until all the water can boil from the top down, explosively erupting in a column of water and steam.<br /><br />Studies of water eruptions from geysers could give insight into the eruptions of hot rock from volcanoes, he said.<br /><br />"What we asked are very simple questions and it is a little bit embarrassing that we can't answer them, because it means there are fundamental processes on Earth that we don't quite understand," Manga said. "One of the reasons we argue we need to study geysers is that if we can't understand and explain how a geyser erupts, our hope for doing the same thing for magma is much lower." </p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2020943118" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.berkeley.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of California - Berkeley.</a></u></i></span><br /></p>

Geyser Activity Does Not Foretell Yellowstone Volcanic Eruptions

  When Yellowstone National Park's Steamboat Geyser—which shoots water higher than any active geyser in the world—reawakened in 2018 aft...

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