September 2021

Pink Halite

<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/-rv8ApPI8OHo/YUC6sg0NRKI/AAAAAAAATUo/_4qh6xq6x08aQ9pdQYY2yyxTpLoytr6ZwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/Pink%2BHalite.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rv8ApPI8OHo/YUC6sg0NRKI/AAAAAAAATUo/_4qh6xq6x08aQ9pdQYY2yyxTpLoytr6ZwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/Pink%2BHalite.jpg" title="Pink Halite" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pink Halite from California<br />Photo Copyright ©️ Artstonetics/IG<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><p></p><p>Halite  is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride (NaCl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow or gray depending on inclusion of other materials, impurities, and structural or isotopic abnormalities in the crystals.</p><p>Halite has economic value. In addition to its use in food, salt is traditionally used in large quantities in wintertime to prevent roadways from icing up. Halite is principally mined from ancient rock salt successions. Rock salt is a chemical sedimentary rock composed of halite and formed by evaporation of seawater.<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;">
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</div><br /><p></p><p>Pink Halite is a type of Halite that had its color tainted from bacteria
 of various algae species. Halite is known as the “natural form of salt”
 and is a very common mineral found near oceans and salt lakes. This 
stone can be found in the form of masses and a tubular crystal 
structure. </p><p>The specimen pictured above is from a dried up salt lake in 
San Bernardino, California. Be careful to avoid getting pieces of Pink 
Halite wet as it may start to disintegrate before your eyes. <br /> </p><p>Through geologic time, the lake has alternated between having water and being dry. What little water does occur in modern Searles Lake is highly saline. When the water evaporates, halite precipitates. The pinkish coloration is from incorporation of pigments (carotenoids) in halophilic archaea and algae that live in the water. <br /></p><p><br /></p>

Pink Halite

Giant 'Swimming Head' Creature Lived in Our Oceans 500 Million Years Ago

evolution, Fossils 6:45 PM

<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/-AMOQeEq5_zw/YT9xdDgAkfI/AAAAAAAATUg/gMdJU7W3LfoU9bewgymXz5aedo-HivkbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1260/08tb-predator-3-mobileMasterAt3x%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1260" height="458" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AMOQeEq5_zw/YT9xdDgAkfI/AAAAAAAATUg/gMdJU7W3LfoU9bewgymXz5aedo-HivkbQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h458/08tb-predator-3-mobileMasterAt3x%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Palaeontologists unearth one of the largest radiodonts of the Cambrian explosion" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Titanokorys gainesi carapace. Image credit: Jean-Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum.</td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Paleontologists have described the largest Cambrian hurdiid radiodont known so far, named Titanokorys gainesi, from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia, Canada.</span></p><p>Palaeontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have uncovered the remains of a huge new fossil species belonging to an extinct animal group in half-a-billion-year-old Cambrian rocks from Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies. The findings were announced on September 8, 2021, in a study published in Royal Society Open Science.<br /><br />Named Titanokorys gainesi, this new species is remarkable for its size. With an estimated total length of half a meter, Titanokorys was a giant compared to most animals that lived in the seas at that time, most of which barely reached the size of a pinky finger.<br /><br />"The sheer size of this animal is absolutely mind-boggling, this is one of the biggest animals from the Cambrian period ever found," says Jean-Bernard Caron, ROM's Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br />Evolutionarily speaking, Titanokorys belongs to a group of primitive arthropods called radiodonts. The most iconic representative of this group is the streamlined predator Anomalocaris, which may itself have approached a metre in length. Like all radiodonts, Titanokorys had multifaceted eyes, a pineapple slice-shaped, tooth-lined mouth, a pair of spiny claws below its head to capture prey and a body with a series of flaps for swimming. Within this group, some species also possessed large, conspicuous head carapaces, with Titanokorys being one of the largest ever known.<br /><br />"Titanokorys is part of a subgroup of radiodonts, called hurdiids, characterized by an incredibly long head covered by a three-part carapace that took on myriad shapes. The head is so long relative to the body that these animals are really little more than swimming heads," added Joe Moysiuk, co-author of the study, and a ROM-based Ph.D. student in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto.<br /><br />Why some radiodonts evolved such a bewildering array of head carapace shapes and sizes is still poorly understood and was likely driven by a variety of factors, but the broad flattened carapace form in Titanokorys suggests this species was adapted to life near the seafloor.<br /><br />"These enigmatic animals certainly had a big impact on Cambrian seafloor ecosystems. Their limbs at the front looked like multiple stacked rakes and would have been very efficient at bringing anything they captured in their tiny spines towards the mouth. The huge dorsal carapace might have functioned like a plough," added Dr. Caron, who is also an Associate Professor in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto, and Moysiuk's Ph.D. advisor.<br /><br />All fossils in this study were collected around Marble Canyon in northern Kootenay National Park by successive ROM expeditions. Discovered less than a decade ago, this area has yielded a great variety of Burgess Shale animals dating back to the Cambrian period, including a smaller, more abundant relative of Titanokorys named Cambroraster falcatusin reference to its Millennium Falcon-shaped head carapace. According to the authors, the two species might have competed for similar bottom-dwelling prey.<br /><br />The Burgess Shale fossil sites are located within Yoho and Kootenay National Parks and are managed by Parks Canada. Parks Canada is proud to work with leading scientific researchers to expand knowledge and understanding of this key period of earth history and to share these sites with the world through award-winning guided hikes. The Burgess Shale was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 due to its outstanding universal value and is now part of the larger Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site.<br /><br />The discovery of Titanokorys gainesi was profiled in the CBC's The Nature of Things episode "First Animals." These and other Burgess Shale specimens will be showcased in a new gallery at ROM, the Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life, opening in December 2021.<br /><br />Major funding support for the research and fieldwork came from the Polk Milstein Family, ROM, the National Geographic Society (#9475-14 to JBC), the Swedish Research Council (to Michael Streng), the National Science Foundation (NSF-EAR-1556226, 1554897) and Pomona College (to Robert R. Gaines). This research is also supported by a National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery grant to J.-B.C and a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship through the University of Toronto (Dept. of Ecology and Evolution) to J.M.</p><p> </p><p><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> The above story is based on <a href="https://www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/massive-new-animal-species-discovered-in-half-billion-year-old" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; 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 !important; 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>provided by<span> </span></span><a href="https://www.rom.on.ca/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; 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"><strong style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;">Royal Ontario Museum</strong></a></span></i></u><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">.</span></i></u><span><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></i></u><br /></span></span></p>

Giant 'Swimming Head' Creature Lived in Our Oceans 500 Million Years Ago

Titanokorys gainesi carapace. Image credit: Jean-Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum. Paleontologists have described the largest Cambrian...

'Flying Dragon' First-ever Remains of Prehistoric Winged Dinosaur

dinosaur, Fossils 7:07 PM

<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/-1J2XB3pS49Q/YT4lSjEcx4I/AAAAAAAATUY/2hlZq5Sx-K0rC_dvtbHgx7nGgKlz4v3FgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/%2527Flying%2BDragon%2527%2BFirst-ever%2BRemains%2Bof%2BPrehistoric%2BWinged%2BDinosaur%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1J2XB3pS49Q/YT4lSjEcx4I/AAAAAAAATUY/2hlZq5Sx-K0rC_dvtbHgx7nGgKlz4v3FgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/%2527Flying%2BDragon%2527%2BFirst-ever%2BRemains%2Bof%2BPrehistoric%2BWinged%2BDinosaur%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="'Flying Dragon' First-ever Remains of Prehistoric Winged Dinosaur" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed by a group of scientists in the Atacama Desert.</td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The dinosaur fossil is preserved in a rare three-dimensional way, as the bones of pterosaurs generally get crushed due to their delicacy.</span><br /></p><p>Scientists in Chile's Atacama Desert have unearthed the fossil remains of a so-called "flying dragon," a Jurassic-era dinosaur previously known only to the northern hemisphere.<br /><br />The flying reptile belonged to a group of early pterosaurs that roamed the earth 160 million years ago. It had a long pointed tail, wings and sharp, outward pointing teeth.<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;">
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</div><br />The beast's fossil remains were discovered by Osvaldo Rojas, director of the Atacama Desert Museum of Natural History and Culture, and then further investigated by scientists at the University of Chile.<br /><br />Details of the discovery, the first linking such creatures to the Southern Hemisphere, were published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.<br /><br />"This shows the distribution of the animals in this group was wider than what was known up to now," said Jhonatan Alarcon, a University of Chile scientist who led the investigation.<br /><br />The discovery points to close ties and possible migration between the northern and southern hemispheres at a time when most of the globe's southerly land masses where believed to be linked in a supercontinent called Gondwana.<br /><br />”There are pterosaurs of this group also in Cuba, which apparently were coastal animals, so most likely they have migrated between the North and the South or maybe they came once and stayed, we don't know," Alarcon said.<br /><br />Chile's vast Atacama Desert, once largely submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean, is now a moonscape of sand and stone.<br /><br />The region, parts of which haven't seen rain for decades, is a hot spot for fossil discoveries, with many remains untouched in remote areas not far beneath the desert surface.<p></p><p> </p><p> </p>

'Flying Dragon' First-ever Remains of Prehistoric Winged Dinosaur

Fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed by a group of scientists in the Atacama Desert. The dinosaur fossil is preserved in a rare three-di...

The Geology behind Kidney Stone Crystallization

Geology, Researches 6:56 PM

The Geology behind Kidney Stone Crystallization

Section of a kidney stone. Credit: Mayandi Sivaguru and Bruce Fouke Rather than crystallizing all at once, kidney stones dissolve and re-...

Geology In

Pink Halite

Giant 'Swimming Head' Creature Lived in Our Oceans 500 Million Years Ago

'Flying Dragon' First-ever Remains of Prehistoric Winged Dinosaur

The Geology behind Kidney Stone Crystallization

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