Stanford researchers have uncovered a vital clue about the mechanism behind a type of earthquake that originates deep within Earth and accounts for a quarter of all temblors worldwide, some of which are strong enough to pose a safety hazard. Stanford scientists may have solved the mystery of what drives a type of earthquake that […]
Archive for December, 2013
Tooth Structure and Wear Provide Clues to Ecology and Evolution of Ancient Marine Creatures
December 13th, 2013 
Riffin A trio of published studies have highlighted the importance of examining dental structure and wear in ancient creatures to better understand their ecology and evolution. New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine Assistant Professor Brian Beatty, Ph.D., contributed to all three of the studies with his expertise in analyzing patterns of tooth wear […]
Lithosphere Deformed And Fractured Under Indian Ocean Much Earlier Than Previously Thought
December 12th, 2013 Riffin The discovery by Indian and British scientists that the Earth’s strong outer shell – the ‘lithosphere’ – within the central Indian Ocean began to deform and fracture 15.4–13.9 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought, impacts our understanding of the birth of the Himalayas and the strengthening of the Indian-Asian monsoon. India and Asia […]
Western Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami Hazard Potential Greater Than Previously Thought
December 11th, 2013 Riffin Earthquakes similar in magnitude to the 2004 Sumatra earthquake could occur in an area beneath the Arabian Sea at the Makran subduction zone, according to recent research published in Geophysical Research Letters. The research was carried out by scientists from the University of Southampton based at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS), and the Pacific […]
Cockroaches Probably Cleaned Up after Dinosaurs
December 10th, 2013 Riffin Dinosaurs undoubtedly produced huge quantities of excrements. But who cleaned up after them? Dung beetles and flies with rapid development were rare during most of the Mesozoic. Candidates for these duties are extinct cockroaches (Blattulidae), whose temporal range is associated with herbivorous dinosaurs. An opportunity to test this hypothesis arises from coprolites to some extent […]
Why beaks evolved in some theropod dinosaurs and what their function : New Study
December 9th, 2013 Riffin Why beaks evolved in some theropod dinosaurs and what their function might have been is the subject of new research by an international team of palaeontologists published this week in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Beaks are a typical hallmark of modern birds and can be found in a huge variety of […]
Expedition to Undersea Mountain Yields New Information About Sub-Seafloor Structure
December 8th, 2013 Riffin Scientists recently concluded an expedition aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution to learn more about Atlantis Massif, an undersea mountain, or seamount, that formed in a very different way than the majority of the seafloor in the oceans. Unlike volcanic seamounts, which are made of the basalt that’s typical of most of the seafloor, Atlantis […]
Deep-Sea Study Reveals Cause of 2011 Tsunami: Unusually Thin, Slippery Geological Fault Found
December 7th, 2013 Riffin The devastating tsunami that struck Japan’s Tohoku region in March 2011 was touched off by a submarine earthquake far more massive than anything geologists had expected in that zone. Now, a team of scientists including McGill University geologist Christie Rowe, has published a set of studies in the journal Science that shed light on what […]
New Way To Monitor Faults May Help Predict Earthquakes
December 6th, 2013 riffin Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found a way to monitor the strength of geologic faults deep in the Earth. This finding could prove to be a boon for earthquake prediction by pinpointing those faults that are likely to fail and produce earthquakes. Until now, scientists had no method for detecting changes in fault strength, […]
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Tags: Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »Niassodon mfumukasi fossil Reveals New Data On Ancient Mammal Relatives
December 5th, 2013 Riffin In the remote province of Niassa, Mozambique, a new species and genus of fossil vertebrate was found. The species is a distant relative of living mammals and is approximately 256 million years old. This new species belongs to a group of animals called synapsids. Synapsida includes a number of extinct lineages that dominated the communities […]
