The evolution of the first animals may have oxygenated Earth’s oceans — contrary to the traditional view that a rise in oxygen triggered their development. New research led by the University of Exeter contests the long held belief that oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans was a pre-requisite for the evolution of complex life forms. […]
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Atopodentatus unicus: Bizarre New Fossil Reptile Discovered in China
March 9th, 2014 
Riffin Dr Xiao-Chun Wu and his colleagues named the new prehistoric creature Atopodentatus unicus and suggest it belonged to a group of reptiles called the sauropterygians. “Generic name is derived from the Latin atopo for the peculiar dentition and dentatus for teeth; the specific name is derived from the Latin unicus for its unique morphology,” the […]
Earth’s mantle plasticity explained: Missing mechanism for deforming olivine-rich rocks
March 8th, 2014 Riffin Earth’s mantle is a solid layer that undergoes slow, continuous convective motion. But how do these rocks deform, thus making such motion possible, given that minerals such as olivine (the main constituent of the upper mantle) do not exhibit enough defects in their crystal lattice to explain the deformations observed in nature? A team led […]
Insights into plate tectonics, the forces behind earthquakes, volcanoes
March 7th, 2014 Riffin The Earth’s outer layer is made up of a series of moving, interacting plates whose motion at the surface generates earthquakes, creates volcanoes and builds mountains. Geoscientists have long sought to understand the plates’ fundamental properties and the mechanisms that cause them to move and drift, and the questions have become the subjects of lively […]
Torvosaurus gurneyi: New dinosaur found in Portugal, largest terrestrial predator from Europe
March 6th, 2014 Riffin A new dinosaur species found in Portugal may be the largest land predator discovered in Europe, as well as one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs from the Jurassic, according to a paper published in PLOS ONE on March 5, 2014 by co-authors Christophe Hendrickx and Octavio Mateus from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Museu […]
Superbly preserved Fossil specimens in Daohugou Biota,Mangolia
March 5th, 2014 Riffin Over the last two decades, huge numbers of fossils have been collected from the western Liaoning Province and adjacent parts of northeastern China, including exceptionally preserved feathered dinosaurs, early birds, and mammals. Most of these specimens are from the Cretaceous Period, including the famous Jehol Biota. However, in recent years many fossils have emerged from […]
How Earth might have looked: How a failed Saharan Atlantic Ocean rift zone sculped Africa’s margin
March 4th, 2014 Riffin Break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana about 130 Million years ago could have lead to a completely different shape of the African and South American continent with an ocean south of today’s Sahara desert, as geoscientists from the University of Sydney and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have shown through the use of sophisticated […]
Cyanobacteria sheds light on how complex life evolved on earth
February 28th, 2014 Riffin Plankton in Earth’s oceans received a huge boost when microorganisms capable of creating soluble nitrogen ‘fertilizer’ directly from the atmosphere diversified and spread throughout the open ocean. This event occurred at around 800 million years ago and it changed forever how carbon was cycled in the ocean. It has long been believed that the appearance […]
Fossilized whale skeletons unearths in Chilean highway project
February 26th, 2014 Riffin The whales were found more than 120 feet above sea level, about two-thirds of a mile from the ocean, in ancient sandstones below what is now the northbound lane of the Pan-American Highway in the Atacama region of northern Chile.Highway construction workers found the first skeletons. They called a nearby museum, and said: We found […]
Zircon Crystal reveals “cool early Earth” at 4.4 billion years.
February 25th, 2014 Riffin With the help of a tiny fragment of zircon extracted from a remote rock outcrop in Australia, the picture of how our planet became habitable to life about 4.4 billion years ago is coming into sharper focus. Writing today (Feb. 23, 2014) in the journal Nature Geoscience, an international team of researchers led by University […]
