Formation of sedimentary layers of white clay, Tamilnadu, India

Fossil site for wood fossils, Tamilnadu, India

Fossil site in Kerala, India

Fossil site in Kerala, India

Fossil wood park maintained by geological survey of India at Tamilnadu

Cretaceous fossil sites india

Fossils in rack:-Cyad

Fossils in rack:-echiniderms

Fossils in rack:-Rastellum sp

Pre-historic seabed, Cretaceous period

WFS News: 300 million year old atmospheric dust

December 29th, 2019 Riffin

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev

Dust plays a crucial role in the life and health of our planet. In our modern world, dust-borne nutrients traveling in great dust storms from the Saharan Desert fertilize the soil in the Amazon Rainforest and feed photosynthetic organisms like algae in the Atlantic Ocean. In turn, it is those organisms that breathe in carbon dioxide and expel oxygen.

Mehrdad Sardar Abadi, a researcher in the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy School of Geosciences and School director Lynn Soreghan, led a study with researchers from Florida State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hampton University and the College of Charleston, to understand the role of dust on the Earth’s atmosphere in deep time — 300 million years ago.

To do this research, the team needed to find ancient atmospheric dust, which led them to the remnants of a shallow marine ecosystem in modern-day Iran.

Similar to areas of our modern world like the Bahamas, these shallow marine ecosystems cannot survive unless they are in pristine water away from river runoff, Sardar Abadi explained. By targeting the systems, Sardar Abadi and Soreghan knew that silicate particles they found would have been deposited through the air and not from a river.

Sardar Abadi and Soreghan identified and sampled dust trapped in carbonate rocks from two intervals of limestone now preserved in outcroppings in the mountains of northern and central Iran.

Rocks were then subjected to a series of chemical treatments to extract the ancient dust. What was left were silicate minerals like clay and quartz that entered the environment as air-borne particles — 300-million-year-old dust.

Ancient dust in hand, Sardar Abadi could determine how much dust was in the Late Paleozoic atmosphere. Their results suggested that Earth’s atmosphere was much dustier during this ancient time. Working with collaborators at Florida State University, he performed geochemical tests to analyze the iron in the samples. Those tests revealed that the ancient dust also contained remarkable proportions of highly reactive iron — a particularly rich source of this key micronutrient.

While iron is not the only micronutrient potentially carried in dust, it is estimated that this ancient dust contained twice the bioavailable iron as the modern dust that fertilizes the Amazon Rainforest.

This potent dust fertilization led to a massive surge in marine photosynthesizers. Fueled by iron-rich dust, algae and cyanobacteria took in carbon dioxide and expelled oxygen. Researchers speculate that this action, operating over millions of years, changed the planet’s atmosphere.

“Higher abundances in primary producers like plants and algae could lead to higher carbon capture, helping to explain declines in atmospheric carbon dioxide around 300 million years ago,” said Sardar Abadi.

“If what we are seeing from our samples was happening on a global scale, it means that the dust fertilization effect brought down atmospheric carbon dioxide and was a fairly significant part of the carbon cycle during this time in the Earth’s history,” said Soreghan.

One carbon sequestration method scientists have proposed is adding bioavailable iron to isolated parts of the ocean that are so remote and far from dust-containing continents, they are essentially deserts. Scientists who have attempted this on a small scale have documented resultant phytoplankton blooms.

But, Soreghan warned, no one knows the unintended consequences of doing this on a large scale. This is why Sardar Abadi and the team of researchers delved into deep time for answers.

“The Earth’s geologic record is like a laboratory book. It has run an infinite number of experiments. We can open Earth’s lab book, reconstruct what happened in the past and see how the Earth responded to these sometimes very extreme states,” said Soreghan.

The data and syntheses help constrain and refine computer climate models. The further back into deep time a modeler goes, the more unconstrained variables there are. By providing data, models can be more accurate.

“By delving back in time, we can uncover the most extreme states the Earth and atmosphere have experienced,” said Soreghan. “That information can potentially help us solve problems today.”

Source: University of Oklahoma.

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WFS News: Fossilized Brains Found

December 19th, 2019 Riffin

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A newfound Alalcomenaeus fossil from the western U.S. contains remnants of a nervous system (black stain). (Image credit: Ortega-Hernández et al. 2019)

A newfound Alalcomenaeus fossil from the western U.S. contains remnants of a nervous system (black stain). (Image credit: Ortega-Hernández et al. 2019)

Inky stains found in fossils of 500-million-year-old bug-like creatures may be beautifully preserved, symmetrical brain tissue. The fossil find may help lay a heated scientific controversy to rest — the question of whether brains can be fossilized.

Scientists discovered these splotchy marks in fossils of  the arthropod Alalcomenaeus, an animal which shares its phylum with modern insects, spiders and crustaceans. The animals lived during the Cambrian period, which took place between about 543 million and 490 million years ago, and sported a tough exoskeleton that fossilized well. But the soft tissues of the creature’s brain and nerves often decayed and therefore disappeared from the fossil record.

Now, a new study, published Dec. 11 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, describes not one but two Alalcomenaeus fossils complete with brains and all their trimmings.   

This diagram depicts the basic layout of the Alalcomenaeus nervous system in relation to its gut. (Image credit: Ortega-Hernández et al. 2019)

This diagram depicts the basic layout of the Alalcomenaeus nervous system in relation to its gut. (Image credit: Ortega-Hernández et al. 2019)

“What we are dealing with in the fossil record are exceptional circumstances. This is not common — this is super, super rare,” said co-author Javier Ortega-Hernández, an invertebrate paleobiologist at Harvard University and curator of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Previously, paleontologists have identified only one other Alalcomenaeus specimen thought to have nervous tissue, but the finding was met with skepticism. With two more specimens in hand, scientists can now be confident that nervous tissue can in fact be fossilized and found in exceptional Cambrian arthropod fossils, Ortega-Hernández said.

Long-standing debate

Besides Ortega-Hernández and his team, only a handful of researchers have reported finding fossilized nervous tissue in Cambrian-period arthropods. In a 2012 paper, scientists described the first evidence of a fossilized arthropod brain, in a tiny creature called Fuxianhuia protensa. Although widely covered in the media, the report attracted critics.       

“They said, ‘Rubbish, lot of nonsense,'” said Nicholas Strausfeld, a regents professor in the department of neuroscience at the University of Arizona and co-author of the 2012 study, as well as several others on brain-like features in arthropods. Some paleontologists argued that, based on our understanding of how animals decay, the stained specimens Strausfeld and others unearthed couldn’t possibly contain nervous tissue, Strausfeld said. Some theorized that the brain stains must be either a strange fluke of fossilization or fossilized beds of bacteria, known as biofilms.  

But now, the new study by Ortega-Hernández and his colleagues serves as “a really pleasing validation of earlier work,” Strausfeld told Live Science. “He’s put to rest a lot of objections from people.”

In their study, Ortega-Hernández and his co-authors uncovered a new Alalcomenaeus fossil buried in Utah within a region of geological depressions known as the American Great Basin. The authors noted symmetrical stains along the creature’s midline that resembled nervous system structures found in some modern arthropods, including horseshoe crabs, spiders and scorpions. “The nervous system and the gut kind of cross each other, which is really funky but common in arthropods nowadays,” Ortega-Hernández told Live Science.

The stains also contained detectable levels of carbon, a key element in nervous tissue. The dark splotches also plugged into the animal’s four eyes, as would be expected for nervous system tissue. Having checked all these criteria, Ortega-Hernández said that he could confidently report finding fossilized nervous tissue in the newfound specimen.

But to double-check their findings, the authors also examined a second Alalcomenaeus fossil from the American Great Basin. Originally dug up in the 1990s, the specimen sported similar stains and carbon traces to the newfound fossil. What’s more, both Great Basin fossils matched descriptions of another specimen that Strausfeld found in China. All three fossils had been found buried in similar deposits, indicating that a unique preservation process allowed all their brain matter to fossilize, Ortega-Hernández said.

An Alalcomenaeus fossil found in the 1990s shows a similar nervous system to another fossil found recently. (Image credit: Ortega-Hernández et al. 2019 )

An Alalcomenaeus fossil found in the 1990s shows a similar nervous system to another fossil found recently. (Image credit: Ortega-Hernández et al. 2019 )

 Counterarguments

Although Ortega-Hernández and his colleagues checked and double-checked their work, the authors “generally have to be cautious about claiming to have found a genuine fossil brain,” Jianni Liu, a professor at the Early Life Institute in the Department of Geology at Northwest University in Xi’an, China, told Live Science in an email. Liu argues that the blobby stains seen in Cambrian fossils might be a “slightly random effect of the decay process” rather than remnants of brain matter.

In a 2018 study, Liu and her colleagues examined about 800 fossilized specimens and found that nearly 10% contained inky stains in the head region. The authors reviewed previous studies of animal decay and found that nervous tissue tends to decay quickly, but gut bacteria can stick around and “produce these so-called biofilms as radiating [stains] which look a bit like parts of a nervous system,” Liu wrote.

Additionally, studies of decay often measure tissue breakdown in water, whereas buried fossils interact with a multitude of chemicals carried in the sediment around them, Ortega-Hernández said. For instance, some studies suggest that a combination of clay and water jump-starts a “chemical tanning” process that toughens soft tissues in the body, similar to how particular chemicals can transform supple cow hide into leather, Ortega-Hernández said.

More work must be done to clarify the role of sediment in fossil preservation, but as of now, ample evidence suggests that arthropod remains placed under intense pressure solidify over time, Strausfeld said. The brain and nerves within the animal flatten out in the process, and because nervous tissue contains lots of fat, the structures repel water and “have some resistance against decay,” he said.

Despite the evidence in their favor, Ortega-Hernández, Strausfeld and their colleagues may need to dig up a lot more arthropod brain bits to convince naysayers that ancient brains can fossilize.

  • “We appreciate the authors’ efforts to justify their results as being genuine nervous tissue, but remain sceptical while the data comes from only two fossils,” Liu said. “New data is always welcome, but as we noted previously, we would be more convinced if the anatomical features appeared in a consistent form across several specimens independently.”

Source: Article By , Live Science

WFS News: 16-million-year-old fossil shows springtails hitchhiking on winged termite

December 10th, 2019 Riffin

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev

When trying to better the odds for survival, a major dilemma that many animals face is dispersal — being able to pick up and leave to occupy new lands, find fresh resources and mates, and avoid intraspecies competition in times of overpopulation.

For birds, butterflies and other winged creatures, covering long distances may be as easy as the breeze they travel on. But for soil-dwellers of the crawling variety, the hurdle remains: How do they reach new, far-off habitats?

For one group of tiny arthropods called springtails (Collembola), a recent fossil discovery now suggests their answer to this question has been to piggyback on the dispersal abilities of others, literally.

In findings published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and Museum national d’Histoire naturelle have detailed the discovery of an ancient interaction preserved in 16-million-year-old amber from the Dominican Republic: 25 springtails attached to, and nearby, a large winged termite and ant from the days of the early Miocene.

The fossil exhibits a number of springtails still attached to the wings and legs of their hosts, while others are preserved as if gradually floating away from their hosts within the amber. Researchers say the discovery highlights the existence of a new type of hitchhiking behavior among wingless soil-dwelling arthropods, and could be key to explaining how symphypleonan springtails successfully achieved dispersal worldwide.

“The existence of this hitchhiking behavior is especially exciting given the fact that modern springtails are rarely described as having any interspecfic association with surrounding animals,” said Ninon Robin, the paper’s first author whose postdoctoral research at NJIT’s Department of Biological Sciences was funded by the Fulbright Program of the French-American Commission. “This finding underscores how important fossils are for telling us about unsuspected ancient ecologies as well as still ongoing behaviors that were so far simply overlooked.”

Today, springtails are among the most common arthropods found in moist habitats around the world. Most springtails possess a specialized appendage under their abdomen they use to “spring” away in flee-like fashion to avoid predation. However this organ is not sufficient for traversing long distances, especially since most springtails are unable to survive long in dry areas.

The hitchhikers the researchers identified belong to a lineage of springtails found today on every continent, known as Symphypleona,which they say may have been “pre-adapted” to grasping on to other arthropods through prehensile antennae.

Because springtails would have encountered such winged termites and ants frequently due to their high abundance during the time of the preservation, these social insects may have been their preferred hosts for transportation.

“Symphypleonan springtails are unusual compared to other Collembola in that they have specialized antennae that are used in mating courtship,” said Phillip Barden, assistant professor of biology at NJIT and the study’s principal investigator. “This antennal anatomy may have provided an evolutionary pathway for grasping onto other arthropods. In this particular fossil, we see these specialized antennae wrapping around the wings and legs of both an ant and termite. Some winged ants and termites are known to travel significant distances, which would greatly aid in dispersal.”

Barden says that the discovery joins other reports from the Caribbean and Europe of fossil springtails attached to a beetle, a mayfly and a harvestman in amber, which together suggest that this behavior may still exist today.

Barden notes that evidence of springtail hitchhiking may not have been captured in such high numbers until now due to the rarity of such a fossilized interaction, as well as the nature of modern sampling methods for insects, which typically involves submersion in ethanol for preservation.

“Because it appears that springtails reflexively detach from their hosts when in danger, evidenced by the detached individuals in the amber, ethanol would effectively erase the link between hitchhiker and host,” said Barden. “Amber derives from fossilized sticky tree resin and is viscous enough that it would retain the interaction. … Meaning, sometimes you have to turn to 16-million-year-old amber fossils to find out what might be happening in your backyard.”

  1. Ninon Robin, Cyrille D’Haese, Phillip Barden. Fossil amber reveals springtails’ longstanding dispersal by social insects. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2019; 19 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12862-019-1529-6
Source: New Jersey Institute of Technology. “16-million-year-old fossil shows springtails hitchhiking on winged termite.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 November 2019.
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WFS News: Najash,Fossil of an ancient legged snake

December 8th, 2019 Riffin

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New fossils of an ancient legged snake, called Najash, shed light on the origin of the slithering reptiles, including how snakes got their bite and lost their legs.

NEW FOSSILS OF AN ANCIENT LEGGED SNAKE, CALLED NAJASH, SHED LIGHT ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SLITHERING REPTILES. CREDIT: RAÚL GÓMEZ

NEW FOSSILS OF AN ANCIENT LEGGED SNAKE, CALLED NAJASH, SHED LIGHT ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SLITHERING REPTILES. CREDIT: RAÚL GÓMEZ

The fossil discoveries published in Science Advances have revealed they possessed hind legs during the first 70 million years of their evolution.

They also provide details about how the flexible skull of snakes evolved from their lizard ancestors.

The evolution of the snake body has captivated researchers for a long time — representing one of the most dramatic examples of the vertebrate body’s ability to adapt — but a limited fossil record has obscured our understanding of their early evolution until now.

THESE ARE NAJASH SPECIMENS FROM LBPA AS PUBLISHED IN SCIENCE ADVANCES. CREDIT: SCIENCE ADVANCES

THESE ARE NAJASH SPECIMENS FROM LBPA AS PUBLISHED IN SCIENCE ADVANCES. CREDIT: SCIENCE ADVANCES

Dr. Alessandro Palci, from Flinders University, was part of the international research team that performed high-resolution (CT) scanning and light microscopy of the preserved skulls of Najash to reveal substantial new anatomical data on the early evolution of snakes.

“Snakes are famously legless, but then so are many lizards. What truly sets snakes apart is their highly mobile skull, which allows them to swallow large prey items. For a long time, we have been lacking detailed information about the transition from the relatively rigid skull of a lizard to the super flexible skull of snakes.”

“Najash has the most complete, three-dimensionally preserved skull of any ancient snake, and this is providing an amazing amount of new information on how the head of snakes evolved. It has some, but not all of the flexible joints found in the skull of modern snakes. Its middle ear is intermediate between that of lizards and living snakes, and unlike all living snakes it retains a well-developed cheekbone, which again is reminiscent of that of lizards.”

CT SCAN RECONSTRUCTIONS OF THE ARTICULATED SKULL OF NAJASH AS PUBLISHED IN SCIENCE ADVANCES, AAAS. CREDIT: SCIENCE ADVANCES

CT SCAN RECONSTRUCTIONS OF THE ARTICULATED SKULL OF NAJASH AS PUBLISHED IN SCIENCE ADVANCES, AAAS. CREDIT: SCIENCE ADVANCES

Flinders University and South Australian Museum researcher Professor Mike Lee, was also part of the study, and adds “Najash shows how snakes evolved from lizards in incremental evolutionary steps, just like Darwin predicted.”

The new snake family tree also reveals that snakes possessed small but perfectly formed hind legs for the first 70 million years of their evolution.

“These primitive snakes with little legs weren’t just a transient evolutionary stage on the way to something better. Rather, they had a highly successful body plan that persisted across many millions of years, and diversified into a range of terrestrial, burrowing and aquatic niches,” says Professor Lee.

Source:scitechdaily.com

Reference: “New Skulls and Skeletons of the Cretaceous Legged Snake Najash, and the Evolution of the Modern Snake Body Plan” by Fernando F. Garberoglio, Sebastián Apesteguía, Tiago R. Simões, Alessandro Palci, Raúl O. Gómez, Randall L. Nydam, Hans C. E. Larsson, Michael S. Y. Lee and Michael W. Caldwell, 20 November 2019, Science Advances.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax5833

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WFS News:Crown Group Lejeuneaceae and Pleurocarpous Mosses in Early Eocene (Ypresian) Indian Amber

December 2nd, 2019 Riffin

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Crown Group Lejeuneaceae and Pleurocarpous Mosses in Early Eocene (Ypresian) Indian Amber

Citation: Heinrichs J, Scheben A, Bechteler J, Lee GE, Schäfer-Verwimp A, Hedenäs L, et al. (2016) Crown Group Lejeuneaceae and Pleurocarpous Mosses in Early Eocene (Ypresian) Indian Amber. PLoS ONE 11(5): e0156301. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0156301

Editor: William Oki Wong, Institute of Botany, CHINA

Cambay amber specimen AMNH-Tad-441-A. (A) Overview showing liverwort and moss inclusions as well as two dipterans. The arrowhead points to the holotype of Microlejeunea nyiahae. (B) Pleurocarpous moss. (C) Close-up showing upper portions of leaves of the moss inclusion. The prosenchymatous cells are well visible. Scale bars 1 mm (A) and 100 μm (B,C).

Cambay amber specimen AMNH-Tad-441-A.
(A) Overview showing liverwort and moss inclusions as well as two dipterans. The arrowhead points to the holotype of Microlejeunea nyiahae. (B) Pleurocarpous moss. (C) Close-up showing upper portions of leaves of the moss inclusion. The prosenchymatous cells are well visible. Scale bars 1 mm (A) and 100 μm (B,C).

                                                                           Cambay amber originates from the warmest period of the Eocene, which is also well known for the appearance of early angiosperm-dominated megathermal forests. The humid climate of these forests may have triggered the evolution of epiphytic lineages of bryophytes; however, early Eocene fossils of bryophytes are rare. Here, we present evidence for lejeuneoid liverworts and pleurocarpous mosses in Cambay amber. The preserved morphology of the moss fossil is inconclusive for a detailed taxonomic treatment. The liverwort fossil is, however, distinctive; its zig-zagged stems, suberect complicate-bilobed leaves, large leaf lobules, and small, deeply bifid underleaves suggest a member of Lejeuneaceae subtribe Lejeuneinae (Harpalejeunea, Lejeunea, Microlejeunea). We tested alternative classification possibilities by conducting divergence time estimates based on DNA sequence variation of Lejeuneinae using the age of the fossil for corresponding age constraints. Consideration of the fossil as a stem group member of Microlejeunea or Lejeunea resulted in an Eocene to Late Cretaceous age of the Lejeuneinae crown group. This reconstruction is in good accordance with published divergence time estimates generated without the newly presented fossil evidence. Balancing available evidence, we describe the liverwort fossil as the extinct species Microlejeunea nyiahae, representing the oldest crown group fossil of Lejeuneaceae.

Microlejeunea nyiahae sp. nov. (AMNH-Tad-441-A) from Eocene Cambay amber. (A-F) Gametophytes; (G) Portion of the shoot depicted in (B); the arrowhead points to the underleaf that is enlarged in (H). (H, I) Deeply bifid underleaves (encircled). The gametophyte fragment shown in B and G represents the holotype. Scale bars 50 μm (A-G) and 10 μm (H,I).

Microlejeunea nyiahae sp. nov. (AMNH-Tad-441-A) from Eocene Cambay amber.
(A-F) Gametophytes; (G) Portion of the shoot depicted in (B); the arrowhead points to the underleaf that is enlarged in (H). (H, I) Deeply bifid underleaves (encircled). The gametophyte fragment shown in B and G represents the holotype. Scale bars 50 μm (A-G) and 10 μm (H,I).

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WFS News: Fossil ‘Death Pit’ Preserves Dino Extinction Event … But Where Are the Dinosaurs?

November 28th, 2019 Riffin

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A group of fish fossils from the Tanis surge deposit. (Image: © Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

A group of fish fossils from the Tanis surge deposit.(Image: © Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

The New Yorker recently described a so-called dinosaur graveyard as holding the remains of an astonishingly diverse trove of dinosaur fossils, including hatchlings; it caused quite a buzz in the media. But even though the site is potentially groundbreaking, the New Yorker article is out of step with the study describing the find.

There’s no question that the site in North Dakota (part of the fossil-rich Hell Creek Formation) is an incredible paleontology bonanza; crammed with Cretaceous fossils that were all buried at once, it offers an unprecedented snapshot of the minutes and hours following the asteroid impact that extinguished much of life on Earth around 66 million years ago.

On March 29, prior to the study’s publication in a scientific journal, The New Yorker reported that the site contained fossils of pterosaurs, mammals and “almost every dinosaur group known from Hell Creek.” However, the study — published online Monday (April 1) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — makes no mention of dinosaurs, apart from an isolated and incomplete hip bone. [Crash! 10 Biggest Impact Craters on Earth]

“There seems to be a disconnect between what is described in The New Yorker with what is actually in the peer­-reviewed paper,” Stephen Brusatte, a reader in vertebrate paleontology at the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, told Live Science in an email.

Brusatte, who was not involved in the new study, said that the claim would be “awesome” if it were true, but for now, the data simply isn’t available.

“I hope there are other dinosaur fossils at the site, and I look forward to hearing more about them,” he said.

Lead study author Robert DePalma, who conducted the research as a doctoral candidate in geology at the University of Kansas (KU), told Live Science that “the only information that anyone should be talking about is what’s in this published paper, because that’s the only thing that can be freely evaluated based on the scientific data.”

Densely packed fossils

The Cretaceous period (145.5 million years ago to about 65.5 million years) literally ended with a bang. Scientists cite a massive asteroid impact in waters near Chicxulub, Mexico, as the prevailing explanation for the sudden disappearance of most of Earth’s animal species — including all dinosaurs except birds.

When the asteroid struck, it ended the Cretaceous and ushered in the Paleogene. The newly described site lies between layers of Cretaceous and Paleogene rocks at the Hell Creek Formation, one of the world’s richest fossil deposits, which spans parts of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. The site contains densely packed fossils of animals that died at the same time “on the last day of the Cretaceous,” said DePalma, who is currently a researcher at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, and an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University.

“Their presence there, and the presence of all the other details in sediments, is helping us to tease out all the little, tiny details that occurred in the first moments after the impact that were unclear before this discovery,” DePalma said.

DePalma dubbed the site “Tanis” after the city that hid the ark of the covenant in the film “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” according to The New Yorker. The fossil deposit appears to contain something equally as remarkable and unprecedented as its namesake: evidence of mass death directly linked to the Chicxulub impact.

A partially exposed fish fossil at the Tanis site is exquisitely preserved. (Image credit: Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

A partially exposed fish fossil at the Tanis site is exquisitely preserved. (Image credit: Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

Fish and ammonites

In the study, DePalma and his colleagues described a deposit about 3 feet (1.3 meters) thick, holding fossil evidence of freshwater fish, marine vertebrates, ammonites (extinct relatives of today’s nautilus), vegetation and animal-made burrows.

More than 50 percent of the freshwater fish at Tanis died with tiny glass balls called spherules embedded in their gills; in fact, the site was riddled with spherules ranging in diameter from 0.01 to 0.06 inches (0.3 to 1.4 millimeters).

Also known as tektites, these glass beads formed from droplets of melted rock that were sprayed into the atmosphere after the asteroid’s impact. These objects rained down on North America minutes later, and the Tanis fish probably inhaled and choked on the tektites before a wave of debris buried the creatures, the researchers reported.

A micro-CT image shows a cutaway of a clay-altered spherule, with an internal core of unaltered impact glass. (Image credit: Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

A micro-CT image shows a cutaway of a clay-altered spherule, with an internal core of unaltered impact glass. (Image credit: Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

Researchers also found spherules embedded in amber adhering to bits of branches and tree trunks; the amber coating prevented these tektites from deforming and preserved their original shapes. The glass beads are “geochemically nearly indistinguishable” from glass found at the Chicxulub site, and thereby “directly correlate with the Chicxulub impact,” the scientists wrote in the study.

In the marine area around the Chicxulub impact, spherules are commonly found “many layers below the mass extinction and many layers above it,” Gerta Keller, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, told Live Science. Kelly, who was not involved in the study, explained that storms or a drop in sea level can shift spherules into younger geologic deposits, so that they appear to have originated there — even if they are older than the rocks around them.

But at Tanis, spherules were stuck in amber and in the gills of dead fish, suggesting that spherules and fish were all buried at the same time, the study said. [Wipe Out: History’s Most Mysterious Mass Extinctions]

A deadly surge

The surge swiftly traveled inland, flowing from west to east — the opposite direction of the ancient river’s flow — so the scientists quickly ruled out typical river flooding as the cause of mass death, DePalma said. Only a tsunami or a seiche, a towering wave that forms in large bodies of water, could create the deposit that the scientists found. It was likely caused by the seismic waves generated by the Chicxulub asteroid, the researchers reported.

At Tanis, tree logs (L) and multiple fish carcasses (R) were tossed together. (Image credit: Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

At Tanis, tree logs (L) and multiple fish carcasses (R) were tossed together. (Image credit: Courtesy of Robert DePalma)

Dozens of sites around the globe exhibit a geologic layer marking the end of the Cretaceous. That layer, rich in spherules and minerals that drifted to Earth after the asteroid impact, draws a stark division between global diversity as the Cretaceous was winding down and the dramatic disappearance of numerous plant and animal species that followed, Kirk Johnson, director of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., told Live Science.

What makes the Tanis site exceptional is that it preserves a moment in time “during the catastrophe itself,” as the disaster unfolded 66 million years ago, said Johnson, who was not involved in the study.

“That’s the incredible thing about this — it gives you some texture on what was happening on that day when the asteroid hit,” Johnson said.

“If we can understand how the world responds to things like that, we can understand how we might begin to deal with an extinction-level event today,” he said.

Source: Article by Mindy Weisberger,Livescience.com

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WFS News: A high-latitude fauna of mid-Mesozoic mammals from Yakutia, Russia

November 23rd, 2019 Riffin

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A high-latitude fauna of mid-Mesozoic mammals from Yakutia, Russia

The Early Cretaceous (?Berriasian-Barremian) Teete vertebrate locality in Western Yakutia, East Siberia, Russia, has produced mammal remains that are attributed to three taxa: Eleutherodontidae indet. cf. Sineleutherus sp. (Haramiyida; an upper molariform tooth), Khorotherium yakutensis gen. et sp. nov. (Tegotheriidae, Docodonta; maxillary fragment with three molariform teeth and dentary fragment with one molariform tooth), and Sangarotherium aquilonium gen. et sp. nov. (Eutriconodonta incertae sedis; dentary fragment with one erupted molariform tooth and one tooth in crypt). This is the second occurrence of Mesozoic mammals in high latitudes (paleolatitude estimate N 63–70°) of the Northern Hemisphere. In spite of the presumed Early Cretaceous age based on freshwater mollusks, the Teete mammal assemblage has a distinctive Jurassic appearance, being most similar to the Middle-Late Jurassic mammal assemblages known from Siberia, Russia and Xinjiang, China. The smooth transition from Jurassic to Cretaceous biota in Northern Asia is best explained by stable environmental conditions.

Teeth of Stegosauria indet. (a, b), Ornithischia indet. (c-e), and Eleutherodontidae indet. cf. Sineleutherus sp. (f, g). a, b, ZIN PH 1/246, in occlusal (a) and labial or lingual (b) views. c-e, ZIN PH 2/246, in occlusal (c), lingual (d), and mesial or distal (e) views. f, g, PIN 5614/4, left upper molariform tooth, in labial (f) and occlusal (g) views. Scale bars equal 1 mm.

Teeth of Stegosauria indet.
(a, b), Ornithischia indet. (c-e), and Eleutherodontidae indet. cf. Sineleutherus sp. (f, g). a, b, ZIN PH 1/246, in occlusal (a) and labial or lingual (b) views. c-e, ZIN PH 2/246, in occlusal (c), lingual (d), and mesial or distal (e) views. f, g, PIN 5614/4, left upper molariform tooth, in labial (f) and occlusal (g) views. Scale bars equal 1 mm.

Citation: Averianov A, Martin T, Lopatin A, Skutschas P, Schellhorn R, Kolosov P, et al. (2018) A high-latitude fauna of mid-Mesozoic mammals from Yakutia, Russia. PLoS ONE 13(7): e0199983. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199983

Editor: Anthony Fiorillo, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, UNITED STATES

WFS News: Ancient four-legged whale that looked like an otter discovered in Peru

November 21st, 2019 Riffin

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev

Scientists think the newly discovered Peregocetus was able to walk on land and swim ( A. Gennari )

Scientists think the newly discovered Peregocetus was able to walk on land and swim ( A. Gennari )

A four-legged creature that had a tail and webbed feet similar to those found on otters, has been identified as an ancestor of the whale.  

Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planet’s oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago.

These small small “hooves” at the tips of its fingers and toes suggest it was able to walk on land as well as swim.

An international research team came across the 4 metre-long specimen while digging for bones in the coastal desert of the South American country. 

They named it Peregocetus pacificus, meaning “the travelling whale that reached the Pacific.”

While the fossils are not the oldest whales ever found, they are significant because they show these ancient creatures spread across the world from their initial populations in Asia.

“The evolution of whales is perhaps the best-documented example of macroevolution that we have, with the group going from small, dog-sized, hoofed mammals to the giants of the ocean we know and love today,” said Dr Travis Park from the Natural History Museum. “However, despite having a good fossil record of the different stages involved, there are still questions remaining as to the routes that early whales took when they first spread around the world.”

The new find is helping the scientists answer that question.

“This is the first indisputable record of a quadrupedal whale skeleton for the whole Pacific Ocean, probably the oldest for the Americas, and the most complete outside India and Pakistan,” said Dr Olivier Lambert of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, who led the research.

The scientists think these early whales reached the New World across the South Atlantic, swimming from the western coast of Africa to South America.

They would have been aided by strong westward currents, and the fact that the continents were far closer together than they are today.

The results were published in the journal Current Biology.

Source: Article by Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent,www.independent.co.uk

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WFS News: fossil hunter finds prehistoric sea creature inside ‘golden snitch’

November 20th, 2019 Riffin

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

fossil hunter finds prehistoric sea creature inside ‘golden snitch’

Quidditch ball-shaped fossils are just some of the many discoveries made by amateur archaeologist Aaron Smith.

The medical student has found several fossils that date back to the Jurassic period on the beaches of Whitby in Yorkshire.

Perhaps the most spectacular is a 185-million-year-old fossil encased by what looks like a ‘golden canon’ ball.

It is technically a rock that is coated in iron pyrite, also known as ‘fools gold’, and if you shine this material, just like Smith did, then it turns shiny and gold.

The phenomenal piece of history is thought to be 185 million years old and was found on Sandsend Beach.

Mr. Smith, 23, is a seasoned fossil collector and continues to go and explore the seaside in hope of finding similar treasures.

He said: “In order to find fossils, pretty much anywhere in the world, you just need to put in a lot of dedication!

“The majority of the time there is nothing really to be found but every now and again, if you’re lucky enough, and something has appeared due to a storm for example, then you might find a rock with a fossil inside it.

“When you find a fossil, then the long intricate process begins of carefully removing the stone to expose the fossil, this can take hundreds of hours in many cases.

“It’s very exciting discovering the fossils. It makes it all worthwhile after spending months of searching.”

When the medical student opened up one of his freshly shined piece of iron pyrite he found spiral-shaped cleviceras fossils.

Cleviceras are an extinct type of cephalopod creature.

The best-known cephalopods today are probably squids and octopuses.

The golden-snitchlike spheres with a limestone core are actually common along the Yorkshire coastline and can be found among the stones and shales.

Mr. Smith has previously posted a video of the golden-snitch fossil online and captioned it: “Here’s a video of us opening one of our huge Cannon Ball fossils.

“The limestone nodule is coated in Iron Pyrite, meaning we can polish it to become Golden, seen in our previous videos.

“It still impresses me that these 185 million-year-old fossils are along our beautiful Yorkshire Coastline waiting to be found.”

This story originally appeared in The Sun. 

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Source: Article By Charlotte Edwards, Digital Technology and Science Reporter | The Sun

WFS News: First skeletal remains of Phoebodus found in Morocco

November 5th, 2019 Riffin

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

An international team of researchers has found the first skeletal remains of Phoebodus—an ancient shark—in the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes the fossil and compares it to a modern shark and fish.

Possible body reconstruction of (a) P. saidselachus sp. nov., Late Devonian, (b) T. gracia [11], Early Carboniferous, and (c) picture of C. anguineus [44], Recent. Credit: (c) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1336

Ancient sharks that are long extinct left behind a lot of teeth—but very little other evidence of their existence. This is because their skeletons were made of soft cartilage instead of hard bone. Because of that, rare fossilized skeletons generate much excitement in the archeology community. In this new effort, the researchers report that they found a complete fossilized  of Phoebodus, a shark that lived over 350 million years ago.

The shark fossil was found in a mountainous region of Morocco that had once been a shallow sea basin. The researchers also found several skulls and parts of another species of Phoebodus at the same site. Testing of the material in which the shark remains were fossilized revealed that the specimens were approximately 370 million years old. Prior to the find, the only evidence of Phoebodus was three teeth. The researchers note that Phoebodus went extinct in an early part of the Carboniferous—a very long time before many of its features evolved in other modern sea creatures.

Phoebodus saidselachus sp. nov., (a–d) PIMUZ A/I 4712 and (e) PIMUZA/I 4656. (a) Ferruginous nodule containing cranial and postcranial remains; (b) drawing, scale bar, 200 mm; (c) detail of visceral skeleton, scale bar, 100 mm; (d) tooth, scale bar, 5 mm; (e) tooth in labial, aboral, baso-lateral and linguo-basal views, scale bar, 10 mm. adbc, anterior dorsal basal cartilage; bh, basihyal; cb, ceratobranchial; ch, ceratohyal; col, cololite; fs, fin spine; mc, Meckel`s cartilage; mpt, metapterygium; n, neurocranium; na, neural arches; pdbc, posterior dorsal basal cartilage; pq, palatoquadrate; rad, radials; sc, scapulacoracoid. (Online version in colour.). Credit: (c) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1336

In studying the fossilized skeleton, the researchers were able to see that when alive, the shark had a long, thin body (almost like an eel), a flat skull and a long jaw. They noted that it bore a striking resemblance to the modern frilled shark, though the two are not related. The , in particular, were very similar—round and pointy and inward-turning, rather than the more familiar serrated edges. Such sharks tend to grab prey and hold on to it like a bulldog and then swallow it whole. The researchers suggest the resemblance between the ancient shark and the modern shark may give researchers some ideas on how Phoebodus hunted. They also note that the ancient shark resembles the modern gar, as well. And while it is a fish and not a shark, it, too, might shed some light on how the ancient shark hunted.

Source: Article  by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

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