WFS

Formation of sedimentary layers of white clay, Tamilnadu, India

Fossil site for wood fossils, Tamilnadu, 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: Jurassic fossil fish more than 180 million years old found

June 1st, 2024

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The fossil is very well preserved Dean Lomax

A fierce-looking fossil fish has been discovered in a new Jurassic dig site in Gloucestershire, having been perfectly preserved for almost 200 million years.

The fossil shows pronounced big eyes and teeth with its mouth wide open of a fish which lived in a tropical sea roughly 183 million years ago.

The rock was was unearthed and identified by West Country fossil-hunters Neville and Sally Hollingworth, who have enjoyed a string of important fossil discoveries.

They found the preserved predator called Pachycormus in the dig site just outside Stroud.

The Hollingworths explained that the fossils come from the Early Jurassic- and more specifically, a time called the Toarcian.

“Excavations at Kings Stanley over the last week have revealed a rich source of fossil material, particularly from a rare layer of rock that has not been exposed since the late 19th Century,” they said.

The fish head was found behind a cow shed in a grassy bank on Court Farm in Kings Stanley village.

The landowner, Adam Knight, was unaware of the rich fossil bed his cattle were grazing on top of.He gave permission to the Hollingworths and an expert team from the University of Manchester to investigate further.They brought in a digger to crack open more limestone nodules, where the ferocious fossil was originally buried in.They discovered more fish, squid and the bones of two ichthosaurs which are marine reptiles with a similar appearance to dolphins.They also found fossilised wood and insects in the clay layer, which suggests land was not far away from the marine setting.Paleantologist Dean Lomax said the discovery shows there are still many more significant fossil revelations to be made in the UK.

The fish head was found behind a cow shed in a grassy bank on Court Farm Dean Lomax

He said: “The site is quite remarkable, with numerous beautifully preserved fossils of ancient animals that once lived in a Jurassic sea that covered this part of the UK during the Jurassic.

“Inland locations with fossils like this are rare in the UK. The fossils we have collected will surely form the basis of research projects for years to come.”

Many of the specimens collected will be donated to the local Museum in the Park, Stroud, where they will form a significant part of the museum’s palaeontology collections.

The team hope that s ome of the discoveries will be put on display for the public at the Boho Bakery Café, which is very close to Court Farm, in October.

Source: Article by Maryam Zakir-Hussain in The Independent.

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WFS News: Tyrannosaurus rex had lips over its teeth, research suggests

June 1st, 2024

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While T rex is often depicted prowling the landscape while sporting a toothy grin, its fearsome teeth may actually have been concealed behind a pair of thin, scaly lips, research suggests.

Experts say the perception that theropods were lipless arose because of the huge size of their teeth, and because their closest living toothed relatives – such as crocodiles and alligators – do not have lips.

However, the research suggests that, like lizards today, theropods may have had their teeth covered when their mouth was closed.

An artist’s impression of a juvenile Edmontosaurus disappearing into the lipped mouth of a Tyrannosaurus. Photograph: Mark Witton/University of Portsmouth/PA

Dr Mark Witton, of the University of Portsmouth and a co-author of the study, said popular depictions of dinosaurs were out of date.

“We are basically still living in the shadow of Jurassic Park [from] 30 years ago,” he said. “We need to move away from this toothy lipless look for things like Tyrannosaurus and towards these animals having more lizard-like faces.”

Writing in the journal Science, researchers in the US and UK say the examination of a large tooth that spent over 500 days in the mouth of the tyrannosaur Daspletosaurus revealed no evidence of substantial wear – a finding consistent with studies of other theropod teeth.

By contrast, the large teeth of American alligators are often damaged, with even the dentine layer worn down – a result, the researchers suggest, of the animals being lipless, meaning their tooth enamel is exposed, which is why it becomes dry and less resistant to wear.

Witton said tyrannosaur teeth often lasted more than 12 months before being replaced – far longer than for crocodiles – adding weight to the idea the former had lips.

“No animals can repair or replace worn enamel, and yet the thin enamel of tyrannosaurs remains intact even though some retained their teeth well over a year,” he said.

The team also found tiny holes in the jaws of theropods arranged in a similar way to those in today’s lizards – where they supply the lips and the gums with nerves and blood vessels – while both have vertical teeth, unlike crocodiles whose teeth lean outwards.

The team said an analysis of the relative size of the skull and teeth in lizards today suggested theropod teeth were not too large to have been covered by lips.

“If you just imagine the Komodo dragon scaled up with a 5ft-long skull, it is not going to look much different from something like a T rex,” said Witton.

Prof Steve Brusatte, of the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the work, said that if the researchers were correct, T rex would not have had a toothy grin but more of a gummy smile, adding that the soft tissue covering their teeth would not be the same shape as our own fleshy and pouty lips.

However, Brusatte said the case was not yet closed. “I suspect [these researchers] are right, and that tyrannosaurs had more soft tissue covering their teeth than crocodiles, but I’m still on the fence as to whether they had as much stuff covering their teeth as monitor lizards,” he said.

Source:The Guardian

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WFS News: Large fossil discovery finally exposes origins of Welsh dragons

May 31st, 2024

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Site photographs of the two bone beds at (A) Lavernock Point and (B) St Mary’s Well Bay. The basal bone bed at Lavernock has a nearly continuous thickness of 5 cm, while the higher bed at St Mary’s Well Bay has an approximate thickness of 1.5 cm. Credit: Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2024.05.001

A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales. The find is reported in Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association.

Until recently, the land of the dragon didn’t have any dinosaurs. However, in the last 10 years, several dinosaurs have been reported, but their life conditions were not well known.

In a new study by a team from the University of Bristol, important details have been revealed for the first time. The researchers found that early Welsh dinosaurs, from more than 200 million years ago, lived on a tropical lowland beside the sea. Dinosaur trackways are known from Barry and other sites nearby, showing that dinosaurs had walked across the warm lowlands.

The discovery was made at Lavernock Point, close to Cardiff and Penarth, where the cliffs of dark-colored shales and limestones document ancient shallow seas. At several levels, there are accumulations of bones, including the remains of fish, sharks, marine reptiles and occasionally, dinosaurs.

Former student of the Bristol MSc in Paleobiology Owain Evans, who led the study, explained, “The bone bed paints the picture of a tropical archipelago, which was subjected to frequent storms, that washed material from around the surrounding area, both in land and out at sea, into a tidal zone.

“This means that from just one fossil horizon, we can reconstruct a complex ecological system, with a diverse array of marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and placodonts in the water, and dinosaurs on land.

View of the cliff face at Lavernock Point from the east end of the beach, showing the red mudstones of the Williton Member (Mercia Mudstone Formation) transitioning upwards into the interbedded shales of the Westbury Formation. Credit: Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2024.05.001

“I had visited the coast at Penarth all my life, growing up in Cardiff, but never noticed the fossils. Then, the more I read, the more amazing it became. Local geologists had been collecting bones since the 1870s, and most of these are in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.”

Cindy Howells, Curator of Paleontology at the National Museum of Wales, adds, “The collections from Lavernock go all the way back to the 19th century, with many sections of the bone bed being collected over the years. The presence of dinosaur fossils at the site ensure that it remains one of the most significant localities for paleontology in Wales.”

Two discoveries made by the team while conducting fieldwork at Lavernock were the fossilized remains of a placodont osteoderm, and a single coelacanth gular bone.

Supervisor Dr. Chris Duffin said, “The remains of coelacanths and placodonts are relatively rare in the U.K., which makes these finds even more remarkable. These two fossils alone help build a broader picture of what the Rhaetian in the U.K. would have looked like.”

Professor Michael Benton from Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, another project supervisor, adds, “The volume of dinosaur remains found at Lavernock is extremely exciting, and is a chance to study a complex, and often mysterious period in their evolutionary history. We have identified the remains of a large Plateosaurus like animal, along with several bones which likely belonged to a predatory theropod.”

A significant section of the paper is dedicated to the abundant microfossils found at the site, which include fish teeth, scales and bone fragments. By examining thousands of specimens, the team was able to identify the key species in the shallow seas and work out the relative importance of each.

Journal ref: Owain Evans et al, Microvertebrates from the basal Rhaetian Bone Bed (Late Triassic) at Lavernock, South Wales, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2024.05.001

source: PHYS.ORG: University of Bristol

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WFS News: Musankwa sanyatiensis, a new dinosaur from Zimbabwe

May 30th, 2024

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Musankwa sanyatiensis leg bones as they were discovered in the ground on Spurwing Island, Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. Credit: Paul Barrett

Fossils found on the shoreline of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe represent a completely new dinosaur species. This remarkable find, named Musankwa sanyatiensis, marks only the fourth dinosaur species named from Zimbabwe. The research detailing this significant discovery is set to be published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. The study was conducted by an international team of scientists from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, Stony Brook University in New York and was led by Prof Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum in London.

The discovery of Musankwa sanyatiensis is particularly significant as it is the first dinosaur to be named from the Mid-Zambezi Basin of northern Zimbabwe in over 50 years. Additionally, it is only the fourth dinosaur to be named from Zimbabwe, following the descriptions of “Syntarsus” rhodesiensis in 1969, Vulcanodon karibaensis in 1972, and, most recently, Mbiresaurus raathi in 2022.

The rocks yielding this new specimen date back to the Late Triassic period, approximately 210 million years ago. Musankwa sanyatiensis is represented by the remains of a single hind leg, including its thigh, shin, and ankle bones. “Despite the limited fossil material, these bones possess unique features that distinguish them from those of other dinosaurs living at the same time,” says Dr Kimberley ‘Kimi’ Chapelle, assistant professor at Stony Brook University and an honorary associate at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits.

Artist reconstruction of Musankwa sanyatiensis, walking in Triassic shallow waters past a metoposaur. Credit: Atashni Moopen

The discovery was named Musankwa sanyatiensis after the houseboat “Musankwa.” In the Tonga dialect, “Musankwa” means “boy close to marriage.” This vessel served as the research team’s home and mobile laboratory during two field expeditions to Lake Kariba in 2017 and 2018. The vessel was made available to the research team through the generosity of David and Julie Glynn, and the crew — Coster Katupu, Godfrey Swalika, Simbarashe Mangoroma, and Never Mapira — who provided essential logistic support.

Evolutionary analysis reveals that Musankwa sanyatiensis was a member of the Sauropodomorpha, a group of bipedal, long-necked dinosaurs that were widespread during the Late Triassic. Interestingly, this dinosaur appears to be closely related to contemporaries in South Africa and Argentina. Weighing in at around 390 kg, the plant-eating Musankwa sanyatiensis was one of the larger dinosaurs of its era.

Africa has a long history of dinosaur discovery, with the first dinosaur in the southern hemisphere found in South Africa just three years after the term “dinosaur” was coined by Sir Richard Owen in 1842. However, most known dinosaur fossils have been found in just 10 countries, particularly in the northern hemisphere, leading to a sparse representation of African dinosaur diversity in the global fossil record. “The main reason for the underrepresentation of African dinosaur fossils is ‘undersampling’,” says Barrett. “Put simply, there have been fewer people looking for and unearthing dinosaurs in comparison with other regions of the world,” he notes.

Despite the fewer discoveries in Africa, many of these fossils are historically and scientifically significant. These include some of the oldest dinosaurs like Nyasasaurus parringtoni from Tanzania and Mbiresaurus raathi from Zimbabwe, as well as rich dinosaur faunas from South Africa, Tanzania, Niger, and Morocco.

The Late Triassic-Early Jurassic sediments of Zimbabwe are crucial for understanding the End-Triassic extinction, a catastrophic event that dramatically reshaped Earth’s biodiversity around 200 million years ago. These different layers provide insights into how different fossil-bearing sediments around the world correspond in age and help in piecing together the global picture of prehistoric life.

This new dinosaur species also highlights the untapped potential of the region for further paleontological discoveries. Barrett elaborates: “Over the last six years, many new fossil sites have been recorded in Zimbabwe, yielding a diverse array of prehistoric animals, including the first sub-Saharan mainland African phytosaurs (ancient crocodile-like reptiles), metoposaurid amphibians (giant armoured amphibians), lungfish, and other reptile remains.”

As more fossil sites are explored and excavated, there is hope for uncovering further significant finds that will shed light on the early evolution of dinosaurs and the ecosystems they inhabited. “Based on where it sits on the dinosaur family tree, Musanwka sanyantiensis is the first dinosaur of its kind from Zimbabwe,” Dr Kimi Chapelle excitedly explains. “It, therefore, highlights the potential of the region for further palaeontological discoveries,” she says.

Paul Barrett, Kimberley Chapelle, Lara Sciscio, Timothy Broderick, Michel Zondo, Darlington Munyikwa, Jonah Choiniere. A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic of the Mid-Zambezi Basin, Zimbabwe. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 2024; 69 DOI: 10.4202/app.01100.2023

University of the Witwatersrand. “Musankwa sanyatiensis, a new dinosaur from Zimbabwe.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 May 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240530132349.htm>.

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WFS News: The skull of a prehistoric sea monster found on the Jurassic Coast has made it into the world record books.

May 29th, 2024

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The skull of a prehistoric sea monster found on the Jurassic Coast

The skull of a prehistoric sea monster found on the Jurassic Coast has made it into the world record books, according to BBC.

The 2m-long (6ft) skull of a pliosaur, excavated from high above a beach in Dorset, was the subject of a BBC film presented by Sir David Attenborough.

Guinness World Records confirmed it was the “most complete” of its type on the planet.

It said it was about “95% complete by surface area”, with “previously unobservable details” of the genus.

The snout of the pliosaur was discovered in 2022 by fossil enthusiast Philip Jacobs, prompting an excavation involving teams suspended by ropes high above the beach.

Sir David investigated the discovery in a BBC film broadcast on New Year’s Day.

The skull of a prehistoric sea monster found on the Jurassic Coast

It is now on display at the Etches Collection museum in Kimmeridge.

Founder Dr Steve Etches is crowdfunding to recover the rest of the 150-million-year-old creature that remains embedded in the fast-eroding cliff face.

Dr Etches said: “Receiving the news that we have been awarded a Guinness World Record title in recognition of the fact that it is the most complete skull of its kind ever found is a really nice accolade to share as part of the ongoing story.”

The marine reptiles, which grew up to 12m-long, powered through the ocean using four paddle-like limbs.

The Kimmeridge skull bears features not seen on other pliosaurs, including a high head crest, suggesting it may be a species new to science.

Source: AZORTAC

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WFS News: Tharosaurus indicus, an oldest long-necked dinosaur unearthed in India

November 3rd, 2023

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Fossils of the oldest long-necked dinosaur that inhabited Earth about 167 million years ago have been unearthed in India that reveal the country was a “major centre of dinosaur evolution”, experts said.

The discovery unearths some of the oldest plant-eating giant reptiles to have roamed the planet.

The dinosaur, named Tharosaurus indicus after India’s Thar desert, walked the planet during the Middle Jurassic period, according to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Researchers, including those from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and the Geological Survey of India dug up the fossil at a site near the city of Jaisalmer in the western state of Rajasthan – a region that was part of a shoreline along the prehistoric Tethys Ocean.

The new dinosaur was a member of the group known as dicraeosaurids that had long necks that fed on vegetation, according to the scientists.

It is also the first of this group of dinosaurs to have ever been found in India – and the oldest in the world.

“Prof. Sunil Bajpai and Debajit Dutta of IIT-Roorkee and Geological Survey of India have discovered the oldest fossil remains of a long-necked, plant-eating dicraeosaurid dinosaur in Jaisalmer, suggesting that India was a major centre of dinosaur evolution,” said IIT Roorkee in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The discovery provides fresh insights into the diversity of sauropod dinosaurs in the prehistoric landmass, to which the Indian subcontinent was also a part at the time.

“Palaeobiogeographic considerations of Tharosaurus, seen in conjunction with the other Indian Jurassic sauropods, suggest that the new Indian taxon is a relic of a lineage that originated in India and underwent rapid dispersal across the rest of Pangaea,” scientists wrote in the study.

Other dinosaurs belonging to this group from the Middle Jurassic–Early Cretaceous periods have mostly been unearthed from Africa and South America as well as from sites in the US and China.

Researchers said the larger group of these dinosaurs, known as diplodocoids, all had long bodies and necks with spikes on the backs of their necks.

T indicus, they said, also slightly differed from others in its group with long depression on the side of its neck bones as well as neural spines, indicating it likely had unique spikes.

Scientists speculate the diplodocoid dinosaur group likely spread from, or may have originated in India, but added that this theory “still needs to be reconciled” with by comparing another Asian dinosaur group, the Lingwulong, from the Middle Jurassic period.

The new discovery, researchers said, also emphasises the need for increased sampling of older fossil sites in India in search of such ancestral dinosaur groups.

Source: Article by Vishwam Sankaran , www.independent.co.uk

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WFS News: Historical RNA expression profiles from the extinct Tasmanian tiger.

October 23rd, 2023

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A new study shows the isolation and sequencing of more than a century-old RNA molecules from a Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in a museum collection. This resulted in the reconstruction of skin and skeletal muscle transcriptomes from an extinct species for the first time. The researchers note that their findings have relevant implications for international efforts to resurrect extinct species, including both the Tasmanian tiger and the woolly mammoth, as well as for studying pandemic RNA viruses.

The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was a remarkable apex carnivorous marsupial that was once distributed all across the Australian continent and the island of Tasmania. This extraordinary species found its final demise after European colonization, when it was declared as an agricultural pest and a bounty of £1 per each full-grown animal killed was set by 1888. The last known living Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936 at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania.

Recent efforts in de-extinction have focused on the Tasmanian tiger, as its natural habitat in Tasmania is still mostly preserved, and its reintroduction could help recovering past ecosystem equilibriums lost after its final disappearance. However, reconstructing a functional living Tasmanian tiger not only requires a comprehensive knowledge of its genome (DNA) but also of tissue-specific gene expression dynamics and how gene regulation worked, which are only attainable by studying its transcriptome (RNA).

“Resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger or the woolly mammoth is not a trivial task, and will require a deep knowledge of both the genome and transcriptome regulation of such renowned species, something that only now is starting to be revealed,” says Emilio Mármol, the lead author of a study recently published in the Genome Research journal by researchers at SciLifeLab in collaboration with the Centre for Palaeogenetics, a joint venture between the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Stockholm University.

RNA molecules recovered from the Tasmanian tiger

The researchers behind this study have sequenced, for the first time, the transcriptome of the skin and skeletal muscle tissues from a 130-year-old desiccated Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. This led to the identification of tissue-specific gene expression signatures that resemble those from living extant marsupial and placental mammals.

The recovered transcriptomes were of such good quality that it was possible to identify muscle- and skin-specific protein coding RNAs, and led to the annotation of missing ribosomal RNA and microRNA genes, the later following MirGeneDB recommendations.

“This is the first time that we have had a glimpse into the existence of thylacine-specific regulatory genes, such as microRNAs, that got extinct more than one century ago,” says Marc R. Friedländer, Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute at Stockholm University and SciLifeLab.

This pioneering study opens up new exciting opportunities and implications for exploring the vast collections of specimens and tissues stored at museums across the globe, where RNA molecules might await to be uncovered and sequenced.

“In the future, we may be able to recover RNA not only from extinct animals, but also RNA virus genomes such as SARS-CoV2 and their evolutionary precursors from the skins of bats and other host organisms held in museum collections,” says Love Dalén, Professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University and the Centre for Palaeogenetics.

The authors of the study say they are excited for future holistic research developments integrating both genomics and transcriptomics towards a new era in palaeogenetics beyond DNA.

Journal Reference:

Emilio Mármol-Sánchez, Bastian Fromm, Nikolay Oskolkov, Zoé Pochon, Panagiotis Kalogeropoulos, Eli Eriksson, Inna Biryukova, Vaishnovi Sekar, Erik Ersmark, Björn Andersson, Love Dalén, Marc R. Friedländer. Historical RNA expression profiles from the extinct Tasmanian tiger. Genome Research, 2023; DOI: 10.1101/gr.277663.123

Stockholm University. “RNA for the first time recovered from an extinct species.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 September 2023. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230919153758.htm>.

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WFS News:Plate tectonic cross-roads: Reconstructing the Panthalassa-Neotethys Junction Region from Philippine Sea Plate and Australasian oceans and orogens.

October 17th, 2023

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Utrecht University geologist Suzanna van de Lagemaat has reconstructed a massive and previously unknown tectonic plate that was once one-quarter the size of the Pacific Ocean. Her colleagues in Utrecht had predicted its existence over 10 years ago based on fragments of old tectonic plates found deep in the Earth’s mantle. Van de Lagemaat reconstructed lost plates through field research and detailed investigations of the mountain belts of Japan, Borneo, the Philippines, New Guinea, and New Zealand. To her surprise, she found that oceanic remnants on northern Borneo must have belonged to the long-suspected plate, which scientists have named Pontus. She has now reconstructed the entire plate in its full glory. Suzanna van de Lagemaat will defend her dissertation on this plate tectonics puzzle at Utrecht University on Friday, October 13.

Understanding the movements of the tectonic plates that make up the earth’s rigid outer shell is essential to understand the planet’s geological history. The movements of these plates strongly influenced how the planet’s paleogeography and climate have changed over time, and even where to find rare metals. But large oceanic plates from the geological past have since disappeared into the earth’s mantle by means of subduction. They have left behind only fragments of rock hidden in mountain belts. Van de Lagemaat studied the planet’s most complicated plate tectonic region: the area around the Philippines. “The Philippines is located at a complex junction of different plate systems. The region almost entirely consists of oceanic crust, but some pieces are raised above sea level, and show rocks of very different ages.”

Reconstruction

Using geological data, Van de Lagemaat first reconstructed the movements of the current plates in the region between Japan and New Zealand. That revealed how large the area was of plates that must have disappeared in the current western Pacific region. “We also conducted field work on northern Borneo, where we found the most important piece of the puzzle. We thought we were dealing with relicts of a lost plate that we already knew about. But our magnetic lab research on those rocks indicated that our finds were originally from much farther north, and had to be remnants of a different, previously unknown plate.” But the important realisation was yet to come. “11 years ago, we thought that the remnants of Pontus might lie in northern Japan, but we’d since refuted that theory,” explains Douwe van Hinsbergen, Van de Lagemaat’s PhD supervisor. “It was only after Suzanna had systematically reconstructed half of the ‘Ring of Fire’ mountain belts from Japan, through New Guinea, to New Zealand that the proposed Pontus plate revealed itself, and it included the rocks we studied on Borneo.”

Relics

The relics of Pontus are not only located on northern Borneo, but also on Palawan, an island in the Western Philippines, and in the South China Sea. Van de Lagemaat’s research also showed that a single coherent plate tectonic system stretched from southern Japan to New Zealand, and it must have existed for at least 150 million years. That is also a new discovery in the field.

Waves

The previous predictions of the existence of Pontus were made possible because a subducted plate leaves behind traces when it ‘sinks’ into the earth’s mantle: zones in the mantle with anomalous temperatures or compositions. These anomalies can be observed when seismographs pick up signals from earthquakes. Earthquakes send waves through Earth’s interior, and when they travel through an anomaly, such as a fragment from an old plate, the anomaly produces a disruption of the signal. Geologists can trace these disruptions to the existence of phenomena in the mantle, such as fragments of tectonic plates. That allows them to look 300 million years into the past; older plate fragments have ‘dissolved’ at the boundary between the mantle and the core. The study from 11 years ago showed that a large subduction zone must have run through the western paleo-Pacific Ocean, which separated the known Pacific plates in the east from the hypothetical Pontus plate in the west. This hypothesis has now been independently demonstrated by Van de Lagemaat’s research.

Journal Reference:

Suzanna H.A. van de Lagemaat, Douwe J.J. van Hinsbergen. Plate tectonic cross-roads: Reconstructing the Panthalassa-Neotethys Junction Region from Philippine Sea Plate and Australasian oceans and orogens. Gondwana Research, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.gr.2023.09.013

Utrecht University. “Plate tectonic surprise: Geologist unexpectedly finds remnants of a lost mega-plate.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 October 2023. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231009191657.htm>.

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WFS News:125-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Feathers Reveal Traces of Ancient Proteins

October 6th, 2023

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Paleontologists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland have discovered X-ray evidence of proteins in fossil feathers that sheds new light on feather evolution.

A graphical abstract based on paper by Slater et al., 2003. Credit: Science Graphic Design

Previous studies suggested that ancient feathers had a different composition to the feathers of birds today. The new research, however, reveals that the protein composition of modern-day feathers was also present in the feathers of dinosaurs and early birds, confirming that the chemistry of feathers originated much earlier than previously thought.

The research, published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, was led by paleontologists Dr. Tiffany Slater and Prof. Maria McNamara of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Science, who teamed with scientists based at Linyi University (China) and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (USA).

The team analyzed 125-million-year-old feathers from the dinosaur Sinornithosaurus and the early bird Confuciusornis from China, plus a 50-million-year-old feather from the USA.

“It’s really exciting to discover new similarities between dinosaurs and birds,” Dr. Slater says. “To do this, we developed a new method to detect traces of ancient feather proteins. Using X-rays and infrared light we found that feathers from the dinosaur Sinornithosaurus contained lots of beta-proteins, just like feathers of birds today.”

To help interpret the chemical signals preserved in the fossil feathers, the team also ran experiments to help understand how feather proteins break down during the fossilization process.

“Modern bird feathers are rich in beta-proteins that help strengthen feathers for flight,” Dr. Slater says

Scanning electron microscopy image of zebra finch feather. Scale bar indicates 200 µm. Credit: Dr. Tiffany Slater

“Previous tests on dinosaur feathers, though, found mostly alpha-proteins. Our experiments can now explain this weird chemistry as the result of protein degradation during the fossilization process. So although some fossil feathers do preserve traces of the original beta-proteins, other fossil feathers are damaged and tell us a false narrative about feather evolution.”

This research helps answer a long-standing debate about whether feather proteins, and proteins in general, can preserve in deep time.

Dr. Tiffany Slater and Prof. Maria McNamara pictured in the experimental fossilization laboratory at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at University College Cork. Credit: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

Prof. Maria McNamara, senior author on the study, said “Traces of ancient biomolecules can clearly survive for millions of years, but you can’t read the fossil record literally because even seemingly well-preserved fossil tissues have been cooked and squashed during fossilization. We’re developing new tools to understand what happens during fossilization and unlock the chemical secrets of fossils. This will give us exciting new insights into the evolution of important tissues and their biomolecules.”

Reference: “Preservation of corneous β-proteins in Mesozoic feathers” by Tiffany S. Slater, Nicholas P. Edwards, Samuel M. Webb, Fucheng Zhang, and Maria E. McNamara, 21 September 2023, Nature Ecology & Evolution.
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02177-8

Source: Article By UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK @ scitechdaily.com

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

WFS News: New Research Sheds Light on How Dinosaurs Became Giants

September 27th, 2023

Riffin

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

Bone cavities, known as air sacs, emerged in precursors of long-necked dinosaurs roughly 225 million years ago, as evidenced by a specimen unearthed in Rio Grande do Sul, South Brazil. The research also indicates that air sacs did not evolve as linearly as scientists believe. Credit: Márcio L. Castro

Bone cavities called air sacs emerged in the precursors of long-necked dinosaurs around 225 million years ago, according to the analysis of a specimen found in Rio Grande do Sul state, South Brazil.

The missing link has just been found, bridging the gap between the earliest dinosaurs, which varied significantly in size from mere centimeters to a maximum of 3 meters, and more recent giants that could be more than twice the length of a bus and have so much appeal to the popular imagination.

Macrocollum itaquii, which was discovered in the region of Agudo in the Rio Grande do Sul state of South Brazil and dates back 225 million years, is the most ancient dinosaur known to have structures referred to as air sacs.

These bone cavities, which persist in present-day birds, enabled dinosaurs to capture more oxygen, keep their bodies cool, and withstand the harsh conditions of their era. They also helped some become giants: Tyrannosaurus rex and Brachiosaurus, for example.

An article on the study that led to the discovery was published in the journal Anatomical Record. Two of its authors are researchers supported by FAPESP at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo state.

Skeletal reconstruction of the unaysaurid sauropodomorph Macrocollum (CAPPA/UFSM 0001b) showing vertebral elements along the spine and putative reconstruction of the air sac systems involved. (a) Pneumatic posterior cervical vertebra and a cross-section CT slice in b. (c) a pneumatized anterior dorsal vertebra with cross-section CT slice in d, and detail of the pneumatic foramen in e. (f) Detail of the pneumatic foramen in a reconstructed 3D model of the element. (g) Anterior cervical element (apneumatic). (h) Posterior dorsal vertebra shows no traces of PSP. The sacral series (i), as well as the anterior (k) and mid-caudal (j) series are apneumatic. a, g, h, j, and k are in left lateral view. c, e and f are in right lateral view. i is in dorsal view. ABD, abdominal diverticula; CER, cervical diverticula; LUN, lung; pf, pneumatic foramen. The reconstruction was made by Rodrigo T. Müller. Scale bar of the skeletal reconstruction = 500 mm; a–j = 20 mm.

“Air sacs made their bones less dense, allowing them to grow to more than 30 meters in length,” said Tito Aureliano, first author of the article. The study was conducted as part of his PhD research at the Institute of Geosciences (IG-UNICAMP).

“M. itaquii was the largest dinosaur of its time, with a length of about 3 meters. A few million years before then, the largest dinosaurs were about 1 meter long. Air sacs certainly facilitated this increase in size,” Aureliano added.

The study was a stage of the project “Taphonomic landscapes,” funded by FAPESP. Taphonomy is the study of how organisms decay and become fossilized or preserved in the paleontological record.

The principal investigator for this project was Fresia Ricardi-Branco, the penultimate author of the article and a professor at IG-UNICAMP.

“This was one of the first dinosaurs to walk the Earth, in the Triassic period,” she said. “The air sac adaptation enabled it to grow and withstand the climate in this period and later, in the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Air sacs gave dinosaurs an evolutionary advantage over other groups, such as mammals, and they were able to diversify faster.”

In a previous study, the group showed that the earliest fossils found so far did not have air sacs, taking their absence as a sign that this trait evolved at least three times independently.

M. itaquii was a biped, a sauropodomorph, and an ancestor of the giant quadrupeds with a small head, and a neck at least as long as the trunk.

Nonlinear evolution

Until air sacs were discovered in M. itaquii, these vertebral cavities were known to consist of either camerate or camellate tissue, the former referring to hollow spaces observed by microtomography, and the latter to spongy bone. According to the authors, in this case, they found “internal pneumatic chambers”, which are “neither camerate nor camellate, but a new type of tissue with an intermediate texture”. They propose to call the new structures “protocamerate”, as they “are not large enough to be considered camerae, but also present a camellate array internally”.

“The most widely held hypothesis until now was that the air sacs began as camerae and evolved into camellae. Our proposal, based on what we observed in this specimen, is that this other form existed first of all,” Aureliano said.

The vertebrae in which the air sacs were found also changed what was known about the evolution of these structures. Based on the fossils analyzed previously, other research groups proposed that air sacs first appeared in the abdominal region and did not appear in the cervical region until the early Jurassic (190 million years ago), a long time after the period in which M. itaquii was alive. Here, however, the authors found clear evidence of air sacs in the cervical and dorsal regions, with no sign of the structures in the abdominal region.

“It’s as if evolution had conducted different experiments until it arrived at the definitive system, in which air sacs run from the cervical region to the tail. It wasn’t a linear process,” Aureliano said.

Reference: “The origin of an invasive air sac system in sauropodomorph dinosaurs” by Tito Aureliano, Aline M. Ghilardi, Rodrigo T. Müller, Leonardo Kerber, Marcelo A. Fernandes, Fresia Ricardi-Branco and Mathew J. Wedel, 27 March 2023, The Anatomical Record.
DOI: 10.1002/ar.25209

Source: Report by SÃO PAULO RESEARCH FOUNDATION in scitechdaily.com

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