Adam D. Hughes*, Lars Brunner, Elizabeth J. Cook, Maeve S. Kelly, Ben Wilson Department of Ecology, Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, Argyll, Scotland The trophic interactions of sea urchins are known to be the agents of phase shifts in benthic marine habitats such as tropical and temperate reefs. In temperate reefs, the grazing activity of sea urchins has […]
Posts Tagged ‘Russel T Sajeev’
Echinoderms Display Morphological and Behavioural Phenotypic Plasticity in Response to Their Trophic Environment


Rhino Skull Preserved in Volcanic Ash


Less than 2% of Earth’s fossils are preserved in volcanic rock, but researchers have identified a new one: the skull of a rhino that perished in a volcanic eruption 9.2 million years ago. The find is described in a paper published Nov. 21 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Pierre-Olivier Antoine and colleagues from the […]
Bacterial biofilms as fossil makers


Bacterial decay was once viewed as fossilization’s mortal enemy, but new research suggests bacterial biofilms may have actually helped preserve the fossil record’s most vulnerable stuff — animal embryos and soft tissues. A team of 13 scientists led by Indiana University Bloomington biologists Rudolf and Elizabeth Raff found that the invasion of dying embryo cells […]
Fossil Egg Links Dinosaurs to Modern Birds


Researchers have discovered a series of dinosaur eggs with a unique characteristic: they are oval in shape. The discovery supports the theory that birds and non-avian theropods, dinosaurs from the Cretaceous Period, could have a common ancestor. Before her death in December 2010, Nieves López Martínez, palaeontologist of the Complutense University of Madrid, was working […]
Why Some Earthquakes Result in Faster Shaking : A Tabletop Fault Model


The more time it takes for an earthquake fault to heal, the faster the shake it will produce when it finally ruptures, according to a new study by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted their work using a tabletop model of a quake fault. “The high frequency waves of an earthquake — […]
“Sauroniops pachytholus” DINO NAMED AFTER LORD OF THE RINGS’


Earlier this year a team of palaeontologists came into the possession of what appeared to be a 95 million-year-old skull cap from a previously unknown dinosaur. Further analysis showed that the bone likely belonged to a carcharodontosaurid — an offshoot of the familiarAllosaurus. Given its unique domed skull, the researchers concluded that it was in […]
Penn Dixie (Hamburg Natural History Society ) Fossils


Phacops rana, enrolled specimens collected from the Windom Shale by Dan Cooper
Tetradactyl Footprints of an Unknown Affinity Theropod Dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic of Morocco


In this work the study surface where the footprints were registered was examined carefully. The study surface may or may be not the tracking surface (the surface where the dinosaur stepped) . All the surfaces with true footprints in Iouaridène syncline have been found in the hard layers (red siliceous levels) with mud cracks . The undertracks […]
Greenland Rocks Provide Evidence of Earth Formation Process


Rocks dating back 3.4 billion years from south-west Greenland’s Isua mountain range have yielded valuable information about the structure of Earth during its earliest stages of development. In these rocks, which witnessed the first billion years of Earth’s history, a French-Danish team led by researchers from the ‘Magmas and Volcanoes’ Laboratory (CNRS / Université Blaise […]