The evolutionary history of Eucalyptus and the eucalypts, the larger clade of seven genera including Eucalyptus that today have a natural distribution almost exclusively in Australasia, is poorly documented from the fossil record. Little physical evidence exists bearing on the ancient geographical distributions or morphologies of plants within the clade. Herein, we introduce fossil material […]
Posts Tagged ‘WFS’
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Fossil Remains Reveal New Species of Marine Fish from 408 Million Years Ago in Teruel, Spain
June 4th, 2013 
Riffin Researchers from the University of Valencia and the Natural History Museum of Berlin have studied the fossilised remains of scales and bones found in Teruel, Spain, and the south of Zaragoza, ascertaining that they belong to a new fish species called Machaeracanthus goujeti that lived in that area of the peninsula during the Devonian period. […]
world class fossils finds in Leicestershire
June 3rd, 2013 Riffin Geologists say thousands more fossils exist at a Leicestershire site than previously realised. The fossils, which are almost impossible to see with the naked eye, were found at Charnwood Forest. Scientists from the British Geological Survey, in Nottinghamshire, made casts of the fossils which are on display at New Walk Museum in Leicester. In 1957, […]
Albertadromeus syntarsus extends knowledge of dinosaur ecosystems
June 2nd, 2013 Riffin Dinosaurs are often thought of as large, fierce animals, but new research highlights a previously overlooked diversity of small dinosaurs. In the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a team of paleontologists from the University of Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, Cleveland Museum of Natural History and University of Calgary have described a new dinosaur, the smallest plant-eating […]
Billion-Year-Old Water Could Hold Clues to Life On Earth and Mars
June 1st, 2013 Riffin A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life. This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life. Not just that, but the similarity between the rocks that […]
Antarctic Polar Icecap Is 33.6 Million Years Old
May 31st, 2013 Riffin Seasonal primary productivity of plankton communities appeared with the first ice. This phenomenon, still active today, influences global food webs. These findings, reported in the journal Science, are based on fossil records in sediment cores at different depths. The study was led by the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences, a Spanish National Research Council-University of […]
Archaeopteryx restored in fossil reshuffle
May 30th, 2013 Riffin What may be the earliest creature yet discovered on the evolutionary line to birds has been unearthed in China. The fossil animal, which retains impressions of feathers, is dated to be about 160 million years old. Scientists have given it the name Aurornis, which means “dawn bird”. The significance of the find, they tell Nature […]
Tiny ‘Spherules’ Reveal Details About Earth’s Asteroid Impacts
May 28th, 2013 Riffin Researchers are learning details about asteroid impacts going back to Earth’s early history by using a new method for extracting precise information from tiny “spherules” embedded in layers of rock. The spherules were created when asteroids crashed into Earth, vaporizing rock that expanded into space as a giant vapor plume. Small droplets of molten and […]
Earth’s Iron Core Is Surprisingly Weak
May 27th, 2013 Riffin Researchers have used a diamond anvil cell to squeeze iron at pressures as high as 3 million times that felt at sea level to recreate conditions at the center of Earth. The findings could refine theories of how the planet and its core evolved. Through laboratory experiments, postdoctoral researcher Arianna Gleason, left, and Wendy Mao, […]
Drill Holes and Predation Traces versus Abrasion-Induced Artifacts Revealed by Tumbling Experiments
May 26th, 2013 Riffin Drill holes made by predators in prey shells are widely considered to be the most unambiguous bodies of evidence of predator-prey interactions in the fossil record. However, recognition of traces of predatory origin from those formed by abiotic factors still waits for a rigorous evaluation as a prerequisite to ascertain predation intensity through geologic time […]
