@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T sajeev 200 million years of geological evolution of a fault in Earth’s crust has recently been dated. Published in Nature Communications, these new findings may be used to shed light on poorly understood pathways for methane release from the heart of our planet. Tectonic plates, big sections of Earth’s […]
Posts Tagged ‘WFS’
WFS News: Earth’s deepest forearc basin discovered
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@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T sajeev,Russel T sajeev Geologists have for the first time seen and documented the Banda Detachment fault in eastern Indonesia and worked out how it formed. Lead researcher Dr Jonathan Pownall from The Australian National University (ANU) said the find will help researchers assess dangers of future tsunamis in the area, which […]
WFS News: Keratin and melanosomes preserved in 130-million-year-old bird fossil Eoconfuciusornis
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New research from North Carolina State University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Linyi University has found evidence of original keratin and melanosome preservation in a 130-million-year-old Eoconfuciusornis specimen. The work extends the timeframe in which original molecules may preserve, and demonstrates the ability to distinguish between ancient microstructures in fossils. Eoconfuciusornis, crow-sized primitive birds […]
WFS News: Asteroid impacts could create niches for early life
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@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T sajeev Scientists studying the Chicxulub crater have shown how large asteroid impacts deform rocks in a way that may produce habitats for early life. Around 65 million years ago a massive asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico causing an impact so huge that the blast and subsequent knock-on […]
WFS News: This oviraptorosaur may have met its end in a Chinese slush pit
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@ WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T sajeev The workmen were building a high school, blasting out the site with dynamite in the southern Chinese city of Ganzhou when they saw it: the newly exposed fossil of a small, child-sized dinosaur. It was well preserved despite the construction, and it struck a curious pose: head […]
WFS News: Dinosaurs’ rise was ‘more gradual’
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Researchers have discovered two small dinosaurs together with a lagerpetid, a group of animals that are recognized as precursors of dinosaurs. The discovery made in Brazil and reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on November 10 represents the first time that a dinosaur and a dinosaur precursor have ever been found together. The […]
Plate tectonics cannot explain dynamics of Earth and crust formation more than three billion years ago
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The current theory of continental drift provides a good model for understanding terrestrial processes through history. However, while plate tectonics is able to successfully shed light on processes up to 3 billion years ago, the theory isn’t sufficient in explaining the dynamics of Earth and crust formation before that point and through to the earliest […]
WFS News: Fossil clues to aftermath of dinosaur asteroid strike
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Rapid recovery of Patagonian plant–insect associations after the end-Cretaceous extinction Michael P. Donovan,, Ari Iglesias,, Peter Wilf,, Conrad C. Labandeira, & N. Rubén Cúneo The Southern Hemisphere may have provided biodiversity refugia after the Cretaceous/Palaeogene (K/Pg) mass extinction. However, few extinction and recovery studies have been conducted in the terrestrial realm using well-dated macrofossil sites that […]
Atom-by-atom growth chart for shells helps decode past climate
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For the first time scientists can see how the shells of tiny marine organisms grow atom-by-atom, a new study reports. The advance provides new insights into the mechanisms of biomineralization and will improve our understanding of environmental change in Earth’s past. Led by researchers from the University of California, Davis and the University of Washington, […]