A 15 million year-old fossil sperm whale specimen from California belongs to a new genus, according to a study published December 9, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Alexandra Boersma and Nicholas Pyenson from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The authors of the study reanalyzed the large but incomplete Ontocetus oxymycterus […]
Posts Tagged ‘WFS’
The Subway Garnet
January 8th, 2016 
Riffin The American Museum of Natural History is a lot of things to a lot of people. To the wealthy philanthropist, it’s a venue for black-tie galas in the shadow of a 94-foot blue whale. To the young, it’s the setting for a movie franchise starring Ben Stiller that single-handedly made the educational diorama relevant again. […]
Posted in Featured Post 
Tags: Garnet, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »Toxic Panthalassa May Have Triggered end-Triassic Mass Extinction
January 6th, 2016 Riffin A mass extinction some 201 million years ago may have been triggered by changes in the biochemical balance of Panthalassa (also known as the Panthalassic Ocean) – the larger of the two oceans surrounding the supercontinent of Pangaea, according to a team of scientists led by Prof Jessica Whiteside from the University of Southampton, UK. […]
Plant fossils from Terani clay bed
January 3rd, 2016 Riffin The Upper Gondwana sediments known as “Sivaganga Formation”, represents the first phase of sedimentation in the Cauvery basin. Outcrops are scanty and isolated due to alluvial cover, rarely exceeds 2km in width and at places less than 50m. The upper Gondwana in Tiruchirapalli area is divisible into two formations – the lower Boulder Conglomerate – […]
Volcanic chain underlies Antarctica
January 1st, 2016 Riffin Planetary scientists would be thrilled if they could peel Earth like an orange and look at what lies beneath the thin crust. We live on the planet’s cold surface, but Earth is a solid body and the surface is continually deformed, split, wrinkled and ruptured by the roiling of warmer layers beneath it.The contrast between […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Antarctica, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, Volcanic chain, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Spinosaurus: only known swimming dinosaur?
December 31st, 2015 Riffin In the film Jurassic Park III, a giant sail-backed dinosaur called Spinosaurus fights a terrestrial Tyrannosaurus—and wins. But a study published online today in Science shows that the 15-meter-long Spinosaurus (shown in this artist’s reconstruction) had adaptations to life both in the water and on land, suggesting that the fierce beast was more of a […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, Spinosaurus, swimming dinosaur, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Karai Formation (Ariyalur ) declared as geoheritage site
December 27th, 2015 Riffin The Karai Formation of Uttatur Group at Karai-Kulakkalnattam section in Perambalur district forms the lower part of the Cretaceous sedimentary succession of the Cauvery Basin. Tiwari et.al, (1996) considered the Karai area as the type area for Karai Formation. The Karai Formation is exposed as badlands with a series of conical mounds separated by gulleys. […]
Yi qi: Bat-Winged Dinosaur Discovered in China
December 26th, 2015 Riffin A team of paleontologists, co-led by Dr Xing Xu and Dr Xiaoting Zheng of the Linyi University’s Institute of Geology and Paleontology, has discovered a bizarre new theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now China during the Middle-Upper Jurassic period, approximately 160 million years ago. The prehistoric creature, scientifically named Yi qi, represents a […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Bat-Winged Dinosaur, China, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society, Yi qi No Comments »Balanced Rocks Hint at San Andreas Secret
December 24th, 2015 Riffin A mysterious group of balanced rocks that ought to have been knocked flat centuries ago may have let slip a deep, dark secret about the San Andreas Fault, according to a new study. For two decades a handful of researchers have been uncovering the power of centuries-old earthquakes by studying how easily it would be […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Balanced Rocks, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, San Andreas, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Dreadnoughtus schrani : Heavyweight Dino of the World
December 23rd, 2015 Riffin Dreadnoughtus schrani‘s tail alone measures an impressive 30 feet. After four years of excavation and five years of study, Dreadnoughtus schrani debuted in September as a top contender for the largest land animal ever: 65 tons and 85 feet long, with a 37-foot neck and muscle-bound 30-foot tail. Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara first spotted just a […]
