A UC Santa Barbara geochemist studying Samoan volcanoes has found evidence of the planet’s early formation still trapped inside the Earth. Known as hotspots, volcanic island chains such as Samoa can ancient primordial signatures from the early solar system that have somehow survived billions of years. Matthew Jackson, an associate professor in UCSB’s Department of […]
Posts Tagged ‘WFS’
Mysterious Midcontinent Rift is a geological hybrid
October 17th, 2014 
Riffin An international team of geologists has a new explanation for how the Midwest’s biggest geological feature — an ancient and giant 2,000-mile-long underground crack that starts in Lake Superior and runs south to Oklahoma and to Alabama — evolved. Scientists from Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the University of Gottingen in […]
Microfossils reveal warm oceans had less oxygen
October 16th, 2014 Riffin Researchers in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences are pairing chemical analyses with micropaleontology — the study of tiny fossilized organisms — to better understand how global marine life was affected by a rapid warming event more than 55 million years ago. Their findings are the subject of an article in the journal Paleoceanography. […]
Posted in Featured Post 
Tags: Microfossils, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »Earliest-known lamprey larva fossils discovered
October 15th, 2014 Riffin Few people devote time to pondering the ancient origins of the eel-like lamprey, yet the evolutionary saga of the bloodsucker holds essential clues to the biological roots of humanity. Today, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a description of fossilized lamprey larvae that date back to the Lower Cretaceous — at least […]
Physics determined ammonite shell shape
October 11th, 2014 Riffin Ammonites are a group of extinct cephalopod mollusks with ribbed spiral shells. They are exceptionally diverse and well known to fossil lovers. Régis Chirat, researcher at the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon: Terre, Planètes et Environnement (CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1/ENS de Lyon), and two colleagues from the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford […]
How dinosaur arms turned into bird wings
October 7th, 2014 Riffin Although we now appreciate that birds evolved from a branch of the dinosaur family tree, a crucial adaptation for flight has continued to puzzle evolutionary biologists. During the millions of years that elapsed, wrists went from straight to bent and hyperflexible, allowing birds to fold their wings neatly against their bodies when not flying. How […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: bird wings, dinosaur arms, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Fossil of ancient multicellular life sets evolutionary timeline back 60 million years
October 4th, 2014 Riffin A Virginia Tech geobiologist with collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found evidence in the fossil record that complex multicellularity appeared in living things about 600 million years ago — nearly 60 million years before skeletal animals appeared during a huge growth spurt of new life on Earth known as the Cambrian Explosion. […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: 60 million years, life, multicellular, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, timeline, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »52-million-year-old amber preserves ‘ant-loving’ beetle
October 3rd, 2014 Riffin Scientists have uncovered the fossil of a 52-million-year old beetle that likely was able to live alongside ants — preying on their eggs and usurping resources — within the comfort of their nest. The fossil, encased in a piece of amber from India, is the oldest-known example of this kind of social parasitism, known as […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: 52-million-year-old amber, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Prehistoric predators tangled across land, sea
September 30th, 2014 Riffin About 210 million years ago when the supercontinent of Pangea was starting to break up and dog-sized dinosaurs were hiding from nearly everything, entirely different kinds of reptiles called phytosaurs and rauisuchids were at the top of the food chain. It was widely believed the two top predators didn’t interact much as the former was […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Prehistoric predators, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Drilling Into an Active Earthquake Fault
September 28th, 2014 Riffin Three University of Michigan geologists are participating in an international effort to drill nearly a mile beneath the surface of New Zealand this fall to bring back rock samples from an active fault known to generate major earthquakes. The goal of the Deep Fault Drilling Project is to better understand earthquake processes by sampling the […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Drilling, Earthquake Fault, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »
