In 1875 the remains of a prehistoric crocodile were found in the brown coal mine at Messel near Darmstadt; since then a large number of well preserved fossils have also been discovered. Palaeontologists have long puzzled over what could have been the reason for this annihilation of so many creatures. In the latest issue of the Paläontologische Zeitschrift (‘Journal of Palaeontology’) researchers from the University of Bonn have put forward a new theory: the cause of the deaths of these animals m
An international team of scientists is currently evaluating sediment cores collected during the Arctic Coring Expedition, ACEX, conducted under the auspices of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). ACEX, conducted in August and September this year, is an exploration success story. At a press conference in the University of Bremen, Germany, today (16 November 2004) the co-chief scientists of the expedition described the first results from this expedition.
Scientists from
A new tool based on satellite data shows trends in the way Europeans use our landscape. Seen from the ground these changes appear gradual, but viewed from above they are often dramatic.
Each day new roads or buildings bury the equivalent of 240 football fields of German soil, around 120 hectares of land. This is just one example of the information available from a new virtual atlas of Europe’s landscape based on satellite data.
The European Environment Agency (EEA), assi
High in the mountains of Antarctica, Ohio State University geologists unearthed the fossil remains of a 180-million-year-old clam-like creature that was preserved in a very unusual way: by the ancient bacteria that devoured it.
And only yards away, they found the first fossil evidence of a completely different kind of bacteria that scientists were unsure even existed as fossils that long ago.
The first find answers one of the most fundamental questions in paleontology —
A long-dry riverbed in northeastern Ohio is preventing a pool of chemical waste from infiltrating the Ohio River, geologists have found.
The finding may call into question the need to clean up similar chemical waste sites. It also indicates a previously unknown interaction between an underground aquifer and the nearby Ohio River. Beneath sand and gravel on the grounds of Barium and Chemical Inc. in Steubenville, OH, lies an aquifer that contains chemicals such as nitrate and bari
Widespread volcanic activity, cyanobacteria and global glaciation may sound like the plot of a new, blockbuster disaster movie, but in reality, they are all events in the mystery surrounding the development of our oxygen-rich atmosphere, according to a Penn State geoscientist.
The most extreme fluctuation in the Earth’s carbon cycle occurred about 2.2 billion years ago, according to Dr. Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences and member of the Penn State Astrobiology Resear
A spot on the sun is bursting with large flares and tremendous coronal mass ejections, sending charged solar particles to Earth. The waves of particles descending on the planet are responsible for the aurora displays that have been visible as far south as the Carolinas.
Aurora forecasters at the Geophysical Institute (GI) predict maximum aurora activity until Friday, Nov. 12, and possibly into the weekend. The aurora should be visible in regions far south of the Arctic, includin
A Johns Hopkins University graduate student may have solved a problem that has been baffling marine biologists and paleontologists for years: Why do coral reefs disappear from the fossil record during the beginning of the Cretaceous period — 120 million years ago — only to reappear after its end 35 million years ago?
The possible answer: Ancient seawater’s low magnesium-to-calcium ratio during this interval made it difficult for the marine animals — which build their sk
Rice U. geologists probe impact of rising seas along US Gulf Coast
New research presented at this week’s annual meeting of the Geological Society of America shows that rising sea levels of as little as a half-meter per century have been sufficient to dramatically change the shoreline of the U.S. Gulf Coast within the past 10,000 years. The findings are significant because half-meter increases are within the moderate range of predictions for the Gulf Coast during this century.
NASA scientists recently found the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the main driver of the change in rain patterns all around the world.
The NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has enabled scientists to look around the globe and determine where the year-to-year changes in rainfall are greatest. The TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and JAXA designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall.
Resear
Fossils from the sea floor illuminate the relationship between local and global diversity, and these relationships may help us understand the effects of global climate change on species diversity.
“Looking at fossils can tell you something about the controls on global diversity, but so much of the investigation of the fossil record has looked only at global compilations of fossil species,” says Dr. Mark E. Patzkowsky, associate professor of geosciences. “Recently, a few studies ha
Like the sailing vessel used by Captain Joshua Slocum to sail solo around the world 100 years ago, another ocean-going vehicle is making history. A small ocean glider named Spray is the first autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, to cross the Gulf Stream underwater, proving the viability of self-propelled gliders for long-distance scientific missions and opening new possibilities for studies of the oceans.
Launched September 11, 2004, about 100 miles south of Nantucket Island,
The lowly, ill-regarded tumbleweed might be good for something after all.
A preliminary study reveals that tumbleweeds, a.k.a. Russian thistle, and some other weeds common to dry Western lands have a knack for soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils at weapons testing grounds and battlefields. “There is some use to what we consider noxious weeds,” said geologist Dana Ulmer-Scholle of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.
Depleted ura
The longest animal that ever lived just got 40 percent shorter. A reappraisal of Seismosaurus has chopped it from 170 feet – about the length of ten hummers – to about 110 feet – a bit more than six hummers. The new look at the lengthiest beast also suggests it might also be a very close relative of a more common type of dino –Diplodocus.
Though drastically shorter, the new length estimate does not necessarily knock Seismosaurus off the throne as the Earth’s longest creatur
Our four-legged, five-toed ancestors conquered the land earlier and more independently than expected, say paleontologists studying newfound 345 to 359-million-year-old tracks at an eroding beach in eastern Canada.
At least six different kinds of four-limbed reptile-like animals – a.k.a. tetrapods – with five digits on their feet left their tromping prints in the mud of what was once a tropical swamp at Blue Beach, Nova Scotia. The five-digit tracks range in size from four i
The humble tropical honeybee may challenge the idea that a post-asteroid impact “nuclear winter” was a big player in the decimation of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Somehow the tropical honeybee, Cretotrigona prisca, survived the end-Cretaceous extinction event, despite what many researchers believe was a years-long period of darkness and frigid temperatures caused by sunlight-blocking dust and smoke from the asteroid impact at Chicxulub.
The survival of C. prisca is p
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