Latest Fossil Stories

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online October 17, 2012 is National Fossil Day, sponsored by the National Park Service (NPS) and the American Geological Institute (AGI). This year is the third annual event, scheduled in conjunction with Earth Science Week. The mission of National Fossil Day is to promote public awareness and stewardship of fossils. The NPS hopes to foster an appreciation of the scientific and educational value of fossil preservation and study. "Fossils...

A collection of fossil animals discovered off the coast of Florida suggests that present day deep-sea fauna like sea urchins, starfish and sea cucumbers may have evolved earlier than previously believed and survived periods of mass extinctions similar to those that wiped out the dinosaurs. The full results are published Oct. 10 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Ben Thuy and colleagues from the University of Göttingen, Germany. Previously, researchers believed that these present-day...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In what is perhaps the best outcome of hoarding ever, researchers revisited the fossil records of a specimen that has been stored in a museum for over a century. Dr. Jan Zalasiewicz of the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester reviewed the fossil of the graptolite, a member of a planktonic colony that existed nearly a half billion years ago. This specific specimen was found in the Southern Uplands of Scotland....

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Using computer animation, CT scanning and 3-D printing technology, a team led by University of Texas at Austin paleontologist Jakob Vinther has reconstructed an ancient mollusk that inhabited the waters around modern day Ohio about 390 million years ago. Until now, only a few partial fossils of the creature, known as a multiplacophoran, existed and the new model allows paleontologists to study the physiology of the specimen in greater...

John Neumann for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online America has seen its share of wars, but did you hear about the Bone Wars? The late 1800s found archeologists digging furiously throughout the newly settled American west in a mad dash to find fossils. This lead to fighting in academic circles, and occasionally in the field itself, over disputes that became known as the Bone Wars. Leading the search in western Texas were geologist Robert T. Hill, now acclaimed as the Father of Texas...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An unusually complete fossil unearthed in Bavarian Germany was found to depict the tragic last moments of a prehistoric horseshoe crab as it stumbled for its life over 150 million years ago. The crab’s fossilized track, which is over 31 feet in length, displays both the beginning and end of its death march that was the result of the arthropod falling into a stagnant lagoon, according to a recent report published in the journal...

The radula sounds like something from a horror movie – a conveyor belt lined with hundreds of rows of interlocking teeth. In fact, radulas are found in the mouths of most molluscs, from the giant squid to the garden snail. Now, a "prototype" radula found in 500-million-year-old fossils studied by University of Toronto graduate student Martin Smith, shows that the earliest radula was not a flesh-rasping terror, but a tool for humbly scooping food from the muddy sea floor. The Cambrian...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online According to researchers, animals existed 585 million years ago — 30 million years earlier than previous records show. Proof of this was uncovered by University of Alberta (U of A) geologists Ernesto Pecoits and Natalie Aubet in Uruguay, where they found fossilized tracks a centimeter-long from a slug-like animal left behind 585 million years ago in silty, shallow-water residue. The team of investigators determined that the...

An international team of scientists have for the first time discovered two 160-million-year-old giant cephalopod fossils with intact ink sacs that contain dried pigment similar to that of modern cuttlefish. The researchers, of which includes a professor from the University of Virginia, said the ancient brownish-black pigment, known as eumelanin, is widespread in the animal kingdom in squid ink, bird feathers and even human hair and skin. And because the fossilized pigment is so similar to...

Pitt study one of many across the nation focused on understanding Arctic region’s climate changes Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have joined an international group of scientists to study past climate changes in the Arctic. Comprising geologists from Pitt’s Department of Geology and Planetary Science, the team has analyzed sedimentary and geochemical records of water-level changes in Rantin Lake, located in the boreal forest of Canada’s southeastern Yukon Territory. The...