Latest Fossils Stories
New Haven, Conn. -- Discovery of an exceptional fossil specimen in southeastern Morocco that preserves evidence of the animal's soft tissues has solved a paleontological puzzle about the origins of an extinct group of bizarre slug-like animals with rows of mineralized armor plates on their backs, according to a paper in Nature.While evolution has produced great diversity in the body designs of animals, over the course of history several highly distinct groups, such as trilobites and...
BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Scientists have known for some time that most major groups of complex animals appeared in the fossils record during the Cambrian Explosion, a seemingly rapid evolutionary event that occurred 542 million years ago. Now Virginia Tech paleontologists, using rigorous analytical methods, have identified another explosive evolutionary event that occurred about 33 million years earlier among macroscopic life forms unrelated to the Cambrian animals.They dubbed this earlier event...
By Shen, Bing Xiao, Shuhai; Dong, Lin; Zhou, Chuanming; Liu, Jianbo ABSTRACT- Upper Neoproterozoic successions in the North China and nearby Chaidam blocks are poorly documented. North China successions typically consist of a diamictite unit overlain by siltstone, sandstone, or slate. Similar successions occur in Chaidam, although a cap carbonate lies atop the diamictite unit. The diamictites in both blocks have been variously interpreted as Cryogenian, Ediacaran, or Cambrian glacial...
The abundant diversity of characteristics within species likely helped fuel the proliferation and evolution of an odd-looking creature that emerged from an unprecedented explosion of life on Earth more than 500 million years ago. University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster reports this finding in the July 27 issue of the journal Science."From an evolutionary perspective, the more variable a species is, the more raw material natural selection has to operate on," said Webster, an...
By Novack-Gottshall, Philip M Abstract.- The process of evolution hinders our ability to make large-scale ecological comparisons-such as those encompassing marine biotas spanning the Phanerozoic-because the compared entities are taxonomically and morphologically dissimilar. One solution is to focus instead on life habits, which are repeatedly discovered by taxa because of convergence. Such an approach is applied to a comparison of the ecological diversity of Paleozoic (Cambrian- Devonian)...
SOMEWHERE NEAR YAKIMA, Wash. -- Clyde Friend was bulldozing a driveway around his shop when he first saw them in the dirt: gleaming pieces of the past. A forest of stone, more than 15 million years old. For the past five years, on this hillside above Yakima, Friend has been pulling out pieces of rare petrified wood, no two pieces alike. Branches, trunks and slices in sunset colors. Pieces purple and blue as mussel shells. Pieces like winter sky, gray and white and all the tones in between....
By Steve Connor Ancient bones and other fossilised remains have been known to humans for millennia but it is only over the past 300 years or so that their true origins have been revealed. Until then, a rich folklore sought to explain these enigmatic relics from the past. Every culture in every country, it seems, wanted an explanation for the unusual objects and bizarre shapes that often seemed to emerge, as if by magic, from the ground. Imagine a group of prehistoric hunters, whose trail has...
LONDON (Reuters) - The first four-limbed animals on land may not have hopped or waddled but rather shuffled like modern-day caterpillars, according to new research published in the science journal Nature.Scientists from Uppsala University in Sweden and McGill University in Canada came to these conclusions after studying the fossils of the Ichthyostega -- a four-legged fish that lived around 360 million years ago.They noted that the construction of the creature's backbone ruled out wriggling...
LONDON -- The first four-limbed animals on land may not have hopped or waddled but rather shuffled like modern-day caterpillars, according to new research published in the science journal Nature.Scientists from Uppsala University in Sweden and McGill University in Canada came to these conclusions after studying the fossils of the Ichthyostega -- a four-legged fish that lived around 360 million years ago.They noted that the construction of the creature's backbone ruled out wriggling in a...
Unusually preserved fossils discovered by Virginia Tech, Nanjing Institute researchers shed new light on how macroscopic, complex life evolved and lived 550 million years ago.Astrobiology Magazine -- Scientists interested in ancient life have a wealth of fossils and impressions frozen in rocks that they can study from as far back as 540 million years ago - when animals with shells and bones began to become plentiful. But evidence of complex life older than 540 million years is scant and...
Latest Fossils Reference Libraries
The Variable bushy feather star is commonly found concealed on shallow water reefs in the western Pacific Ocean. The parts that will be most often seen are the fern-like arms. The arms start at the base with five rays then begin to divide from there. The arms are flexible due to the multiple calcium filled joints, also called ossicle; therefore if needed these arms could coil up and provide protection to the main body. Interestingly, if one arm should fall off, or perhaps pulled off, then two...
The noble feather star (also known as the yellow feather star) reaches up to 15.75 inches in diameter with a cup-shaped body. There can be 35-40 arms extending out of the central part of the body. The arms are primarily yellow with the underside having a variation to include black, green, or white. The noble feather star feeds on food debris, phytoplankton and zooplankton. Phytoplankton and zooplankton are microscopic organisms that are present mainly in the layer of the oceans that is...
Petrified Forest National Park is located in the state of Arizona in the United States. The park holds 221,552 acres of land, of which 50,260 acres are comprised of a designated wilderness. The area was once inhabited by Native American tribes including the basket maker and pueblo peoples. The first American explorers to enter the area arrived while searching for good routes leading from east to west. This group, led by Army Lieutenant Amiel Whipple, surveyed the northern area of the...
Aragonite is a polymorph of the mineral calcite, both having the chemical composition CaCO3. Its structure differs from calcite and leads to a different crystal shape, an orthorhombic system with acicular crystals. By repeated twinning pseudo-hexagonal forms result. It may be columnar or fibrous, occasionally in branching stalactitic forms called flos-ferri (flowers of iron) from their association with the ores at the Carthinian iron mines. The type location for aragonite is Molina de...
