Latest Phanerozoic Stories
Researchers in Brazil reported their discovery of a new marine crocodile species on Wednesday, showing that the reptiles survived the mass extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.In the report published in the Proceedings of Royal Society B research journal, paleontologists said they found the new dyrosaurid crocdylomorph in the Poty Quarry, a limestone quarry located close to Recife in northeastern Brazil. Researchers suggested that the Guarinisuchus munizi survived the...
Paleontologists from University College London (UCL) and Stony Brook University in New York have identified a giant frog fossil from Madagascar, given the name Beelzebufo (pronounced bee-el-zeh-BOOF-oh), which means "˜the frog from Hell'.The fossil is 70 million years old, and of a type once thought unique to South America, providing evidence for a new theory that Madagascar, India and South America were linked until late in the age of dinosaurs. The frog resembles today's living Horned...
AUSTIN, Texas -- The most detailed three-dimensional seismic images yet of the Chicxulub crater, a mostly submerged and buried impact crater on the Mexico coast, may modify a theory explaining the extinction of 70 percent of life on Earth 65 million years ago.The Chicxulub crater was formed when an asteroid struck on the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Most scientists agree the impact played a major role in the "KT Extinction Event" that caused the extinction of most life on Earth, including...
By Lee, Seung-Bae Choi, Duck K ABSTRACT- The Pseudokoldinioidia Fauna is a newly documented uppermost Cambrian trilobite assemblage from the Dongjeom Formation of the Taebaek Group, Taebaeksan Basin, Korea. It is characterized by low species diversity comprising six trilobite taxa: Micragnostus chiushuensis, Koldinioidia typicalis, leiostegiid genus and species indeterminate, Pseudokoldinioidia perpetis, Onychopyge borealis, and pilekiid genus and species indeterminate. Of these, special...
WASHINGTON -- Scientists, wringing their hands over the identity of the famed "hobbit" fossil, have found a new clue in the wrist. Since the discovery of the bones in Indonesia in 2003, researchers have wrangled over whether the find was an ancient human ancestor or simply a modern human suffering from a genetic disorder.Now, a study of the bones in the creature's left wrist lends weight to the human ancestor theory, according to a report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.The...
The impactor believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and other life forms on Earth some 65 million years ago has been traced back to a breakup event in the main asteroid belt. The finding provides insights into one of the most important extinction events in Earth's history. Known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction, this impact event signaled a dramatic change in the evolutionary history of Earth. Understanding the origins and effects of this event can not only teach us about the...
By Prendergast, Kate Our prehistoric ancestors survived rapid climate change and rising temperatures as extreme as those we face today, says Kate Prendergast. What can they tell us about global warming? BETWEEN 18- 20,000 YEARS AGO, average temperatures in Europe probably fell to at least 10[degrees]C below the levels they are today. In the last great Ice Age, glaciers expanded rapidly and covered large areas of northern and central Europe in ice sheets. Much of Europe resembled tundra and...
Data supports the single-impact theory in a controversial discussionCOLUMBIA, Mo. "“ The dinosaurs, along with the majority of all other animal species on Earth, went extinct approximately 65 million years ago. Some scientists have said that the impact of a large meteorite in the Yucatan Peninsula, in what is today Mexico, caused the mass extinction, while others argue that there must have been additional meteorite impacts or other stresses around the same time. A new study provides...
Boulder, Colo. - A new study of melted rock ejected far from the Yucatan's Chicxulub impact crater bolsters the idea that the famed impact was too early to have caused the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. A careful geochemical fingerprinting of glass spherules found in multiple layers of sediments from northeast Mexico, Texas, Guatemala, Belize and Haiti all point back to Chicxulub as their source. But the analysis places the impact at about 300,000 years before...
By Michael Perry SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hundreds of human footprints dating back 20,000 years to the Ice Age have been discovered in a dry lake bed in Australia, scientists said on Thursday. University of Melbourne archaeologist Matthew Cupper told Australian radio they were the earliest footprint fossils found in the country. "It's really quite a remarkable find. It's a little snapshot in time. The possibilities are endless in terms of getting a window into past aboriginal society." They...
Latest Phanerozoic Reference Libraries
Thescelosaurus, meaning “godlike”, “wondrous”, or “marvelous” and “lizard” was a genus of small ornithopod dinosaur that appeared at the very end of the Late Cretaceous period in North America. It was a member of the last dinosaurian fauna before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event around 65.5 million years ago. The completeness and preservation of many of its specimens illustrate that it might have preferred to live near streams. This bipedal ornithopod is known from...
Daspletosaurus, meaning “frightful lizard” is a genus of tyrannosaurid theropod dinosaur that resided in western North America between 77 and 74 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period. Fossils of the only named species were found in Alberta, although other possible species from Alberta and Montana wait for description. Daspletosaurus is closely related to the much larger and more current Tyrannosaurus. Like most of the known tyrannosaurids, it was a multi-ton bipedal...
Deinonychus is a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid dinosaurs. There’s one described species, Deinonychus antirrhopus. These dinosaurs, which were capable of growing to be 11 ft long, lived during the early Cretaceous Period, around 115 to 108 million years ago. Fossils have been uncovered from the U.S states of Wyoming, Montana, and Oklahoma, in rocks of the Cloverly Formation and Antlers Formation, though teeth that might belong to Deinonychus have been found much farther east in...
Image Caption: Head of Tenontosaurus, Institut de paléontologie humaine, Paris, France. Credit: Rémih/Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0) Tenontosaurus, meaning “sinew lizard”, is a genus of medium to large sized ornithopod dinosaur. The genus is known from the late Aptian to Albian ages of the middle Cretaceious period sediments of western North America, dating roughly between 115 to 108 million years ago. It was formerly thought to be a ‘hypsilophodont’, but since Hypsilophodontia is no...
The Paramyladon, an extinct genus of ground sloth, was native to North America. It lived from the Pliocene era to the Pleistocene era, a period of about 4.889 years. Remains of this creature have been found as far south as Guatemala, throughout North America, and even as far north as Alberta, Canada. Paramyladon has been easily mistaken with another ground sloth called Glossotherium, due to major similarities. Barnum Brown created the Paramyladon genus in 1903 with a species of P....
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