The great dinosaur stampede that never was? 8 May 2013Last updated at 20:33 ET By Ari Daniel Shapiro PRI's The World, Lark Quarry, Australia The stampede is thought to have involved a dinosaur similar to Tyrannosaurus rex It's billed as the world's only known example of a dinosaur stampede - but new research is challenging the established version of events at Lark Quarry, in the Australian outback, almost 100 million years ago.
Rewind the clocks 95 million years, and imagine the scene. You're at the edge of a watering hole in what today is north-eastern Australia. And you're not alone. More than 100 little dinosaurs are here, ranging from the size of chickens to ostriches. They're drinking peacefully, when - all of a sudden - a giant meat-eating dinosaur tears out of the brush. The little guys scatter for their lives - their feet digging into the soft mud. "This incident would have taken five minutes, if that. The tracks were discovered in the 1960s by a quarry manager - who at first thought they must have been bird footprints. The documentary evidence for Arthur. As Arthur is potentially an historical character, the documents naming him must form the starting point for any investigation. This is where the difficulties begin, as there are no contemporary documents naming him. Nor are there coins or inscriptions (we will see how several supposed inscriptions are irrelevant).
A page from the manuscript Book of Aneirin, containing the only text of Y Gododdin Y Gododdin The oldest possible reference comes from a cycle of poems known as Y Gododdin , ‘The Votadini’, ascribed to a poet named Aneirin, who is supposed to have lived in the later sixth century. Gochore brein do aruur caer – ceni bei ef arthur – rug ciuin uerthi ig disur ig kynnor guernor guaur “He sent down black crows from the wall of the fort – although he was not Arthur – among men mighty in feats before the alder grove: Gorddur” Like so much early Welsh verse, the language is terse and full of allusions to stories that the listener would have known in much greater detail than we can. Weird! This Odd, Ancient Bird Had Sharp Teeth. The fossil skeleton of a bird with strange teeth that lived 125 million years ago has been discovered in China.
The bird had bizarre ridges on its teeth that may have enabled it to crack open hard-shelled insects and snails, the researchers said. The unusual fossil, described in the January issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, was so well preserved that some of its stomach contents were still present. The new find sheds light on the range of foods Earth's earliest birds ate during the dinosaur era. "The teeth are weird and there are some stomach contents, which is unusual," said paleontologist Gareth Dyke, of the University of South Hampton in the U.K., who was not involved in the study. "It's more evidence for the uniqueness and range of ecological specialization that are seen in these particular Mesozoic birds. " Teeming with life The well preserved Sulcavis geeorum teeth still had enamel on them.Credit: Stephanie Abramowicz Toothy bird.
Doggerland: Atlantis-Like Country Discovered off Scottish Coast. By Belinda McCallumEpoch Times Staff Created: July 6, 2012 Last Updated: July 15, 2012 A map of the United Kingdom with Doggerland marked as red.
(University of St. Andrews) A diver investigates large stones at doggerland. (University of St Andrews) A vast underwater area in the North Sea may once have been home to tens of thousands of Stone Age people before suffering a devastating tsunami and gradually disappearing under rising sea levels, according to 15 years of research by U.K. scientists. Named Doggerland, the region stretched from Northern Scotland to Denmark and down toward the Channel Islands. “Doggerland was the real heartland of Europe until sea levels rose to give us the U.K. coastline of today,” said geophysicist Richard Bates at the University of St.
The scientists reconstructed a huge and complex landscape using geophysical modeling and material collected from the ocean floor, including fossilized material from the plants and animals that inhabited Doggerland. After long-ago mass extinction, global warming hindered species' recovery. Researchers have discovered why plants and animals had a hard time recovering from the largest mass extinction in Earth's history 250 million years ago.
The reason: global warming. Because of environmental consequences of rising temperatures, those species that survived the extinction didn't fully recover for 5 million years. The study adds a new chapter to the story of how life was forever altered by giant volcanic eruptions in the Early Triassic period -- an event now called the "Great Dying" -- and offers clues as to how climate change might impact life today, said Ohio State University doctoral student Alexa Sedlacek, who presented the results at the Geological Society of America meeting in North Carolina this week.
"The lesson is, life doesn't just snap back," added Matthew Saltzman, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State and Sedlacek's advisor. "We've long known from the fossil record that there was a long period with very little recovery right after the Great Dying.