One of the great privileges of my job is that I get to participate on committees of graduate students. This allows me to get up close and personal with data from sub-disciplines of biology that often extend far from those of my particular expertise. You know by now that I carry a particular fondness for... Continue Reading →
A mummified fossil of common species of hadrosaur was found recently in South Dakota that showed that this particular hadrosaur had a rooster-like fleshy comb on its head. Many hadrosaurs have exotic extensions of their cranial bones but this evidence that even the “boring” hadrosaurs had fleshy projections suggests that the hadrosaurs were an even... Continue Reading →
One headline reads “Giant Prehistoric Toilet Found” another refers to the discovery of an ancient latrine. Don’t know how I missed those a few weeks ago. Surely had I seen that headline I would have had to clicked on it to find out what that was all about. The actual title, The oldest known communal latrines... Continue Reading →
What museum can you go to where you can see real dinosaur bones, you don't pay any fees, you can touch all the exhibits and there are no security cameras watching your every move (at least I don't think there are:-)? The answer is The Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail near Moab, Utah. This outdoor "museum"... Continue Reading →
Family vacation with the Duffs always includes some geological sights. In 2007 we visited Prince Edward Island and had a wonderful time but the there just wasn't enough geology there to satisfy my curiosity so I took us on a 2 hour detour in Nova Scotia. After a lot of "are we there yets" and... Continue Reading →
What happened to huge dinosaur eggs that were either abandoned or broke prematurely? You might think that this is a question that is impossible to answer, but dinosaur eggs have been discovered with intriguing evidence of scavenging of various forms. I recently came across a report from 2011 that I thought was especially interesting... Continue Reading →
It has been a while since I've been able write. There has been quite a bit of news the last two weeks and I thought I would briefly comment on a few items that are relevant to my most recent posts: The Salt Chronometer Since I published my series on the salty seas (Part I,... Continue Reading →
Do places on Earth exist where annual records have been stored for tens of thousands of years and can be accessed today? Ice-cores and tree rings can preserve long records of yearly events but some of the best records come from layers of sediment underlying some lakes which, if formed under the right conditions, can be read like the annual rings of... Continue Reading →
A reader recently brought the articles linked below from a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) website to my attention. I found them interesting not just because they present a good overview of the challenges that the Greenland ice cores present to young earth creationism but because it raised my own awareness about current discussions in the... Continue Reading →
This is part of series of posts on the Sea Salt Chronometer. Other posts in this series are: The Salty Sea and the Age of the Earth: Confirmation Bias The Salty Sea Part II: A Young Earth Salt Chronometer? The Salty Sea Part III: Are the Oceans Getting Saltier Over Time? The Salty sea Part... Continue Reading →
According to young earth creationists, there isn't enough salt in the oceans if the earth is old. Recent references to this argument have spurred me to look a little closer at how it is being used today. What I find is that it appears to have only a purely rhetorical use as the actual data about the ocean'salinity suggests that the amount of salt in the sea is a useless tool for indicating the earth is old or young.
There are thousands of sites with either human remains or artifacts (stone tools usually) that are known across southern Europe and many are found in locations where they are found in layers stacked on top of each other like in caves or flood plain locations along rivers. But, the exact pattern of Neanderthal and modern human population migrations and changes is not my main interest.
For some time I had been planning to write about the use of Psalm 104 in creationists circles as evidence for a physical description for tectonic events following a world-wide flood. Specifically, versus six through nine of Psalm 104 have been suggested to be not a reflection on creation, as is the traditional reading, but... Continue Reading →
Update Feb 2014: I have rewritten this article with updated information here: Fishing For Fossils in the North Sea: The Lost World of Doggerland You may have seen reports of the discovery of the "British Atlantis" circulating the web. Those stories seem to have been sparked by a new display of recent research at... Continue Reading →
On my trip to Kentucky this week to attend the PCA GA I took some time to do some geological sightseeing. I hope I can convince you that it was a lot more exciting that it might sound:-) Below are some pictures I took at two locations. The first are from the Falls of... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 