Fossilized bones of dinosaurs, whales and mammoths get all of the attention but trace fossils provide important evidence for interpreting when and how organisms lived on Earth in the past. Trace fossils are not the fossilized remains of organisms themselves but rather are evidence of the past presence of organisms. The most recognizable trace fossils... Continue Reading →
Everyone has encountered a T. rex in books, movies or museums. Besides its size and menacing jaws one of the most striking features of a T. rex is its diminutive arms. So why were the arms of T. rex so short? There have been many hypotheses including: 1) they had no use and... Continue Reading →
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.
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 →
My WordPress tag reader led me to this video posted on Eric Hovind's "Creation Today" website. This site is what Dr Dino's website presence morphed into after the arrest and conviction of fringe creation scientists Kent Hovind. What caught my eye was that today's video highlighted evidence of creation from thorns. I have been thinking... Continue Reading →
When I give my lecture in class about animal distributions, questions often are raised about how did animals get to some remote islands or even islands that are not that far off from the mainland. Sometimes the answer is that during ice ages the oceans was up to hundreds of meters lower than it is... Continue Reading →
The Toba volcano is found near the center of Sumatra, Indonesia. It has been estimated that at least 2800 cubic kilometers of material was thrown into the air during the explosion or series of explosions. To put that in perspective the Krakatoa volcano threw just over 2 cubic kilometers of material into the air some of which circled the globe causing dazzling sunsets in Europe.
Dinosaur eggs are surprisingly (to the non-biologist) similar in size. Even the very largest dinosaurs laid eggs that were hardly any bigger than the largest eggs found today. These are observations from the fossil record and these observation make sense biologically even though all we see are fossilized eggs. Eggs are limited in the size they attain for several reasons but one of the most important is that the embryos in the eggs must have oxygen to grow.
I think it is safe to say that the average person has little appreciation for the diversity (eg. number of species) and the total numbers of whales in the world. What most people hear about whales is that there are some that are hunted to near extinction. This tends to create the impression that whales are rare animals. Yes, there are many rare and endangered species of whales but there there are many that are very abundant.
Recently I shared evidence of an ancient forest preserved in amazing detail in a thick layer of volcanic ash (An Ancient and Alien Forest Reconstructed: A challenge for young earth creationism). I raised a number of challenging questions that this spectacular fossil discovery raises for those that hold to a young-earth creationists (YEC) understanding of... Continue Reading →
Recent studies of multiple intact fossilized forests provide a very detailed account of the presence of an seemingly alien forest that was found multiple locations across the entire globe at some point in the past. A forest completely devoid of the presence of any flowering plants such as oaks, maples and beech trees or even... Continue Reading →
Continuing on with the theme of the last several posts which examined reconstructions of fossil forests here are the results of another research paper released this past week (reference below). In this study the authors examined records of more than 2200 fossilized wood collections just from Cretaceous aged rocks at locations all around the world. ... Continue Reading →
A quick note about another report of a fossilized forest that has been described. Last week it was PNAS that had the big story of a the "Permian Pompeii," a fossil forest reconstructed in China which I discussed in "An Ancient and Alien Forest Reconstructed." Not more than a week later the magazine "Nature" is highlighting the description of a another reconstructed forest.
An areas with thousands of fossilized tracks from the United Arab Emirates has been described in the journal Biology Letters. Additional background information about the find can be found HERE. The tracks have been described as having been formed by an extinct species of elephants and are possibly the largest continuous set of trackways discovered... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 