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An action thriller by Jock Miller
Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died.
The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab oil countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, the intensity of hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries has intensified due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty.As the energy storm intensifies, the nation’s access to Arab oil, once supplying over sixty percent of our fossil fuel, is being threatened causing people to panic for lack of gas at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.
The U.S. Military is forced to cut back air, land, and sea operations sucking up 58% of every barrel of oil to protect the nation; U.S. commercial airlines are forced to limit flights for lack of jet fuel; and businesses are challenged to power up their factories, and offices as the U.S. Department of Energy desperately tries to provide a balance of electric power from the network of aged power plants and transmission lines that power up the nation.
The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that will plunge the nation into a deep depression worse than 1929.The energy storm is very real and happening this very moment. But, at the last moment of desperation, the United States discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit found in a remote inaccessible mountain range within Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve surrounding six and a half million acres.
Preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.Nobody gets out alive; nobody can identify the predator--until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. All hell breaks loose when Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park.
Will the nation’s military be paralyzed for lack of mobility fuel, and will people across America run out of gas and be stranded, or will the U.S. Military succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy driven catastrophe in recorded history?
Fossils That Made Dinosaur History: Coelophysis (1947)
Although Coelophysis was named in 1889 (by the famous paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope), this early theropod didn't make a splash in the popular imagination until 1947, when Edwin H. Colbert found innumerable Coelophysis skeletons tangled together at the Ghost Ranch fossil site in New Mexico. This showed that some genera of small theropods, just like hadrosaurs and ornithopods, traveled in herds--and that large populations of dinosaurs, meat-eaters and plant-eaters alike, were regularly caught unawares by flash floods.
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World’s Worst Power Outages
New York, 1977
Photograph by Tom Cunningham, NY Daily News/Getty Images
A lack of power poses plenty of inherent problems, but massive blackouts can also lead to bad behavior. A lightning-sparked outage in 1977, which left 9 million New Yorkers without power, lasted only about 24 hours on July 13 and July 14. But during that time, arsonists torched buildings like these on Marmion Avenue in the Bronx, setting a reported 1,000 fires. Looters and rioters also ran rampant and trashed some 1,600 stores during what Mayor Abraham Beame called "a night of terror." When similar outages struck the city in 2003, however, such problems were few and far between.
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Photograph by Tom Cunningham, NY Daily News/Getty Images
A lack of power poses plenty of inherent problems, but massive blackouts can also lead to bad behavior. A lightning-sparked outage in 1977, which left 9 million New Yorkers without power, lasted only about 24 hours on July 13 and July 14. But during that time, arsonists torched buildings like these on Marmion Avenue in the Bronx, setting a reported 1,000 fires. Looters and rioters also ran rampant and trashed some 1,600 stores during what Mayor Abraham Beame called "a night of terror." When similar outages struck the city in 2003, however, such problems were few and far between.
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HOPEFUL ENERGY STORIES: Concern for Wildlife Alters Energy Plans
Photograph by Joel Sartore
Bison cluster on the native grassland at Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, just one example of the Nebraska wildlife in the ecosystem at the center of a major energy battle this year—the fight over the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.
Pressure built against the project in part over concern for the unique 19,600-square-mile (51,000-square-kilometer) ecosystem in Nebraska called the Sandhills, and the Obama administration blocked the proposed pipeline route. (See "Pictures: Animals That Blocked Keystone XL Pipeline Path.") TransCanada says it remains fully committed to the project to move crude from Canada's oil sands some 1,700 miles (2,740 kilometers) to refineries in Texas, and a decision on a revised plan is expected from Washington early in 2013.
Climate change activists are sure to continue their opposition, because of concern over carbon-intensive oil sands production. But the debate forced a rethinking of the project with renewed attention on the importance of protecting the Sandhills and the underlying Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to about 2 million people in Nebraska and seven other states.
On the other side of the globe, in Sabah, Malaysia, threats to the critically endangered Sumatran rhino and vibrant coral reefs derailed a planned coal-fired power plant in one of the region's top biological hot spots—an ecotourism destination to boot. While green advocates hope to see renewable energy thrive here, Sabah's short-term needs will be filled by a 300-megawatt natural gas plant, which is cleaner than the coal alternative. (See "Concern Over Rare Rhino Rouses Clean Energy Drive in Malaysia.")
—Brian Handwerk
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World’s Worst Power Outages
Europe, 2006
Photograph by Joerg Sarbach, AP
Onlookers wait for the newly built cruise ship Norwegian Pearl to leave the Papenburg, Germany, shipyard in November 2006. Soon after, on its trip down the River Ems, the ship indirectly caused a two-hour power outage for some 10 million people on the evening of November 4. The German power company E. turned off a 380,000-volt line over the river so that the ship could pass safely beneath on its way to the North Sea. But the dead line quickly increased pressures elsewhere in the German power grid and then sparked a chain reaction across parts of Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and Croatia. Critics said the incident showcased the need for more universal electricity distribution policies across Europe.
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Photograph by Joerg Sarbach, AP
Onlookers wait for the newly built cruise ship Norwegian Pearl to leave the Papenburg, Germany, shipyard in November 2006. Soon after, on its trip down the River Ems, the ship indirectly caused a two-hour power outage for some 10 million people on the evening of November 4. The German power company E. turned off a 380,000-volt line over the river so that the ship could pass safely beneath on its way to the North Sea. But the dead line quickly increased pressures elsewhere in the German power grid and then sparked a chain reaction across parts of Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and Croatia. Critics said the incident showcased the need for more universal electricity distribution policies across Europe.
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More on the Diplodocus
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| Caudal vertebrae of D. carnegii showing the double-beamed chevron bones that the genus name refers to, Natural History Museum, London. |
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| D. longus skull from Bone-Cabin Quarry |
Electricity From Spinach
Don't eat your spinach. Put it on your solar panel instead.
OK, that's not actually advisable. However, it is true that the latest attempt to put photosynthesis to work to produce electricity finds researchers at Vanderbilt University reporting big gains with a new concept that uses a protein found in spinach in combination with carefully formatted silicon.
The research at Vanderbilt uses a specific protein involved in photosynthesis called photosystem 1, which was discovered 40 years ago and apparently quickly seduced solar researchers with its ability to convert sunlight into electrical energy with nearly 100 percent efficiency, according to Vanderbilt.
That the stuff is cheap and plentiful – it can be extracted from the rapidly growing kudzu vine, not just 99-cents-a-bunch spinach – compared to common microelectronic materials only increased the lure, according to Vanderbilt.
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OK, that's not actually advisable. However, it is true that the latest attempt to put photosynthesis to work to produce electricity finds researchers at Vanderbilt University reporting big gains with a new concept that uses a protein found in spinach in combination with carefully formatted silicon.
The research at Vanderbilt uses a specific protein involved in photosynthesis called photosystem 1, which was discovered 40 years ago and apparently quickly seduced solar researchers with its ability to convert sunlight into electrical energy with nearly 100 percent efficiency, according to Vanderbilt.
That the stuff is cheap and plentiful – it can be extracted from the rapidly growing kudzu vine, not just 99-cents-a-bunch spinach – compared to common microelectronic materials only increased the lure, according to Vanderbilt.
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Fossils That Changed Dinosaur History Diplodocus (1877)
The discovery of Diplodocus in western North America's Morrison Formation ushered in the age of the giant sauropods, which have since captured the imagination of the public to a far greater extent than relatively prosaic dinosaurs like Megalosaurus and Iguanodon.
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| Mounted D. carnegii holotype skeleton, Carnegie Museum of Natural History |
Powering The Future: Electricity
The early days of electric power are long behind us, but the principles remain the same: spin a wheel, add a magnet, and you can create an electricity machine -- a generator.
Amazing Places on Earth
The Forest of Knives
Madagascar is truly a lost world. Cut off from the rest of the world, the island's lemur population thrived (they don't exist anywhere else on the planet, except in captivity), and a host of unique life forms evolved in relative isolation. Yet Madagascar's geology also stands apart from the rest of the world's -- especially the region known as Tsingy de Bemaraha.
Here, visitors encounter a forest of upturned limestone daggers. This painful-looking landscape, also known as karst topography, results from long-term dissolution of soluble limestone bedrock. Formerly a massive slab of rock, rainwater has whittled it down into multiple, individual towers of stone. The Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park protects a 600-square-mile (1,554-square-kilometers) region of stone and vegetation.
The inhospitable nature of the tisngy serves to protect a host of creatures, many of which avoided discovery by humans until the 21st century.
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Madagascar is truly a lost world. Cut off from the rest of the world, the island's lemur population thrived (they don't exist anywhere else on the planet, except in captivity), and a host of unique life forms evolved in relative isolation. Yet Madagascar's geology also stands apart from the rest of the world's -- especially the region known as Tsingy de Bemaraha.
Here, visitors encounter a forest of upturned limestone daggers. This painful-looking landscape, also known as karst topography, results from long-term dissolution of soluble limestone bedrock. Formerly a massive slab of rock, rainwater has whittled it down into multiple, individual towers of stone. The Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park protects a 600-square-mile (1,554-square-kilometers) region of stone and vegetation.
The inhospitable nature of the tisngy serves to protect a host of creatures, many of which avoided discovery by humans until the 21st century.
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Fossils That Changed Dinosaur History: Archaeopteryx (1860-62)
In 1860, Charles Darwin published his earth-shaking treatise on evolution, The Origin of Species.
As luck would have it, the next couple of years saw a series of spectacular discoveries at the limestone deposits of Solnhofen, Germany--complete, exquisitely preserved fossils of an ancient creature, Archaeopteryx, that seemed to be the perfect "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds.
Since then, more convincing transitional forms (such as Sinosauropteryx) have been found, but none have had as profound an impact as this pigeon-sized dinosaur.
As luck would have it, the next couple of years saw a series of spectacular discoveries at the limestone deposits of Solnhofen, Germany--complete, exquisitely preserved fossils of an ancient creature, Archaeopteryx, that seemed to be the perfect "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds.
Since then, more convincing transitional forms (such as Sinosauropteryx) have been found, but none have had as profound an impact as this pigeon-sized dinosaur.
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| Archaeopteryx lithographica, specimen displayed at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. (This image shows the original fossil - not a cast.) |
Most Amazing Places on Earth
6. The Crystal Caverns
Nearly 1,000 feet (305 meters) beneath Mexico's Naica silver mine you'll find a chamber of unearthly wonder. Here in Cueva de los Cristales (the Cave of Crystals), 36-foot (11-meter) obelisks of solid crystal lay heaped about like fallen pillars in a dilapidated temple.
This subterranean forest of wonders boasts the largest known gypsums (soft minerals made of hydrate calcium sulfate) on Earth. For roughly half a million years, the hidden chamber was nothing short of a crystal incubator. For starters, nearby magma deposits heat the cavern to temperatures of up to 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius). And to top things off, the entire space was flooded with mineral-rich waters up until very recently.
The chamber was discovered in 2000, after mining operations pumped it dry. Today, only a few visitors risk heatstroke to witness the crystals' beauty firsthand.
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Fossils That Changed Dinosaur History: Hadrosaurus (1858)
The Hadrosaurus foulkii was, in fact, the first nearly complete dinosaur fossil to be found in the world. And, it was found in Haddonfield! In 1858, an amateur fossil hunter named William Parker Foulke was vacationing in Haddonfield and heard that workers had found giant bones in a pit of calcium carbonite type clay called marl nearby. The marl was used by local farmers as fertilizer. Foulke spent several months supervising the excavation of the pit before he and his workers found the giant bones.
The finding of a nearly complete set of bones to one of these giant creatures set the scientific world on its ear. Theories about dinosaurs had existed for years but nothing was ever found that provided definitive proof that they really existed. That was until Mr. Foulke found his dinosaur in Haddonfield.
Listen to My Podcast on Larry Thompson's Thriller Thursday
Fossil River — A new novel from Jock Miller
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A perfect energy storm that pits predatory dinosaurs against US Marines
Larry Thompson welcomes Jock Miller to Thriller Thursday to talk about his latest novel, Fossil River , an exciting combination of science fiction (and fact) in a riveting story story centered on an energy shortage that has it’s solution in the Alaskan Wilderness. Jock Tells us how the story and novel came about, as well as bit about his personal journey as a thriller writer.
10 Worst Energy-Related Disasters of 2011
2. Northern Russia Oil Leaks
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| Image credit: Greenpeace |
Labelled the world's "worst ecological oil catastrophe," Russia's oil industry spills an estimated 30 million barrels of oil every year -- this is the equivalent of a Deepwater Horizon oil spill every two months. Experts estimate that 10%-15% of this oil gets spilled into rivers, with half a million tons spilling into the Arctic Ocean annually. Seeping through rusted pipes and old wells, this continuous oil leak wreaks havoc on rivers, plant life, and animal habitat. The latest data shows that in 2010, Russia was home to 18,000 oil leaks.
Famous Dinosaurs: Iguanodon
The largest find of Iguanodon remains to that date occurred on 28 February 1878 in a coal mine at Bernissart in Belgium, at a depth of 322 m (1056 ft),[5] when two mineworkers, Jules Créteur and Alphonse Blanchard, accidentally hit on a skeleton that they initially took for petrified wood.
Workmen mounting the first Iguanodon bernissartensis skeleton in the St. George Chapel in Brussels, 1882. Because Belgium did not really possess a tradition in mounting vertebrate specimens, Dollo’s men had to invent their own method. Although they successfully mounted a great number of specimens (who are now on display in the Brussels Museum of Natural History), their solution meant that unmounting the animals was near to impossible without physically damaging them. These days, the Brussels Iguanodons have become museum specimens in more than one way, illustrating the evolution of mounting such animals in museums in the nineteenth century.
Workmen mounting the first Iguanodon bernissartensis skeleton in the St. George Chapel in Brussels, 1882. Because Belgium did not really possess a tradition in mounting vertebrate specimens, Dollo’s men had to invent their own method. Although they successfully mounted a great number of specimens (who are now on display in the Brussels Museum of Natural History), their solution meant that unmounting the animals was near to impossible without physically damaging them. These days, the Brussels Iguanodons have become museum specimens in more than one way, illustrating the evolution of mounting such animals in museums in the nineteenth century.
Fossils That Changed Dinosaur History: Iguanodon (1820)
Iguanodon was only the second dinosaur after Megalosaurus to be given a formal genus name; more important, its numerous fossils (first investigated by Gideon Mantell in 1820) precipitated a heated debate among naturalists about whether or not these ancient reptiles even existed. Georges Cuvier and William Buckland laughed away the bones as belonging to a fish or a rhinoceros, while Richard Owen (if you can overlook a few wacky details and his overbearing personality) pretty much hit the Cretaceous nail on the head.
Fossils that Changed Dinosaur History: Mosasaurus
The remains of Mosasaurus were discovered well before educated society knew anything about evolution, dinosaurs, or marine reptiles--in a mine in Holland in the late 18th century (hence this creature's name, after the nearby Meuse river). The unearthing of these fossils led early naturalists like Georges Cuvier to speculate, for the first time, about the possibility that currently extinct species had once lived on earth, which flew in the face of accepted religious dogma of the time.
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| Taken at the Minnosota Science Museum: Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery.
Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !
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Most Amazing Places on Earth
The Reflecting Desert
Earth's vast, barren expanses are often as awe-inspiring as its highest peaks and deepest valleys. Just consider the Bolivian Uyuni Salt Flats, or Salar de Uyuni, a 4,000-square-mile (10,360-square-kilometer) plane of what appear to be hexagonal tiles. This extraordinary high-altitude landscape stretches among the snow-peaked Andean mountains, and if you happen to visit during the rainy season, you're in for quite a sight.
When the rains sweep down onto the Uyuni Salt Flats, the entire expanse becomes an immense reflecting pool. The water on the salt flats never reaches a depth of more than 6 inches (15 centimeters), so it offers visitors the unique sensation of walking on the surface of a mirror -- all amid a desolate silence.
The unique landmark is actually the remnant of a prehistoric lake and currently ranks as the largest salt flat in the world.
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Earth's vast, barren expanses are often as awe-inspiring as its highest peaks and deepest valleys. Just consider the Bolivian Uyuni Salt Flats, or Salar de Uyuni, a 4,000-square-mile (10,360-square-kilometer) plane of what appear to be hexagonal tiles. This extraordinary high-altitude landscape stretches among the snow-peaked Andean mountains, and if you happen to visit during the rainy season, you're in for quite a sight.
When the rains sweep down onto the Uyuni Salt Flats, the entire expanse becomes an immense reflecting pool. The water on the salt flats never reaches a depth of more than 6 inches (15 centimeters), so it offers visitors the unique sensation of walking on the surface of a mirror -- all amid a desolate silence.
The unique landmark is actually the remnant of a prehistoric lake and currently ranks as the largest salt flat in the world.
Read More
Dinosaur Eggs
Dinosaur eggs are known from about 200 sites around the world, the majority in Asia and mostly in terrestrial (nonmarine) rocks of Cretaceous age.
Technically speaking, dinosaur eggs are trace fossils, the category that also includes fossil footprints. Very rarely, fossil embryos are preserved inside dinosaur eggs. Another piece of information derived from dinosaur eggs is their arrangement in nests—sometimes they are laid out in spirals, sometimes in heaps, sometimes they are found alone.
We don't always know what species of dinosaur an egg belongs to. Dinosaur eggs are assigned to paraspecies, similar to the classifications of animal tracks, pollen grains or phytoliths. This gives us a convenient way to talk about them without trying to assign them to a particular "parent" animal.
These dinosaur eggs, like most on the market today, come from China, where thousands have been excavated.
It may be that dinosaur eggs date from the Cretaceous because thick calcite eggshells evolved during the Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago). Most dinosaur eggs have one of two forms of eggshell that are distinct from the shells of related modern animal groups, such as turtles or birds. However, some dinosaur eggs closely resemble bird eggs, particularly the type of eggshells in ostrich eggs. A good technical introduction to the subject is presented on the University of Bristol "Palaeofiles" site.
Technically speaking, dinosaur eggs are trace fossils, the category that also includes fossil footprints. Very rarely, fossil embryos are preserved inside dinosaur eggs. Another piece of information derived from dinosaur eggs is their arrangement in nests—sometimes they are laid out in spirals, sometimes in heaps, sometimes they are found alone.
We don't always know what species of dinosaur an egg belongs to. Dinosaur eggs are assigned to paraspecies, similar to the classifications of animal tracks, pollen grains or phytoliths. This gives us a convenient way to talk about them without trying to assign them to a particular "parent" animal.
These dinosaur eggs, like most on the market today, come from China, where thousands have been excavated.
It may be that dinosaur eggs date from the Cretaceous because thick calcite eggshells evolved during the Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago). Most dinosaur eggs have one of two forms of eggshell that are distinct from the shells of related modern animal groups, such as turtles or birds. However, some dinosaur eggs closely resemble bird eggs, particularly the type of eggshells in ostrich eggs. A good technical introduction to the subject is presented on the University of Bristol "Palaeofiles" site.
Using Waste, Swedish City Cuts Its Fossil Fuel Use
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| As part of its citywide system, Kristianstad burns wood waste like tree prunings and scraps from flooring factories to power an underground district heating grid |
KRISTIANSTAD, Sweden — When this city vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels, it was a lofty aspiration, like zero deaths from traffic accidents or the elimination of childhood obesity.
But Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters. It is a complete reversal from 20 years ago, when all of their heat came from fossil fuels.
But this area in southern Sweden, best known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or wind turbines for the traditional fuels it has forsaken. Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines.
A hulking 10-year-old plant on the outskirts of Kristianstad uses a biological process to transform the detritus into biogas, a form of methane. That gas is burned to create heat and electricity, or is refined as a fuel for cars.
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Most Amazing Places on Earth: Meteora Rock Formations
Fog-shrouded Peaks
You'll find no shortage of breathtaking vistas on the Greek peninsula, but the Meteora rock formations truly take the cake. These massive sandstone fingers seem to emerge as much from a dream as from the plains of Thessaly. Towering as high as 2,044 feet (623 meters) above lush landscape below, the steep peaks of Meteora are a perfect setting for a secluded monastery.
Monks and nuns have called Meteora's peaks and caverns home for centuries. Hermits scaled the daunting peaks as early as the 10th century and, according to legend, St. Athanasios Meteorites rode an eagle to the top in the 1300s to found Great Meteoron, the largest of the region's six secluded monasteries.
The monasteries remain active to this day, though some peaks remain rather isolated destinations. Up until 1925, visitors could only reach Ayia Triada (aka Hagia Triada) monastery via rope ladders and baskets. Today, it boasts a 140-step staircase hewn into the rock.
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You'll find no shortage of breathtaking vistas on the Greek peninsula, but the Meteora rock formations truly take the cake. These massive sandstone fingers seem to emerge as much from a dream as from the plains of Thessaly. Towering as high as 2,044 feet (623 meters) above lush landscape below, the steep peaks of Meteora are a perfect setting for a secluded monastery.
Monks and nuns have called Meteora's peaks and caverns home for centuries. Hermits scaled the daunting peaks as early as the 10th century and, according to legend, St. Athanasios Meteorites rode an eagle to the top in the 1300s to found Great Meteoron, the largest of the region's six secluded monasteries.
The monasteries remain active to this day, though some peaks remain rather isolated destinations. Up until 1925, visitors could only reach Ayia Triada (aka Hagia Triada) monastery via rope ladders and baskets. Today, it boasts a 140-step staircase hewn into the rock.
Read More
Notable Feathered Dinosaurs: Scansoriopteryx
Scansoriopteryx (Greek for "climbing wing"); pronounced SCAN-sore-ee-OP-ter-ixHabitat:
Woodlands of Asia
Historical Period:
Early Cretaceous (130-125 million years ago
Size and Weight:
About one foot long and one pound
Diet:
Insects
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Small size; extended claws on each hand
About Scansoriopteryx:
Like the feathered theropod to which it's most closely related--Epidendrosaurus--Scansoriopteryx is thought to have spent most of its life high up in trees, where it poked out grubs from underneath bark with its unusually long middle fingers. However, it's not clear if this dino-bird was covered with feathers, and it appears to have been incapable of flight. So far, this genus is known only by the fossil of a single juvenile; future discoveries should shed further light on its appearance and behavior.
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Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !
Bob Strauss is a freelance writer
and book author; one of his specialties is explaining
scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and
professional audience.
Bob
Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer
books that range across the expanse of science, biology,
history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).
Fossils: Megalosaurus, Buckland's Research
Engraving from William Buckland's "Notice on the Megalosaurus or great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield", 1824. Caption reads "anterior extremity of the right lower jaw of the Megalosaurus from Stonesfield near Oxford".
More discoveries were made, starting in 1815, again at the Stonesfield quarry. They were acquired by William Buckland, Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford and dean of Christ Church. He did not know to what animal the bones belonged but, in 1818, after the Napoleonic Wars, the French comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier visited Buckland in Oxford and realised that the bones belonged to a giant lizard-like creature. Buckland then published descriptions of the bones in Transactions of the Geological Society, in 1824 (Physician James Parkinson had described them in an article in 1822).
By 1824, Buckland had a piece of a lower jaw with teeth, some vertebrae, and fragments of pelvis, scapula and hind limbs, probably not all from the same individual. Buckland identified the organism as being a giant animal related to the Sauria (lizards) and he placed it in the new genus Megalosaurus, estimating the animal to be 12 m long in life. In 1826, Ferdinand von Ritgen gave this dinosaur a complete binomial, Megalosaurus conybeari, which was not used by later authors and is now considered a nomen oblitum. A year later, in 1827, Gideon Mantell included Megalosaurus in his geological survey of southeastern England, and assigned the species its current binomial name, Megalosaurus bucklandii. It would not be until 1842 that Richard Owen coined the term 'dinosaur'.
Fossils that Changed Dinosaur History: Megalosaurus
Megalosaurus may have been the first dinosaur to be described in the scientific literature. Part of a bone was recovered from a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England in 1676. The fragment was sent to Robert Plot, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and first curator of the Ashmolean Museum, who published a description in his Natural History of Oxfordshire in 1676. He correctly identified the bone as the lower extremity of the femur of a large animal and he recognized that it was too large to belong to any known species. He therefore concluded it to be the thigh bone of a giant human, such as those mentioned in the Bible. The bone has since been lost but the illustration is detailed enough that some have since identified it as that of Megalosaurus.
150 years later--after further discoveries-- it was given its name, Greek for "great lizard," by the early paleontologist William Buckland.
Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !
Most Amazing Places on Earth: The Crack of Silfra
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| Image Credit: Rene Frederick/Getty Images |
Adjacent to Lake Thingvalla, you'll find Silfra Crack. Filled with crystal-clear, glacial meltwater, this narrow slit plunges 66 feet (20 meters) into the Earth. It makes for a rather chilly descent, but sight-seeking divers make the pilgrimage each year to dive between the continents. Experienced cave divers can explore depths of more than 148 feet (45 meters) by swimming into the Silfra cave system.
Visitors frequently describe the Silfra diving experience as one of floating weightlessly through space. The glacial waters filter through miles of volcanic rock before emptying into the crack.
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10 Worst Energy-Related Disasterf of 2011
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On April 29, 2011, Alberta suffered its worst oil spill in 36 years when a pipeline broke spilling 28,000 barrels of oil into a remote area of the boreal forest. The spill occurred just 300 meters from local waterways. The Lubicon Cree Nation is settled 10-kilometers east of the spill. The town of 300 was enveloped by odours which caused several members of the community to become sick. It took five days before Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner became aware residents were being adversely affected by the spill. Even then, he "could not say for sure" if the odour making residents sick was coming from the spill.
Amazing Places on Earth: Uluru the Monolith
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| Image Credit: Harvey Lloyd/Taxi/Getty Images |
Image Credit: Harvey Lloyd/Taxi/Getty Images
Dubbed "Ayers Rock" by Europeans, the 5.8-mile (9.4-kilometer) wide slab of arkose (a type of sandstone) resonates with sacred significance for the Anangu people. Aboriginal paintings pepper its base, as well as caves and waterholes held sacrosanct in the spiritual tradition of Tjukuritja. While the Anangu have visited the site for roughly 22,000 years, they only regained legal ownership of the land in 1985 after a century of European rule.
Uluru is the visible tip of a much larger rock slab that extends deep into the Earth. In ages past, this tip was underground as well, but hundreds of millions of years of erosion have reduced the surrounding landscape. Uluru gets its red complexion from clay and rusted iron minerals within the sandstone. At dusk and dawn, the monolith takes on even darker, crimson hues.
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Notable Feathered Dinosaurs: Rahonavis
Habitat:
Woodlands of Madagascar
Historical Period:
Late Cretaceous (75 million years ago)
Size and Weight:
About one foot long and one pound
Diet:
Probably insects
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Small size; feathers; single curved claw on each foot
About Rahonavis:
Rahonavis is one of those creatures that triggers enduring feuds among paleontologists. When it was first discovered (an incomplete skeleton unearthed in Madagascar in 1995), researchers assumed it was a type of bird, but further study showed certain traits common to dromaeosaurs (better known to the general public as raptors). Like such undisputed raptors as Velociraptor and Deinonychus, Rahonavis had a single huge claw on each hind foot, as well as other raptor-like features.
What is the current thinking about Rahonavis? Most scientists agree that raptors counted among the early ancestors of birds, meaning that Rahonavis might be a "missing link" between these two families. The trouble is, it wouldn't be the only such missing link; dinosaurs may have made the evolutionary transition to flight multiple times, and only one of these lineages went on to spawn modern birds.
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Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !
Bob Strauss is a freelance writer
and book author; one of his specialties is explaining
scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and
professional audience.
Bob
Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer
books that range across the expanse of science, biology,
history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).
Energy Policy On Ice
Drilling Risk in Gulf and Arctic
Thousands of miles apart, in vastly disparate environments, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's Chukchi Sea have something in common: Both illustrate the increasing futility of an energy policy heavily dependent on oil.
The risks in the Gulf's offshore drilling became brutally apparent in April 2010, when a BP deep-sea well exploded, killing 11 oil rig workers and causing a massive spill of almost 5 million barrels of crude. The disaster led to new regulations for offshore drilling.
In the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska's northwest coast, the challenge is not the depth of the water but the ice upon it. Floating sheets of ice, along with powerful waves, have confounded Royal Dutch Shell's so-far six-year, $5 billion effort to drill offshore. Approaching winter and persistent problems with an oil-containment barge recently forced Shell to postpone its efforts for another year.
The difficulties and risks, both in the Gulf and in the Arctic -- as well as off the east and west U.S. coasts and in shale formations -- were summed up in last Tuesday's Herald-Tribune by Houston Chronicle columnist Loren Steffy: "Quite simply, the easy stuff is gone. All require expensive and time-consuming drilling techniques."
Consequently, claims by candidates or elected officials that America could achieve oil independence if government would only get out of the way are just a lot of hot air.
The U.S. Department of Energy has established that America has only 2 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Yet, we use 25 percent of the world's supply.
Only the high price of oil (more than $90 a barrel) pushes companies like BP and Shell to attempt to extract it from mile-deep wells or the frigid Arctic seas. Read More
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| Floating ice and other challenges confound current efforts to drill for oil off Alaska's coast. (AP PHOTO) |
Thousands of miles apart, in vastly disparate environments, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's Chukchi Sea have something in common: Both illustrate the increasing futility of an energy policy heavily dependent on oil.
The risks in the Gulf's offshore drilling became brutally apparent in April 2010, when a BP deep-sea well exploded, killing 11 oil rig workers and causing a massive spill of almost 5 million barrels of crude. The disaster led to new regulations for offshore drilling.
In the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska's northwest coast, the challenge is not the depth of the water but the ice upon it. Floating sheets of ice, along with powerful waves, have confounded Royal Dutch Shell's so-far six-year, $5 billion effort to drill offshore. Approaching winter and persistent problems with an oil-containment barge recently forced Shell to postpone its efforts for another year.
The difficulties and risks, both in the Gulf and in the Arctic -- as well as off the east and west U.S. coasts and in shale formations -- were summed up in last Tuesday's Herald-Tribune by Houston Chronicle columnist Loren Steffy: "Quite simply, the easy stuff is gone. All require expensive and time-consuming drilling techniques."
Consequently, claims by candidates or elected officials that America could achieve oil independence if government would only get out of the way are just a lot of hot air.
The U.S. Department of Energy has established that America has only 2 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Yet, we use 25 percent of the world's supply.
Only the high price of oil (more than $90 a barrel) pushes companies like BP and Shell to attempt to extract it from mile-deep wells or the frigid Arctic seas. Read More
Notable Feathered Dinosaurs: Protarchaeopteryx
Protarchaeopteryx (Greek for "before Archaeopteryx"); pronounced PRO-tar-kay-OP-ter-ix
Habitat:
Woodlands of Asia
Historical Period:
Early Cretaceous (130-125 million years ago)
Size and Weight:
About two feet long and a few pounds
Diet:
Probably omnivorous
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Small size; feathers on arms and tail
About Protarchaeopteryx:
Some dinosaur names make more sense than others. A good example is Protarchaeopteryx, which translates as "before Archaeopteryx," even though this birdlike dinosaur lived tens of millions of years after its more famous ancestor. In this case, the "pro" in the name refers to Protarchaeopteryx's supposedly less advanced features; this dino-bird seems to have been considerably less aerodynamic than Archaeopteryx, and was almost certainly incapable of flight.
If it couldn't fly, why did Protarchaeopteryx have feathers? As with other small theropods, this dinosaur’s arm and tail feathers likely evolved as a way of attracting mates, and may (secondarily) have given it some "lift" if it had to make a sudden, running leap away from larger predators.
_______________________________________________________________
Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !
Bob Strauss is a freelance writer
and book author; one of his specialties is explaining
scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and
professional audience.
Bob
Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer
books that range across the expanse of science, biology,
history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).
Big picture: Spill
by Daniel Beltrá
'
It was the world's worst offshore oil spill: 5m barrels spewing from the BP-run Deepwater Horizon rig into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people, marine life and devastating hundreds of miles of coastline. From a Cessna floatplane 3,000ft above the Louisiana coastline, photographer Daniel Beltrá captured the carnage. It was only from this height, he said, that the magnitude of the spill – and the futility of the clean-up operation – became apparent. "It was like trying to clean an Olympic pool full of oil while sitting on the side using Q-tips."
An environmental specialist who often works for Greenpeace, Beltrá prefers aerial photography, because it offers a humbling perspective, shrinking the scale of the planet to more human proportions and thereby revealing its fragility. This lofty viewpoint often shows the beauty of the natural world: in the case of a disaster, though, that can be unsettling. Here, the surface of the ocean is marbled with spectacular, iridescent blue and flashes of orange that resemble molten rock, and the rig, at first glance, might be a Hindu temple.
In the two years since the wellhead was sealed, the fallout has continued. BP has embarked on a selling spree of oilfields and refineries in an attempt to raise funds for the clean-up bill – estimated at $38bn. The company is working towards a settlement with the US government, with both sides trying to establish how much damage was done, and how much BP should pay.
The environment is counting the cost, too. Most recently, waves caused by Hurricane Isaac in August dumped oil from the spill on two Louisiana beaches. Beltrá, meanwhile, is documenting low levels of sea ice in the Arctic. He is one photographer unlikely to be out of work any time soon.
Spill is on show at the Prix Pictet/Power exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, London SW3, from 10-28 October.
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| Daniel Beltrá says aerial photography offers a humbling perspective. Photograph: ©Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace |
It was the world's worst offshore oil spill: 5m barrels spewing from the BP-run Deepwater Horizon rig into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people, marine life and devastating hundreds of miles of coastline. From a Cessna floatplane 3,000ft above the Louisiana coastline, photographer Daniel Beltrá captured the carnage. It was only from this height, he said, that the magnitude of the spill – and the futility of the clean-up operation – became apparent. "It was like trying to clean an Olympic pool full of oil while sitting on the side using Q-tips."
An environmental specialist who often works for Greenpeace, Beltrá prefers aerial photography, because it offers a humbling perspective, shrinking the scale of the planet to more human proportions and thereby revealing its fragility. This lofty viewpoint often shows the beauty of the natural world: in the case of a disaster, though, that can be unsettling. Here, the surface of the ocean is marbled with spectacular, iridescent blue and flashes of orange that resemble molten rock, and the rig, at first glance, might be a Hindu temple.
In the two years since the wellhead was sealed, the fallout has continued. BP has embarked on a selling spree of oilfields and refineries in an attempt to raise funds for the clean-up bill – estimated at $38bn. The company is working towards a settlement with the US government, with both sides trying to establish how much damage was done, and how much BP should pay.
The environment is counting the cost, too. Most recently, waves caused by Hurricane Isaac in August dumped oil from the spill on two Louisiana beaches. Beltrá, meanwhile, is documenting low levels of sea ice in the Arctic. He is one photographer unlikely to be out of work any time soon.
Spill is on show at the Prix Pictet/Power exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, London SW3, from 10-28 October.
10 Worst Energy-Related Disasters of 2011
8. North Sea Oil Spill
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| The Gannet Alpha platform. Image credit: Royal Dutch Shell |
On August 10, 2011, an oil leak was discovered on the Gannet Alpha offshore oil platform operating off the coast of Scotland. The leak spilled 1,300 barrels of oil into the North Sea. The Gannet Alpha is owned by Exxon and Shell. Although much smaller than other international oil spills such as BP's in the Gulf of Mexico or Shell's in the Niger Delta, this spill is the largest the North Sea has seen in the last ten years. Research by The Guardian shows there are an average of 294 spills in the North Sea every year. However, the spill in August 2011 was more than four times larger than all of the oil spills combined in the North Sea in 2009.
10 Worst Energy-Related Diasters of 2011
9. Coal Mine Explosion, Salinas, Mexico
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| Young Mexican miner hauling coal out of a mine shaft. Image credit: Mexico National Commission on Human Rights. |
On May 3, 2011, a coal mine in Sabinas, Mexico exploded killing 14 miners and injuring one. Safety standards in Mexico's coal industry are less than adequate. Small coal mines often escape inspection and fall outside of any regulation. Workers are usually teenagers under 18, equipped with basic tools and no helmets. As a result, major accidents such as the one in Sabinas are not uncommon. In 2006, a coal mine explosion killed 65 miners -- the worst in Mexico's history. Since 2006, it is believed another 40 people have been killed in local mines.
Read More
Reader's Review: Dinosaurs in Alaska! Awesome!
By shines177 "Bibliophile"
OK...I've been a dinosaur fan since I was a kid, so perhaps I'm a bit biased. It is very hard to find a good, believable dinosaur read, and I was thrilled when not only I found a new dino novel, but one that delivered all that I wanted!
I've read through the reviews and see a few disgrundled reviewers who apparently look for high literary fiction (translation: "boring classics"). This is a gritty, smart adventure novel of the near future where an urgent need for oil coincides with the shutdown of foreign sources. One source: A new mother lode in our own country. But to harvest the black gold, one must figure out how to deal with the most fearsome predators the world has ever seen. When modern technology fails, you turn to the wisdom of the ancients...
It's adventure, escapism, romance, and just pure FUN. I enjoyed the roller coaster read, and will soon be re-reading it again.
One last thing: I have hiked the area in the book many times. There are broad, huge valleys in the preserve that have likely never been trod by a human foot recorded history. Who knows? ;)
Converting Energy Waste into Electricity and Heat
Energy recycling wiz Tom Casten explains how to capture power that goes up in smoke
- By Bruce Hathaway
... Smithsonian's Bruce Hathaway recently spoke with CHP expert Tom Casten, chairman of a Chicago company called Recycled Energy Development (RED). Casten has spent three decades promoting the recycling of otherwise wasted industrial energy. He has testified before Congress numerous times and is the author of Turning Off the Heat: Why America Must Double Energy Efficiency to Save Money and Reduce Global Warming. Running a profitable CHP company is important to Casten, who has an MBA from Columbia. But his background as an Eagle Scout also explains his passion for reducing global warming: he abides by the slogan, "leave the campground cleaner than we found it."
Read Interview Here
Outlining Olorotitan
The reconstructed skeleton of Olorotitan, from Godefroit et al., 2012.
Olorotitan was one of the most elegant dinosaurs of all time. The 26-foot-long hadrosaur, found in the Late Cretaceous rocks of eastern Russia, had the typical deep tail, beefy legs and slender arms of its kin, but a fan-shaped crest jutting out of the back of the dinosaur’s skull gave it a striking profile. As with its North American cousins Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus, the hollow head ornament is what makes this dinosaur stand out.
Read More
Reader's Review: Captivating!
by Jan Zollar
Finally! The opportunity to read the much anticipated novel Fossil River is here! The Memorial Day holiday weekend was the perfect time to for me to cuddle up in a comfy chair and become totally engrossed in the story. Trouble is, I found myself on the edge of my seat! Jock Miller puts you right in the middle of the action. You feel like you know the characters personally and are pulling for their success and survival.
I would strongly recommend this novel as an exciting read. From now on, I know I will always wonder if I am alone when I am out in the woods!
Finally! The opportunity to read the much anticipated novel Fossil River is here! The Memorial Day holiday weekend was the perfect time to for me to cuddle up in a comfy chair and become totally engrossed in the story. Trouble is, I found myself on the edge of my seat! Jock Miller puts you right in the middle of the action. You feel like you know the characters personally and are pulling for their success and survival.I would strongly recommend this novel as an exciting read. From now on, I know I will always wonder if I am alone when I am out in the woods!
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