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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:16 — 12.8MB) 

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

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.


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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.

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.

10 Worst Energy-Related Disasters of 2011

 3. Offshore Oil Spill in the Niger Delta

Satellite image of the 350 mile oil slick caused by the Shell oil leak in the Niger Delta. Image credit: Skytruth

On December 20, 2011, a major leak occurred at an offshore oil platform operated by Royal Dutch Shell off the coast of Nigeria. A break in the flexible line which transports oil from the vessel onto oil tankers led to 40,000 barrels of oil being leaked into the ocean. Nigerian regulators have told Parliament Shell should be fined US$5 billion for the environmental damage caused by its spill -- considered the largest in Nigeria in the last ten years. The Taipei Times reports that over its 50 year history of extracting oil in Nigeria, shell has spilled 550 million gallons into the Niger Delta.

 
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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.

Taken at the Minnosota Science Museum: Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery.

Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !

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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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.

Using Waste, Swedish City Cuts Its Fossil Fuel Use

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

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

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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