Mi(ni)Geo

Icnita Dinosaurio Terópodo “Gigante” (by Paleoymas)

Huella fósil de 69 cm de longitud.

There wasn’t much color photography in Darwin’s day, so all the photos we have of him are in black and white (or sepia). Here’s a site with some skillful retouching of old photos to add color…and a new version of a familiar image. (vía Pharyngula)

Fig. 11 in M. Mángano & L. Buatois, Palaeontologia Electronica, 14, 2, 9A (2011): Thalassinoides isp., early to middle Arenigian Acoite Formation, Azul Pampa, Jujuy Province. Specimenhoused at Instituto Miguel Lillo, University of Tucuman, PIL 12578. Coin is 1.8 cm wide.

The hard drought in Texas this summer has taken its toll; crops are shriveled, rivers are drying up and even cacti are showing stress. But droughts such as this offer a rare glimpse of an extensive collection of dinosaur tracks at the Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose, Texas. Normally covered in water, the tracks of sauropods and theropods are for the time being exposed in the limestone bed of the Paluxy River. This small sauropod print is approximately 12 in (30 cm) across. The setting for this park was formed by sediment deposited more than 100 million years ago along rivers that once flowed into an ancient sea. Over perhaps the last 1 million years, the layered sediment has been gradually worn away revealing the long ago submerged footprints. Photo taken on August 2, 2011. Credit: Loren Ann Stiles. (via EPOD)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (by w9jim)

Leanchoilia (by realismart27)

Reconstituição dos 1º invertebrados da fauna de Burgess Shale (600 milhões anos a.C. - Canadá).

Photo credit: Jason Janik. (via Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas)

Do the oviraptor!

Fig. 5 in A. Baucon, Studi Trent. Sci. Nat., Acta Geol., 83, 15 (2008): Selection of body fossils from the Musaeum Metallicum. a. Aldrovandi describes this specimen as a “Rock pregnant with a shell”. b. Aldrovandi describes such fossils as “Astroitis”, referring to the star-like morphology of certain echinoderms and corals. (via Storia della Geologia)

I love this stuff. I love a rock that is, basically, all shells and can make cannonballs bounce. So when I had a chance to get my hands on some coquina for the first time ever, you can bet I fondled it. It’s harder than you’d expect for something famously soft enough to absorb enormous balls of metal hurtling toward them at speeds meant to destroy. It feels quite solid. And very, very shelly. (via En Tequila Es Verdad)

theropod:

“Jane”, a juvenile tyrannosaur on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History 

(via wigmund)

inlovewithgeosciences:

Europasaurus holgeri and Germanodactylus cristatus

Geological time: Upper Jurassic

Found in Germany

I am not entirely sure what to call Dinosaur Revolution. “Documentary” doesn’t feel quite right. “Dinosaur tribute” might be a better fit. Whatever you choose to call it, though, it’s a program that employs the well-worn dinosaur playbook that has been in use for over a decade. Walking With Dinosaurs – the BBC’s 1999 docudrama – brought the idea of following the day-to-day lives of dinosaurs (with little to no human presence) into vogue, and Dinosaur Revolution continues in that tradition while adding a few unique quirks. (via Dinosaur Tracking Blog)

Mesosaurus brasiliensis should gladden the hearts of all geologists. This is a Permian freshwater critter, a marine reptile that nommed on fish and swam around in lakes and rivers in what became South America and South Africa. It couldn’t cross oceans, and there were no such things as bilges back in the Permian in which stowaways might travel. Turns out this aquatic reptile is excellent evidence that South America and South Africa were once joined - score one for plate tectonics! (via En Tequila Es Verdad)

Bryozoa (by Grimsvotn)

Devonian Age Fossil.

kodakowl:

Libonectes (Southwest Swimmer) was a very long-necked plieosaur, known as an elasmosaur (a group of marine animals from the creatcious with four strong paddle-shaped limbs that lived in the sea.)  An early fossil hunter thought that libonectes’s head was originally the tail of another fossil, then it was thought that their necks could move much like a snake’s body, but they are actually relatively rigid, much like those of sauropods.  There were 62 bones in its long neck, which accounted for over half of its body length. Libonectes likely swam after shoals of fish and attacked from underneath to trap them in its cage like mouth. Its teeth were long, sharp, forward facing, and interlinked forming said cage for trapping its unfortunate prey.

(Source: lifethroughgeologictime)