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The two species , emerged from the excavations in Utah , baptized, respectively , Utahceratops getty and Kosmoceratops richardson had the collar bone typical triceraptopsidi
Inhabited the lost continent of LARAMID in the Late Cretaceous , were herbivores, of considerable size and with a great horn similar to that of Triceratops : this is what is known of the dinosaurs whose fossils were discovered in Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument , in southern Utah (United States ) and are described in an article published in the journal online open access PLoSONE.
For most of the Late Cretaceous , the seas reached exceptionally high levels , invading the most depressed regions of many continents throughout the world. In North America, a sea warm shallow called the Western Interior Seaway stretched from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, dividing the continent into two parts along a longitudinal axis , known respectively by the names of Appalachia and LARAMID.
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Researchers at the University of Malaga have discovered fossil record of richness in an area close to the Hoya de Málaga. This site is in a new stratigraphic unit that characterizes a facies- set of rocks with certain characteristics that help to know where and when it was formed , known as Lago- Mare , deposited in the Mediterranean at the end of Messinian ( Late Miocene ) just over 5.4 million years. The research , conducted in collaboration with Italian experts , has been recently published in Palaeogeography , Palaeoclimatology , Palaeoecology .
Investigators University of MálagaFrancisco Serrano Lozano, Antonio Guerra Merchán and Serge Gofas , found the fossils in clay sediments deposited in half of the estuary. These materials are part of two stratigraphic sequences formed by alluvial deposits which are superimposed on the estuarine deposits . The lower sequence contains abundant fauna characterized by bivalve molluscs (Lymnocardiinae and Dreissenidae), And non-marine gastropods and ostracods fauna (djafarovi Loxocorniculina, Tyrrhenocythere pontica, Euxinocythere (Maeotocythere) praebaquana and Amnicythere propinqua).
These fossils are typical of shallow brackish water . In the upper sequence have been found only ostracods , appearing monospecific associations alternating Agrigento CyprideisOr this species accompanied by Loxoconcha spp. , or more diversified partnerships with djafarovi Loxocorniculina accompanied by several species of Amnicythere. and Camptocypria sp. This variation in ostracod associations characterized a more unstable affected by changes in salinity and depth.
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A few small fossils found in South Australia by scientists from Princeton University ( USA) could be the first marine sponges of the Earth. So suggests a study published this week magazine Nature Geoscience. Confirmed the finding , it would be the oldest fossils found so far of animal forms , up to 650 million years old.
Geology professor Adam C. Maloof and student Catherine V. Rose Princeton University (USA ) found in southern Australia some unknown fossils while working on a project focusing on the great glaciation Navy, which marked the end of period 635 million years ago Cryogenic . These fossils may be the remains of more primitive marine sponges , as suggested in a study published online this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.
If this interpretation is correct, the finding is to have found the oldest fossils of simple forms of animal life discovered to date . The oldest animal structures dating back so far correspond to reef organisms that lived 550 million years ago .
Adam Maloof ‘s team stumbled upon fossils in rocks between 640 and 650 million years old. Therefore predate the glaciation Marina, a time when some hypotheses as Earth was covered with ice like a big ball of snow ( Snowball Earth glaciation ).
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Oldest complex multicellular organisms have been discovered in Gabon . Their appearance would be 1.5 billion years earlier than previously thought.
Fossils dating back 2.1 billion years and having all the characteristics of multicellular organisms. This was discovered by an international team Abderrazak El Albani hydrase Laboratory ( CNRS -University of Poitiers ), in a clay quarry exploited black Franceville in the south – eastern Gabon.
Around 250 fossils of 10-120 mm long, were excavated. All are made of pyrite , ie iron disulfide (FeS2 ) . This composition is consistent with a process of fossilization in an environment rich in iron , produced by bacteria derive their energy from sulfate reduction. The analysis of isotopes of carbon and sulfur showed that the samples represented an entity of organic origin in the sediment. Above all , the microtomography ( CT ) at high resolution highlighted in different specimens developed an internal organization .
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An international team of researchers has discovered a new species of ceratopsian, a group of herbivorous horned dinosaurs that lived between 65 and 96 million years in eastern Asia and western North America. Although considered as geographically limited to this area, new cranial fossils have been found in what is now Hungary.
During the Late Cretaceous (done between 65 and 96 million years), most of Europe was a complex series of islands between the land masses of Africa and Eurasia. The discovery – that is the first unambiguous discovery of a horned dinosaur from Europe, these species inhabiting these islands indicates that the exchange of animals between Asia and Europe in this period could be possible through travel from island to island.
“This dinosaur Hungarian represents the first event of horned dinosaurs in Europe. The remains show clearly that ceratopsians from Asia colonized the western Tethyan archipelago (which today is the Mediterranean region) and therefore Europe, “said Attila Osi SINC, lead study author and researcher at the Hungarian Museum Natural History.
According to the study published in the latest issue of NatureOne of the hypotheses is that the new species of ceratopsian, Kozmai AjkaceratopsWas able to swim, like other dinosaurs such hadrosaurs, short distances between islands, “so he could reach new areas to the west”, says Osi.
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The head of the group of hominids Paleoneurobiology National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH), Emiliano Bruner, concludes that only two parts of our brains that make up a close relationship with the anatomical changes that experience: the frontal areas and parietals. The first control issues as cognition and our psychological capacities. The latter give a world view in which we live and our relationship with him.
These two areas have a very strong association in terms of anatomical variation, “says Bruner,” and this is very important in the study of human evolution because analyzing the fossils we have seen in the anatomy of extinct species of mankind, that when one of these two areas, the other also changes. The same pattern we find in the fossil, is found by analyzing the brains of humans who live now, “concludes Emiliano Bruner.
However, that relationship is not applicable to other parts of the brain. This is the case of cortical and subcortical components that vary independently. To reach these conclusions, the researcher has used CENIEH geometric analysis techniques for locating the anatomical relationships among the components, along with data from high-resolution magnetic resonance;
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It seems that this new species may have lived in southern Siberia for a certain period with modern man and that of Neanderthal
An international team of researchers led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig has identified a previously unknown human species that lived between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago in the Siberian region of Altai Mountains. The discovery, which are reported in an article Nature Was made possible from the analysis of mitochondrial DNA extracted from a phalanx of a finger from the remains found in 2008 in the Denisova cave, in southern Siberia, a major site that had already been discovered fossils of settlements H. sapiens dating back at least to the early Upper Paleolithic.
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Last year in May attracted worldwide sensation 47 million year old fossil of “monkey” named Ida. The authors claimed the discovery that a common ancestor of the two major groups of primates – prosimians and higher primates, which include man. Paleontologists Independent Ida importance from the beginning questioned . And now it is clear that they were right.
Original article Ide, belonging to the species Darwinius masillae, Published in the journal PLoS ONE. The authors made their discovery of a huge advertising. On the day of its publication began selling book, The Link (Article – meant missing), promoted the slogan “Amazing new discovery that may change everything.” Television History Channel aired a documentary of the same name. Was also launched website revealingthelink.com.
Ida was a link between the prosimians, monkeys and apes. Quaternary scientists from three American universities now in the Journal of Human Evolution provides evidence that Ida is among the prosimians – lemurs as well as today or Sunda. The evolutionary line leading to humans has nothing in common.
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The researchers, the Department of Geology, University of Leicester have developed a new method for extracting information from fossils 500 million years old. To this end, consider the how they break down the fish, so to have a more clear what aspect should have our distant marine ancestors.
Interpreting fossil resembles in some respects to the forensic analysis: The experts gather all the tracks available to try to a reconstruction of something that happened in the past. However, Unlike forensic paleontologists handle carcasses life forms over millions of years, and are less interested in know the cause or time of death. They want to know is how an animal was before he died, and for this, as is the case with forensic analysis, learn how to alter the body with the decomposition after death, yields important clues on their original anatomy.
According to Rob Sansom, one of the authors of the study, this is something that Paleontologists sometimes overlooked, “probably because they use hundreds of hours studying fish stinking corpses decomposition is not something I tend to like. “But the findings it is possible to follow this path, they reward the bad times past.
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A team of Spanish and French scientists has discovered in the vicinity of Barcelona several fossils of corals that will help you understand what life was like in this region during the Paleozoic, for 300 and 400 million years. The findings are published in the latest issue of the Spanish Journal of Paleontology.
In the
Paleozoic era, the Catalan territory was covered by a deep sea located on the northern coast of Gondwana, the great continent which occupied most of the southern hemisphere. In its muddy and poor in oxygen, apparently hostile, reduced-eyed trilobites lived, able to obtain information from the environment through tactile or chemical systems. There were also
cephalopods with long tentacles, sea scorpions (eurypterids) who traveled long distances and some fish.
Along with all these species, unfurled a large population of tiny coral that have just been described by the international team of French paleontologist Yves Plusquellec where tarbajan Catalan scientists, including Esperanza Fernandez-Martinez, a researcher of the Area of Paleontology at the University de Leon and co-author of the study.
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In the Paleozoic era, the Catalan territory was covered by a deep sea located on the northern coast of Gondwana, the great continent which occupied most of the southern hemisphere. In its muddy and poor in oxygen, apparently hostile, reduced-eyed trilobites lived, able to obtain information from the environment through tactile or chemical systems. There were also cephalopods with long tentacles, sea scorpions (eurypterids) who traveled long distances and some fish.