Showing posts with label fossils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fossils. Show all posts

Australia Had Giant Chickens

Mercury pollution

Aussie

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Giant chickens

Bill Shopf's WA Rocks are not Microfossils

The conclusion reached by Bill Schopf that tiny carbon-rich filaments in Pilbara rock of Western Australia show the presence of fossils is now proved to be incorrect. There has been debate about the issue since Bill Schopf made his announcement.
Bill William Shopf Pilbara Rocks Microfossils
Tests indicate that they are just rocks. Professor Martin Brasier first highlighted the problem in 2002, when he claimed that the rocks were part of a high-temperature thermal vein. In other words they were not sedimentary in nature.

New high-spacial resolution examination indicates stacks of clay-like mineral plates in the rocks' structure. Carbon has been absorbed into the worm-like chains giving the impression of cell walls.  Carbon distribution was completely wrong for microfossils. The "mischievous" clay plates are the culprit in leading scientists astray in their findings.

Authentic microfossils just as old as the Shopf example have recently been found in Western Australia, so the claim for the oldest fossils still resides with WA.
Chemistry by Ty Buchanan
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Australopithecus africanus were much like humans. They had evolved to use their hands to do intricate thing. It would have been possible for them to turn a key or hold a hammer. Coming down from the trees "caused" manipulatory advancement. The most useful attributes spread to more of their number due to longer survival and breeding capability.

While anthropologists are not sure that they used the advanced abilities, it is highly probable that they did otherwise the traits would not have become dominant. This pushes tool use way, way back to 3 million years ago.

How do scientists know that Australopithecus had complex skills? Trabeculae which is inside bones in the hands shows how hands were used. Humans, for example use the fingers and thumb region more than chimpanzees. Our friendly relations mainly use their fingers.

The supposition that tool use began millions of years ago was only theory: now it is proven.  Culture must have been passed on to offspring as well.  Tool use is a skill that must be taught.  Humans are capable of learning all their lives.  Chimpanzees can learn how to break nuts using a rock when they are young.  If they watch this being done when they are adults they never learn how to do it.
Science by Ty Buchanan
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New Prehistoric Crocodiles Found

A new type of crocodile now extinct has been found in northern Africa. It had three sets of fangs like wild boar tusks for killing other animals. Another kind of crocodile was found nearby. This one used a flat, wide snout to catch fish. A third species of crocodile also located close by was only three feet long. This had "buckteeth" for eating plants. It was a rich find with two other known kinds of crocodile being dug up there.

The National Geographic Society sponsored the successful project. The new crocodiles show that the region had unique animals 100 million years ago. much different than in surrounding regions. These reptiles could run along at quite a fast pace then dive into the water and swim off. Unlike modern crocodiles which have legs on the side of their bodies these had longer legs set underneath. Luckily there were no people around for them to chase and eat.

The three new species are as follows:

1) BoarCroc (Kaprosuchus saharicus) 20 feet in length with three pairs of fangs sticking out of the side of their mouths like a warthog.

2) PancakeCroc (Laganosuchus thaumastos) again 20 feet long with shorter legs, laid in wait for fish grasping them with spiked teeth set in flat wide jaws in a head 3 feet long.

3) RatCroc (Araripesuchus rattoides) 3 feet from nose to tail, had buckteeth and dug for plants and grubs.
Evolution by Ty Buchanan
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Early Life Found in Western Australia's Pilbara Region

There is so much to be found in remote parts of Australia, new animal species and signs of early life. The first signs of life were bacteria and remains of them have been located in northwest Australia. They were in the Pilbara, in sedimentary rock.

Evidence of life billions of years old have come to light in Greenland, but with earth movement their date of origin cannot be accurately defined. Western Australia's Pilbara is stable so the find has been claimed as the earliest signs of life.

No fossils of the bacteria are left. Traces of their movement in the sediment can be clearly seen. Of course the soft sediment is now rock. There were masses of them in the Dresser Rock Foundation.

Examination of the tiny living things will help research of material on other planets. We now know what to look for. Planetary "rovers" can be built with the right testing equipment.
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Evolution by Ty Buchanan
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Large Ancient Platypus With Teeth

We see the platypus as a quiet curious animal always on the go, but millions of years ago it was twice as big and had vicious teeth. It hunted turtles crayfish and frogs. Paleontologists have called it Platypus Godzilla because it would have been quite vicious.

The modern platypus, Obdurodon tharalkooschild, is only half a meter long. Its quiet, secretive life could indicate that it is heading for extinction. Identifying platypus fossils is easy if teeth are found, because they are so different from other species.

Platypus teeth are blunt. The animals must have "bruised" their prey to death. Fossils of the ancient platypus were not ancestors of modern platypus. They were a side branch "experimenting' with being a larger size.

Just why platypus millions of years old had functioning teeth while modern ones have virtually lost theirs is not known. Despite being good a hunter Godzilla did itself go extinct. Modern tharalkoo live in a narrow niche. If there is drastic change in the environment they will perish.
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Society by Ty Buchanan
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Dinosaurs Found in Australia - What is Fact?

Australia is a very old continent. It seems the ancestors of Tyrannosaurus rex lived here. A hip bone has been found that dates to 110 million years ago which is 40 million years before T.rex roamed elsewhere on earth. Until now it was believed that T.rex only lived on northern continents.

Many of the things stated as fact by scientists are indeed just matters of faith until they are "proven" otherwise. Scientists argue about when dinosaurs developed feathers and why. They claim that birds today are direct descendants from dinosaurs. This is like saying humans are descended from dinosaurs. Much evidence points to birds having a line of descent completely separate from dinosaurs.

The same rings true with the Hobbit people of Flores Island. Some scientists will not accept that people different from humans survived until 18,000 years ago alongside humans. Neanderthals lived until 50,000 years ago, so why not another type of human? Science is much like religion. What is just theory is put forth as fact. Ah, the dangers of religion - and science!
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Conservation
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Life Began on Land

Life may have begun on land not in the sea, Multicellular fossils, ancestors of marine life, lived on land. These were microbial colonies like lichen. Ediacaron fossils over 600 million years old have been found in South Australia.

High-tech investigative technology showed the ancient forebears lived on land. The soil they were in had "old elephant skin' over it. This phenomenon forms in sandstone beds. It is much like the surface of modern sandy deserts with close wavy lines.

Ediacaran fossils were direct ancestors of marine animals, not mammals. The chain of life leading to humans came during the Cambrian era long after these old multicellular fossils. Apparently, the presence of salt and even too much water are barriers to initial life formation. There was more animals diversity on land than in the sea during the Cambrian.
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Evolution
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Oldest Dinosaur Is Found

Dinosaurs did not start out being large. Probably the oldest dinosaur ever found going back 243 million years was only as big as the average dog. This is only supposition of course. Some scientists say this animal, the Asilisaurus, was only a relative of dinosaurs.

Research into the matter is difficult. Only fossil fragments have been found. The specimen in question called the Asilisaurus lived in Tanzania. Another similar animal was found in the Tanzanian Manda Beds in the 1930s. Named a Nyasasaurus, it had a crest of bone along 30 per cent of its upper arm where large chest muscles would have been attached. This is a major feature of dinosaurs.

Many kinds of dinosaur seem to have suddenly appeared 10 million years after the Tanzanian fossils. This indicates a common origin from one creature. This ancestor could have been the early dinosaur Nyasasaurus or its relative the Asilisaurus.
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Paleontology
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Rift Valley Created by Tectonic Event - Findings of Early Man Fortuitous

The birthplace of Mankind is believed to be the Rift Valley in East Africa. It was thought that the valley formed over a long period of time. James Cook University scientists in Australia have found that a tectonic event changed the flow of the Congo, Nile and other rivers thus creating the Ethiopian-Kenyan eastern segment, and the Ugandan-Malawi western branch.

Formerly the assumption was that this didn't happen at the same time. The eastern section developed up to 25 million years before the western segment. This was the prevailing theory.

The Australian evidence indicates that the tectonic event created the eastern and western branches at much the same time. Climate change models will now have to be reviewed.

Because the region is rich in fossils ongoing investigation occurs there. It is the only late Oligocene terrestrial fossil deposit in Africa below the equator. Though fossils of early Man have been found there, it may not be the actual birthplace of Mankind. If could just be fortuitous that evidence has been found there.
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Science

Whale Fossils Found in Chile's Atacama Desert

Between 7 million and 2 million years ago dozens of whales came to an untimely end all in one place. They appear to have died in small groups. The reason why is not clear. Maybe storms drove them there, they were trapped in a landslide or caught in a lagoon.

Over time, the shallow area has been pushed up by geological change. Now they are located in the driest place on Earth still within a kilometer of the surf. But this is the Atacama Desert.

Chilean scientists are asking why whales die in large groups in far flung places such as Chile, Peru and Egypt. Seventy five skeletons have been found in Chile so far, 20 of them complete examples. Old and young whales lay alongside each other in an area of 5,000 square meters.

They are mostly baleen whales. A rare, extinct walrus-like dolphin has also been found there. Most scenarios of the wales' death involve single incidents, a storm or landslide trapping them in a lagoon. However, it is more likely that a "natural" trap of some kind caused the whales to die over a long period.
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Paleontology

Whales Took an Evolutionary Leap Forward

Eons ago ancestors of whales made a major leap forward in evolution of their mouths. Whales living today can filter-feed in large amounts because the lower jaw is flexible in movement.

Ancient fossils such as Janjucetus hunderi do not have such a mobile lower jaw. The development of this attribute probably initially evolved to consume large living prey. It began with a wide upper jaw and normal teeth - no comb filters. Erich Fitzgerald from the Museum Victoria in Melbourne has created a family tree showing whale evolution.

The way whales feed is unique. It is believed that sucking when feeding still takes place, a left over from the days of the wide upper jaw.

A big question is why whales went back into the sea in the first place.
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Anthropology

"Crocodile Headed" Dinosaur Found in Australia

A dinosaur with a head remarkably like modern crocodiles has been found in Australia. It didn't walk on all fours though. It stood upright on two legs like a T.rex. In the Cretaceous 146 million years ago they wandered over most of the Earth. This is the first time they have been found so far south.

It seems this group of dinosaurs, spinatosaurids, were really mobile. This find confirms that all dinosaurs travelled long distances populating great area of the planet. The fossils were overlooked since they were found in the 1990s. Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum London was examining samples at the Museum of Victoria. He noticed that the vertebra was the same as Baryonyx walkeri a long clawed spinatosaurid found in Europe.

A new look at other dinosaur specimens showed examples in old Gondwana which included Australia and Laurasia, so millions of year ago different species of dinosaur lived alongside each other right across the globe. At the end of the Cretaceous the land mass separated and species began to differentiate much more because of isolation.
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Science

Ancient Marsupial Found With Specialised Teeth for Eating Snails

Evidence of the existence of specialised ancient marsupials have been found in Australia. They had teeth that were "hammer-like" for crushing snail shells. Lizards living today in rain forests have similar teeth. They had premolars like the teeth in humans located between the molars and canines. Researchers could not determine at first what the strange teeth were used for. It was the first time that such teeth had been found in marsupials.

Like the Tasmanian tiger a marsupial which filled the role of native dog in Australia, so this marsupial more than 10 million years ago, lived in the niche that the pink-tongued skink holds today. This wet rain forest lizard is quite large, about 40 cm in length, so it's ancestor would have been a tough competitor.

The extinct marsupial became extinct when the weather changed in Australia and inland rain forests receded toward the coast. Lizards could survive in the new environment. The marsupial could not.

Riversleigh in northern Australia, a rich source of marsupial fossils, was where the find was made. Indication are that the marsupial was not plentiful even in prehistoric times because so few fossils of the animal have been found.
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Science

New Kind Human Found Which Challeges Darwinian Theory

A new find of human remains challenges Darwinian theory. Science was absolutely certain that for the past 80,000 or so years only humans and Neanderthals wandered the earth. First the "hobbit" on the island of Flores was found which showed that other hominids lived almost to the present time in remote parts of the world. Now a new human species has come to light in Mongolia. The DNA from a child's finger indicates a separate species. Denisova is the name given to the new humans after the region where it was found.

For many years it was believed animals with a different number of chromosomes could not interbreed. This premise is now brought into question. Neanderthal DNA has been identified in human DNA. This finding makes the discovery of our origins almost impossible. With no clear distinction between species how do you put them into categories?

Denisova and humans diverted from a common ancestor about a million years ago. Neanderthals and humans separated from their ancestor half a million years ago. If interbreeding was commonplace Man's history will be blurred. The offspring of parents from two types of hominids will carry traits from both variations. Finding remains of distinct species will be more difficult. For the most part, however, bones and fossils of different hominids are being found. Perhaps cross breeding was not the norm.
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