Digital Inventory of Fossils: Dinosaur Fossils National Park Bagh Dhar

Dinosaur Fossils National Park Bagh has huge fossils reserves of late cretaceous period that includes Dinosaurs bones, whole dinosaurs’ nests, dinosaurs’ eggs, tree fossils, shark teeth, ammonites, bivalves, inoceramids, and other marine organisms. With the help of local researchers and forest staff over the period oftime we had collected fossils of many species. Firstly, we inventoried the fossils physically and documented each by maintaining Stock Registers. Digitizing the Stock Registers – to convert each register in excel file which includes all the details regarding that fossil. To make it more attractive and useful in future, we have created 3dmodels of at least one specimen of each fossils’ species. To have worldwide reach, we have created and hosted the website www.dinosaurfossilsnationalparkbagh.in . I

Mineralogy of the Mudeungsan Tuff (Republic of Korea) Using Synchrotron X-ray Powder Diffraction and Rietveld Quantitative Analysis

Mudeungsan (Mount Mudeung) is an extinct volcano located in the southwestern part of South Korea that was formed in the Late Cretaceous period. This mountain, 1187 m above sea level, is adjacent to Gwangju Metropolitan City, which has a large population (about 1.4 million) and volcanic rocks, including columnar joints, which form various types of outcrops. Although this mountain was listed as a national geopark in 2014 and a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2018, much basic research has yet to be carried out. In particular, there are no mineralogical studies of volcanic rock samples despite the well-preserved variety of volcanic rocks. For this study, X-ray diffraction analysis was conducted using rock samples from Mudeungsan columnar joints known as tuff. We report that the rocks are mostly dacite, mainly composed of quartz, plagioclase, and sanidine through Rietveld quantitative analysis. In particular, α-cristobalite, a crystalline polymorph of silica, appears in the columnar joint rocks, indicating that Mudeungsan experienced an explosive eruption during the formation of the mountain.

Ancient creatures of Hungary: Bringing the animals to life

ABSTRACT The first trace fossils in Hungary, dinosaur footprints, were found in the coal mines of the Mecsek Mountains. The footprints belonged to small theropod dinosaurs. The first fossil bones of vertebrate animals from present-day Hungary were found in 2000 in the mountainous region of Bakony. Numerous taxa have been collected from the locality of Iharkút. These fossils represent a diverse fauna (including fishes, amphibians, turtles, lizards, crocodilians, dinosaurs, birds, and pterosaurs) that lived between 85.8 and 83.5 m.y. ago in the Santonian Age during the Late Cretaceous period. Paleoart can depict these fossil remains in an engaging way to help inform the public about the ancient creatures of Hungary. This chapter provides an overview of how the Mesozoic vertebrates from Hungary have been reconstructed for scientists and the public.

Understanding the Relationship between Large-Scale Fold Structures and Small-Scale Fracture Patterns: A Case Study from the Oman Mountains

Considering the foreland fold belt of the Salakh Arch in the northern Oman Mountains, predictions made from two-dimensional (2D) restorations and geometrical analyses are tested here to assess the relationship between large-scale folds and small-scale fractures. The Salakh Arch is composed of six anticlines that are interpreted as faulted detachment folds. They have an overall stratigraphy of a 2-km-thick carbonate platform underlain by more than 1.5 km of interbedded sandstone and shale sequences. These sequences are most likely detached on a regionally extensive evaporite horizon. The folding of the Salakh Arch structures most likely occurred during the Neogene Period, and perhaps partly in the early Quaternary Period. This is evident from the thrusting of the Late Neogene Barzaman Formation which was deposited during the Late Neogene Period. Robust outcrop and subsurface fracture data are used to test these predictions. The results from the study indicate that most fractures are related to the orientation of the local structure, with some sets parallel and some sets perpendicular to local hinge lines. Prefolding regional fractures are also widely distributed, and these were mostly formed during the Late Cretaceous Period. Many pre-existing fractures are associated with faults that formed during the Late Cretaceous Period under a NW–SE compression. The local fractures generally have orientations that are consistent with being formed by the flexural slip/flexural flow of fold limbs and tangential longitudinal strains on fold hinges. These structures can be predicted from finite stratal dips, simple curvatures, and three-dimensional (3D) folding restoration maps. The Gaussian curvatures and 3D faulting restoration maps can be used as proxies for fault-related fractures. Local hinge-related fractures may reflect local tangential longitudinal strain during large-scale fold tightening. Fold structures that have formed at an oblique orientation to the regional shortening direction show additional fracture arrays perpendicular to the hinge, indicating weak axial extension. This is presumed to develop as the arcuate thrust belt of Salakh Arch was amplified. The analysis here illustrates the importance of taking a 3D approach, especially for noncylindrical folds. The protocols developed in this study and their results may have general applicability to investigations of fracture patterns in other folds.

Near-complete phylogeny of extant Crocodylia (Reptilia) using mitogenome-based data

Species of the order Crocodylia are mostly large, predatory and semi-aquatic reptiles. Crocodylia, the closest living relatives of birds, first appeared in the Late Cretaceous period. In the present study, the complete mitochondrial (mt) genomes of 19 Crocodylia species, including two species (Melanosuchus niger and Caiman yacare) that have not been previously sequenced for mitogenomes, were processed through Illumina sequencing to offer genetic resources and compare with the mitogenomes of Crocodylia species reported previously. In addition, a high-resolution phylogenetic tree of nearly all current recognized species of Crocodylia is constructed based on mitogenomic data. Phylogenetic analyses support monophyly of three families: Alligatoridae (four genera: Alligator, Caiman, Melanosuchus and Paleosuchus), Crocodylidae (three genera: Crocodylus, Mecistops and Osteolaemus) and Gavialidae (two genera: Gavialis and Tomistoma). The tree topology is generally similar to previous studies. Molecular dating suggests that the first split within Crocodylia date back to the Upper Cretaceous (approx. 86.75 Mya). The estimated time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of Alligatoridae is 53.33 Mya and that of Crocodylidae and Gavialidae is 50.13 Mya, which might be closely linked to climate changes during the Late Palaeocene and Early Eocene. Additionally, this study proves that the diversification rate within Crocodylia began to increase from the Late Eocene (about 36 Mya) and two diversification peak periods of Crocodylia (0–10 Mya and 10–20 Mya) are disclosed, which is roughly consistent with the estimated crocodylian species richness through time. Combining all these clues, we can suggest that climate fluctuation may have played a decisive role in the speciation of Crocodylia.

Determination of formation paleo-pressure and evolution process using gaseous hydrocarbon inclusions

<p>Research on overpressure evolution and its formation mechanisms is of great significance for revealing reservoir formation mechanisms and predicting formation pressures in oil and gas reservoirs before drilling. However, research methods addressing overpressure evolution are not without issues. The fluid inclusion PVT simulation and basin simulation can be used to investigate the paleo-pressure.</p> <p>The homogenization temperatures of inclusions were tested. The accuracy of the microscopic laser Raman spectroscopy analysis is too limited to fully test the components of gaseous hydrocarbon inclusions so that the organic components of the natural gas in the present-day gas reservoirs represented the gaseous hydrocarbon inclusions. In addition, the vapor-liquid ratio of gaseous hydrocarbon inclusions cannot be measured by CLSM. Firstly, A series of images at different slice depths was obtained by adjusting the focal length of a high-resolution microscope. Secondly, CorelDRAW software was used to calculate the areas of inclusions and bubbles; fitting functions were established between the inclusion areas and slice depths, and between the bubble areas and slice depths. Finally, the inclusion and bubble volumes were integrated to obtain the vapor-liquid ratios of the inclusions. PVTsim software can calculate the trapping pressures of inclusions. Combined with basin simulation, the evolution of paleo-pressure can be determined.</p> <p>The above methods were used to investigate the paleo-pressure of the Upper Triassic Xujiahe Formation in the northeast portion of the Sichuan Basin. Overpressure began to develop in the Middle Jurassic period. Due to hydrocarbon generation taking place, the formation pressure increased rapidly from the Middle Jurassic period to the early Late Cretaceous period. Since the early Late Cretaceous period, the formation pressure has gradually decreased due to tectonic uplift and erosion. From the Oligocene period to the present, the formation pressure have increased again in local areas due to tectonic compression.</p>

A True date with a Palm Tree

This is a visual essay that meanders. It is based around my encounter with palm trees and my grandfather’s silver print photographs, collated in an album that dates back to the 1930s. Henry Richard Ahrens was a keen photographer, though I had never seen any of his images until 2010 when I was given one of his albums by a relative who knew I was a photographer and writer. He died before I could get to know him. His photographs have a particular sensibility to them, with a multitude of self-portraits, and often, a hand written phrase to go with them. I am told he developed his films himself. He is often pictured next to palm trees in his photographs. These palms he photographed are particularly fascinating to me. They represent one of the few genus that extend back to the late Cretaceous period, a dinosaur of a plant species. With their many variations, they take on a poetic and utopian presence, their seeds having been disseminated through colonial exchanges, botanical curiosity and commercial interests. Found in so many surprising corners of the world, the palm expresses our need to explore, while becoming a symbol of resistance to discourses of nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment. This essay reflects a personal ethnography through the interconnected and material presence of the palm in London, Buenos Aires and in the photograph itself.

Different Stages of Evolution of Humankind

Human evolution is the evolutionary process that led to the emergence of anatomically modern humans, beginning with the evolutionary history of primates—in particular genus Homo—and leading to the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species of the hominid family, the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of traits such as human bipedalism and language, as well as interbreeding with other hominines, which indicate that human evolution was not linear but a web. The study of human evolution involves several scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, paleontology, neurobiology, ethology, linguistics, evolutionary psychology, embryology and genetics. Genetic studies show that primates diverged from other mammals about 85 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period, and the earliest fossils appear in the Paleocene, around 55 million years ago. Within the Hominoidea (apes) superfamily, the Hominidae family diverged from the Hylobatidae (gibbon) family some 15–20 million years ago; African great apes (subfamily Homininae) diverged from orangutans (Ponginae) about 14 million years ago; the Hominini tribe (humans, Australopithecines and other extinct biped genera, and chimpanzee) parted from the Gorillini tribe (gorillas) between 8–9 million years ago; and, in turn, the subtribes Hominina (humans and biped ancestors) and Panina (chimps) separated 4–7.5 million years ago.