Today – 1/16 Today – 1/16 • Critter in the news • Beginning and end (?) of dinosaurs • First writing assignment
Dec 19, 2015
Today – 1/16Today – 1/16
• Critter in the news
• Beginning and end (?) of dinosaurs
• First writing assignment
.5-pt XC quiz:
The Karoo is:
a) a river in Ugandab) an extinct birdc) a mild east wind in Botswanad) a desert in South Africa e) all of the above
Administration:
“Get to know you” form worth 2 pts XC
Ross’ OH: Th 2:30-3:30
Note taker
D2l
Dino cancer
Possible test question:
Scientists think that the oldest known fossil cancer, a softball-sized dino tumor, may have:
a) resulted from an injury sustained in competition for a mate
b) been caused by a virusc) started during a teenage growth-spurtd) all of the above
Stratigraphy:
Study of rock layers
Reconstruct ancient environments and the evolution of ancient landscapes
Correlate rocks of same age that are widely separated geographically
Biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, carbon isotope stratigraphy
http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/npl/rudist2005/images/Rudists.html
www.nhmc.uoc.gr
Biostratigraphy
Karoo Biostratigraphy
www.museums.org.za/sam/resource/palaeo/cluver/time.htm
www.museums.org.za/sam/
www.mathematical.com
Lystrosaurus↑Gorgon↓
www.kjzg.com.cn
Diictodon
Fate of mammal-like reptiles at the end of the Permian:
Dicynodonts – “two dog-teeth” mostly die out except for Lystrosaurus, famous as evidence for continental drift. Herbivores
Gorgonopsians all die out. Top predators of the day. Last gorgonopsian = end of Permian
All had five fingers and toes, sprawling stance. Stance bad for breathing, activity level
Biostratigraphy
www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/Thomas
Principle of faunal succession
“Fossil species succeed each other in a definite and recognizable order”
Sedimentary rocks represent time: lower = older, upper = newer
Distinctive fossils or assemblages of fossils can be used to correlate widely separated rocks as being the same age. Shelly marine fossils and microfossils, and pollen are usually best – widespread and distinctive.
Some lingo
Species: a population of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspringGenus: a collection of one or more speciesGenera: plural of genusGradualism, uniformitarianism: biological and geological changes happen very slowly through time – nothing exciting ever happens
Genus species – Tyrannosaurus rex
http://strata.ummp.lsa.umich.edu/jack/
Diversity of marine animals through time
Five major mass extinctions, where 50% or more species go extinct:
Three are of interest to us:1. Permo-Triassic, 250 Ma – made way for
the ancestors of the dinosaurs (archosaurs)
2. End Triassic, ~ 200 Ma – took out last of large archosaur competition to the dinosaurs
3. K-T, 65 Ma, took out dinos
www.fossilmall.com
www.trilobites.info
http://members.aol.com/Waucoba5/dv/owensvalleygroupfusulinids2
Some organisms that disappeared at the end of the Permian
Proposed causes of dinosaur extinction
Out-competed by smarter, egg-eating mammals
Disease
Falling sea level
Volcanically driven climate change
Asteroid strike! (had been written off by 1980 because no crater had been found)
1980 - Walter and Luis Alvarez discover
iridium rich clay layer
www.physast.uga.edu/~jss/
www.geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/ktbits.gif
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/
Location of the Chicxulub crater - site of the K-T impact!
1 pt XC outline, groups of 3-4
Title 3 or 4 printed names1) First paragraph – summary of content
a) the findb) the interpretation…
2) Second paragraph – questionsa)…
3) Third paragraph – affective discussiona)
www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/images/chicxulb.gif
Chicxulub - “tail of the devil”
Animation of Chicxulub crater formation
Evidence for K-T impact
World-wide clay layer with iridium, shocked quartz, spherules, and carbon
65 Ma tsunami deposits ringing the Caribbean
Chicxulub crater
It was a BIG explosion!
Asteroid or comet was 10 km (6 mi) across
Moving at 75,000 km/hr (45,000 mi/hr)
5 billion times the energy of Hiroshima
World-wide forest fires, tsunamis, acid-rain, year-long “nuclear winter”
At least 75% of all species went extinct, including 90% of all plankton
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
Asteroid 1950-DA, March 16, Asteroid 1950-DA, March 16, 28802880
Unlike the K-T impact that killed the dinos, the cause of the P-T extinction is still the subject of vigorous debate!
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/
X
Pangea
Tethys
Sea
The blue planet, 260 Ma
http://dsc.discovery.com
Siberian Traps
Insert pic of AC
Petrified tree? AC shot from above! With inset of teeth
What fossils tell us about dinosaurs
How they looked - size, shape, skin How they behaved - diet, locomotion, social life, as parentsPhysiology - thermal regulation, growth patternsHistory of life - speciation and extinction, relationships among groupsEnvironmental reconstruction, rock ages geochemistry, paleogeography, interaction between physical and biological worlds
www.dinoland.dk
web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/
← Griffin inspired by Protoceratops? ↓
www.oum.ox.ac.uk/geolcoll.htm
1677 – Robert Plot publishes first known description of a dinosaur bone. However, he mistakes it for the femur of a giant human!
www.lhl.lib.mo.us/events_exhib/exhibit/ex_paper_dino.shtml
1815 – William Buckland finds Megalosaurus jaw
home.uchicago.edu/~shburch/dinopaper.html
1830’s – Meet Meg, the happy water lizard
1831
1833
1836 – Gideon Mantell discovers the teeth of Iguanodon
www.lhl.lib.mo.us/events_exhib/exhibit/ex_paper_dino.shtml
Iguanodon – notice the sprawling legs1842 – Richard Owen defines the “Dinosauria”, which
translates as “terrible lizards”
Depiction by Owen circa 1850
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1853 dinosaur reconstructions being prepared for display in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London
http://www.ric.edu/rpotter/cryspal.html
www.simondevlin.com
www.owen.k12.ky.us/trt/beverly/Megalosaurus_files/frame.htm
http://www.healthstones.com/dinosaurdata/dinodata.html
Nicholas Steno – “Father of stratigraphy”
Second half of the 1600’s
Said fossils were remains of organisms
Principle of Original Horizontality – rock layers laid down horizontally, any deviation from this due to later disturbance
Law of Superposition – lower layers are older, upper layers are more recent
Early 1800’s geology comes alive!
1795 – Theory of the Earth by James Hutton: how rock layers form, hot inside, old, uniformitarianism, natural selection
1815 – Geologic map by William Smith: biostratigraphy
1830-1833 – Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell: stratigraphy
1859: On the Origin of Species by Darwin
Archaeopteryx – London specimen, found 1861
Taphonomy - the study of how fossils get preserved
How sedimentary rock deposits are formed and how dead animals get in themHelp us understand ancient ecosystemsHelps us understand biases in the fossil recordSome organisms and parts of organisms rarely preserved
www.fossilhut.com
Solnhofen specimen - 60’sBerlin specimen - 1877www.sonoma.edu/users/g/geist/bio.html
www.cmnh.org
paleo.cc/paluxy/livptero.htm
Pterodactylus kochi
leute.server.de/frankmuster/P/Pterodactylus.htm
www.hayashibara.co.jp/html/shinka/
Ichthyosaur from Holzmaden
www.urweltmuseum.de/Englisch/shop_eng/fossilienverkauf_eng.htm
www.johnsibbick.com/prehist-pages/pre-p-20.asp
www.breckminerals.com
Brief history of bird origins debate
Archae has teeth, hand claws, and a bony tail like dinos; but feathers like birds
1926 Heilmann decides birds did not descend from dinos because dinos lack wishbones (since found)
1964 Deinonychus discovered
1972 Walker suggests birds descended from an ancestral crocodilian
www.dinosoria.com
Deinonychus
www.amherst.edu/~pratt
Connecticut Valley dinosaur tracks described by Edward Hitchcock 1836 - 1858
Ichnology: study of trace fossils
1856 - Joseph Leidy publishes first description of North American dinosaur
fossils
Hadrosaur “duckbill”
www.dinosaursinart.com
Stegosaurus stenops
Stegosaurus ungulatus
www.dinosaursinart.com
Allosaurus fragilis
1878 - Iguanodon mass grave found in Belgium
http://digitalidesigns.net/
Brontosaurus, now called Apatosaurus
Ornithischia - “bird-hipped”
Saurischia - “lizard-hipped”
1889 - 1892 Hatcher finds 32 ceratopsians
www.geo.uw.edu.pl
www.amnh.org
Torosaurus Pentaceratops
www.peabody.yale.edu
http://homepage.mac.com
Western Diamondback Rattlesnake
Komodo Dragon
Pangolin
Rhinoceros skin
www.petinfo4u.com
Dakosaurus - NationalGeographic.com