Jurassic Marine Graveyard Yields 'Monster' Fossil

M00NIE writes "A 150 million year old giant fish-like reptile has been unearthed on an Arctic island off Norway, along with many other top marine predators. The find is 'one of the most important new sites for marine reptiles to have been discovered in the last several decades.'" From the article: "'One of them was this gigantic monster, with vertebrae the size of dinner plates and teeth the size of cucumbers,' Joern Hurum, an assistant professor at the University of Oslo, told Reuters on Thursday. 'We believe the skeleton is intact and that it's about 10 meters (33 feet) long,' he told Reuters of the pliosaur, a type of plesiosaur with a short neck and massive skull. The team dubbed the specimen 'The Monster.'"

Comments

Sea Monster A Go Go

[gbulmash]

Hurum reckoned the reptiles had not all died at the same time in some Jurassic-era cataclysm but had died over thousands of years in the same area, then become preserved in what was apparently a deep layer of black mud on the seabed.

Interesting, a sort of elephant graveyard for sea monsters.

Of course, the scary part will be when Kim Jong Il sets off North Korea's nuclear tests, waking up the big brother of one of these things. Then it attacks Tokyo.

People are flipping on the news, thinking they somehow got a monster movie instead, but it's on every channel. Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer are fighting over who gets the first interview with it, but then they get scooped by Deborah Norville and Inside Edition. Millions tune in, hoping to see Deb get chomped by a giant prehistoric monster... and they're not disappointed.

Simultaneous Farking, Digging, and Slashdotting cause the clip to shoot to #1 on YouTube. Someone puts up a fake MySpace page for the monster. Within 24 hours it has 896,327 MySpace friends, a garish background, and all of the 86 "dancing monster" animated .gifs that have started circulating around.

Wannabe BotNet masters start the SeaMonsterAV.32 virus, which is an e-mail promising never-before-seen footage of the Sea Monster. 3 million people are infected, and the "Get a SeaMonster Powerful Penis" spams flood out by the billions...

Sometimes, when your imagination wants to take you for a ride, just say no.

- Greg

Re:Sea Monster A Go Go

[Clazzy]

Remember kids, say no to drugs!

Re:Sea Monster A Go Go

[bigsimes]

I hope the monster brings some batteries when he is awoken by kim jong. I've been looking for a seamonster battery for ages. My computers clock no longer keeps the right time (or date!) and I can't find one anywhere. A computer guy told me I needed one of these to fix the problem.

Nothing new.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Just give a day or two. The Discovery Institute is studying the new evidence and is working hard on how to mangle it to fit the Intelligent Design Theory. There is no evidence to suggest the Great Overintelligent Designer, has not killed these monsters so that humans created His image would not be killed. Since we dont identify the G.O.D. explicitly it is not a religious theory masquerading as science and it needs equal time in science classes.

Re:Nothing new.

[edwardpickman]

Actually it's proof that the Nephillim were doing genetic research using stem cells. We all know this is why God caused the flood to wipe out all life on earth to get ride of all the dinosaurs and other abomniations that the Nephillim made in the name of science. So it's quite obvious that global warming is being caused by stem cell research and gene splicing. Gotta go. Still working on a boat out back and it's looking cloudy.

Re:Extinction

[Ch_Omega]

But a few more ticks of the clock and the most monstrous (mankind) will be gone too. And stepping up next to the plate is ..........?

Is it cliché night or something?

Re:Sea monsters ARE in the Bible!

[theodicey]

Paleontologists will be fascinated to know that their fossil giant marine reptiles had breath weapons. (But not as surprised as marine biologists, since the proper translation is "whale".)

19 Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. 20 Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. 21 His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth.

I'm sure they'll be able to confirm this amazing prediction within hours once they put their minds to it. The Bible is such a rich source of zoological information. What would scientists do without it?

sea whale

[edxwelch]

"The word leviathan means sea whale in modern hebrew"
What other types of whale are there? I can't imagine what a "land whale" would look like.