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More Antarctic Dinosaurs
RockDoctor writes "The highly respected palaeontology journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica has published its December number for free access on the Web, with the headline paper concerning new discoveries of dinosaurs from Antarctica. (Paper here, PDF.) The first major part of these discoveries was made in 1991, when isolated bones of a sauropod (a relative of the Apatosaurus, formerly known as Brontosaurus) were found associated with a theropod (ancestor or cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex). The sauropod has been named Glacialisaurus hammeri (the reason for the genus name is obvious, and Professor Hammer led the field expeditions under 'extremely difficult conditions'). The herbivore was some 25 ft. long and weighed 4 to 6 tons; at the time of life, the area was between 55 and 65 degrees south, suggesting a climate similar to the Falkland Islands or Tierra del Fuego."
So that's where Jesus hid them all!
I'm ready to be modded down, now.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Why did they change the name of the brontosaurus? I liked that name better.
Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
When & why did we stop calling a brontosaurus a brontosaurus?
Next thing you'll tell me we only have 8 planets!
There is an image of the thing on this blog if you are interested. http://thedragonstales.blogspot.com/2007/12/hail-glacialisaurus-hammeri.html
watch for dino DNA in the bones. it's not that long ago
ahm, how so? The Antarctic used to be in a warmer region so it should have all sorts of remnants on it.
I'm not following. How do bones in the antarctic effect theories around climate change? If nothing else it is an example of (massive climate change) == (most stuff really dead)
Researchers have still to uncover this creature's habitat, but they did find the petrified parts of a corpse belonging to a rather large creature, which is referred to more commonly by its Latin name, Nix Quintis, as well as remains of another animal known as Distriae Berkeleyus; the latter was known to have been wiped out approximately sixteen million years ago due to the Netcraft epidemics, which gives us a rough idea as to how old Minix is.
A lean predator, Minix was known to be a vicious and somewhat egotistical creature, prone to fits of foaming anger and long diatribes, with which it used as a means to kill its prey.
While we do not yet know the full extent of Minix, it is well studied by previously found fragments, and today's discovery should present a far clearer picture in the years to come as it reveals its secrets.
Meanwhile, paradoxically, no trace has yet to be found of the species known as Bloatasaurus, or Vista Microsoftae. A large, slow-moving creature, this dinosaur was well known to have been a common victim of predatory attacks, and yet very few have been found. Archaeologist Steve Ballmer is heading the team searching for Bloatasaurus, though his peers still doubt his claims that "They're everywhere! It was the most popular friggin' beast alive!" Whether this creature actually existed still remains in doubt among some.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Actually, the dinosaurs lived there before the continents moved to their current locations. It was quite a bit closer to the equator at that time, so whether or not the antarctic heating up is a good thing or a bad thing is still up in the air. Also, you seem to have switched your attacks from "global warming != bad" to "humans aren't causing it", which is somewhat confusing and makes your post harder to understand.
From the article...
"This was probably due to the fact that major connections between the continents still existed at that time, and because climates were more equitable across latitudes than they are today," Smith said.
Can we just go one discussion without bringing up global warming? While it's midly related, this is more about Pangaea and where Antarctica was 190 million years ago.
If i had mod point I'd have used funny not troll.
Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Imagine 4 to 6 ton dinosaur on arctic ice...
I prefer the traditional name for that Dino, thanks.
The name Brontosaurus strikes an image of a colossal behemoth that would crush you to paste if you got in its way.
Apatosaurus sounds like it should be serving you tea cakes.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
so there were herbivores in the Antarctic.
did Al Gore predict this?
Hammeri Time
My, my, my, my dino hits me so hard
Makes me say oh my word
Thank you for proving me
With a mind to dig and two cold feet
Feels good when you know you're down
A superdope therapod from the oldtown
And I'm known
as such
And this is a beat uh you can touch
The sauropod has been named Glacialisaurus hammeri (the reason for the genus name is obvious, and Professor Hammer led the field expeditions under 'extremely difficult conditions')
Ave Molech Setting
They had the name first for their Brontosaurus Burgers. They sent a guy named Barney around to rough up some professors till they changed it.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Sure, it is easy to understand that Antarctica might have been closer to the equator and moved, but if the atmosphere etc was the same as todays (or similar) then surely the global climate would have been similar to todays and the polar bits (that have moved out of the way now) would have been frozen, as they are today.
So the big question: what is so different bad then that allows such sweeping statements to be made?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
How about... "if dinosaurs existed long enough ago that they're fossils now, then perhaps the planet warming up is merely a return to its original conditions, when our ancestors were food, rather than the apex predator"... who knows, maybe the dinosaurs should've burned more hydrocarbons so maybe the globe would've warmed and they would still be alive chomping on those poorly evolved mammals.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
If they think the earth is only 6000 years old becuase they have only read the first half of a book then they will think there is no time for continental drift. Ignore them, they don't believe in education in general and think dinosaurs are a hoax anyway.
Hear that, penguins?
Out!
How dare you be so modest!! You conceited bastard!!
It's the original Odd Couple!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"becuase they have only read the first half of a book "
should be:
"becuase they have misunderstood the first half of a book "
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The temperature of Antartica 100 million years ago compared to today has no bearing on the global temperature, as Antartica was not located at the South pole back then, so it of course was warmer than it is now.
You make a very good point. Statistically it is unlikely that today's global temperature is "normal" for our epoch, and that normal baseline almost certainly has changed in the past 10's of millions of years and will continue to change on that same timescale into the future.
That said, the discussion and concern about "global warming" has nothing to do with what's "normal" for the planet. The concern is for effects that occur too quickly for our societies to adapt without massive disruption and accompanying economic collapse, famine, and war that might accompany such.
The planet doesn't care, and will be fine in the long run. It's we humans, and our civilization, that worry about survival.
Also, dinosaurs are cool.
Well that's why they found dinosaur *bones* and not living dinosaurs!
Duh...
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Ah! Thats where I left my Apato-burger (formerly known as Bronto-burger).
I have a fav'rite movie
It's called "Jurassic Park"
It has velociraptors
Eating lawyers in the dark
I'd like to watch it every day
And if you ask me why I'll say
"'cause Steven Spielberg has a way
With fossil dino D.N.A!"
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Don't forget to add, that the CO2 levels were also predicted to be higher as Pangea was breaking up and the resulting vulcanism released large amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The climate in that region was more closer to tropical- something akin to the climate in Miami.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
The earth is what? Like hundreds of millions of years old? Only 10 million, okay, whatever...
The point is the same. Many upon many catastrophic events (HUGE earthquakes, volcanic events, great floods even, recorded by every civilization of the world) change lots of stuff. Plates in the earth move. Sometimes a lot. Antarctica is a moving target on a geological time scale.
Ever heard of continental drift? Real concern about global warming is potential for positive feedback. Less snow cover means more heat absorbed means less snow cover. Of course in 50 or so years the cause of global warming will be fixed because most of the fossil fuel will have been burned. Mother nature has her way of taking care of species that overpopulate their environment. No birth control means death control big time.
It's not just warming, it's the change in weather patterns. Previously arable areas are becoming arid, previously arid areas are becoming arable. Ocean currents are changing, driving weather systems into changes in turn. And then there's the issue of ice on land being melted. Evidence is coming in from many places around the world showing earlier thawing and later re-freezing, lower or missing icecaps. Low-lying land is being threatened by all of this, and while you may be okay, many of the world's people won't be. There are lots of low islands in addition to the coastal cities of the world.
But hey! It's all a hoax!
Keep telling yourself that.
I'd argue that even if it is a hoax, we lose little by treating it seriously. We get lower pollution, more efficient energy and some minor wealth redistribution from big energy companies to the small pollution-control companies. If it's real, treating it seriously may well be critical to the future of the Human race.
Seems that the only logical position is to assume (or pretend) Human-caused climate change is real and form policy from there.
I, for one, would like to welcome our new ancient ice-covered reptilian overlords. Probably a step up from the current administration....
at the time of life, the area was between 55 and 65 degrees south, suggesting a climate similar to the Falkland Islands or Tierra del Fuego.
At that time the climate in the area between 55 and 65 degrees south was not that of today's Falkland Islands. The world was several degrees warmer.
A speaker at last month's conference on "South Atlantic Petroleum Systems", where Antarctica was the "elephant seal in the room which no one mentioned", summarised the prospectivity of Antarctica thus : "Don't drill on an Archean shield (East Antarctica); don't drill in an active volcanic island arc (West Antarctica/ Antarctic Peninsula) ; and for the remaining area, where there are real uncertainties about presence of and quality of source rocks, and the thermal history of the area to mature those source rocks, and the sediment sources to provide clastic reservoir rocks
It's your money. You have the hassle of organising it ; I'll do your wellsite geology. It'll be $1000/day if you're starting in the next 3 years, beyond that I'm not able to commit myself to a price, but it's likely to be higher.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Penguins are dieing out, many Microsoft funded studies confirm it.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
It's your money. You have the hassle of organising it ; I'll do your wellsite geology. It'll be $1000/day if you're starting in the next 3 years, beyond that I'm not able to commit myself to a price, but it's likely to be higher.
It was a joke, because, commercial exploitation of Antarctica is presently illegal.
This is my sig.
... is that it was narrow at one end, big in the middle and narrow at the other end.
That is the theory which is mine. It is my theory, belonging to me.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
I know that you were joking, and why.
I wasn't joking, and this is why :
In case you hadn't guessed, I work in the industry. The industry is examining the question of "IF we got permission to look, where would we look first?" We'd be remiss not to, even though it might be 30 or 50 years before we get any opportunity to work there. The conference I attended may have cost in the order of £100,000 to stage, and represent the results of a considerable amount more of investment in regional research. But since that money wouldn't hire a 5-6 generation floater rig for 12 hours (compared to the 6 or 7th generation rigs that would be needed to handle the Belgium-sized icebergs
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Now we just need for the scientist to find the aliens that were stored down there in ancient times by the alien predators. Then we can harness them as a military weapon to defeat the terrorist.
Of course, they will get loose just as the predator aliens are returning for a hunting expedition. Then we will need Sigorny Weaver AND Arnold Schwarzennager to defeat them and stop them from turning the entire human population into baby food.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There where found rests of fossilized parachute pants over their bones... Ahh, I can imagine a rampage of dozens of parachute-pants-wearing dinosaurs singing: "Stop! Hammeri time!"
I wasn't joking, and this is why :
In case you hadn't guessed, I work in the industry.
I gathered that, and I apologize for the sharp comment back. It was rude of me and am I'm sorry.
So, really, if I had a navy of my own to defend my claims, plus, a gen 6 or 7, drilling rig, then I could hire you for a $1000 a day? It seems that, for that kind of money - we're talking billions here, really.
Now, here's the question. That kind of money could also drop a probe into an asteroid and do a return mission as well. If you could do a geological assay of say, Eros, and confirm that it really is worth 20 trillion dollars, wouldn't that be a more interesting line of work, plus potentially far more profitable. It seems like the quest for resources and its attendant cost of exploring earth is hitting a critical point where space exploration is actually cheaper.
If I had a billion dollars, I wouldn't be drilling, I'd be flying, that's for sure. And yeah, I'd pay you a $1000 a day to tell me if these rocks that I am looking at indicate the presence of precious metals and an indication of what sort of industrial process would be needed to extract them. It would be chump change.
This is my sig.
So, yes, this find does indicate that either these dinosaurs were able to thrive in much cooler climates that previously given credit for, or that the global climate was much warmer, for at least one extended period in the past, than Global Warming(TM) activists are willing to admit.
Gotta love those dino bones. First they kick the crap out of Creationism, now they do the same for Global Warming. What other anthropocentric delusion will be next?
But a less moderate (and I daresay more common) position would insist that you also care about how this affects all living things (or at least the cute and useful ones) and not just humans. Careful, you may not be a part of the universal GW "consensus" I keep hearing about.
Even if the angle was the same (eg end on), the same would still hold true.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I didn't even notice there was an edge to the comment.
If you needed the navy to "defend your claim", then it would be pretty obvious that even you didn't believe your claim of legality. So I wouldn't touch your business with a 10 foot barge pole of someone else's.
To put that in context - I'm actively pursuing work in Iran, North Korea, and various East African countries, as well as having been at the previously-mentioned conference specifically to hob-nob with companies working in both the Falklands and Malvinas Basins. And don't forget Angola and Namibia too.
As for working in legally-dubious areas, one of my university classmates has spent some of the last couple of years on a Halliburton contract for redeveloping fields around Mosul in the relatively-safe part of Iraq ; when we hung the phone up on Halliburton telling them that we thought staying alive was more important than big pay checks, the day-rate was going over $2500. I never bothered asking my friend what he stuck out for, but the photos of catching core in a flack jacket, with a "private security guard" who looks like a refugee from a 3rd-rate remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Thinking about it, I haven't had an email from him for several months. I hope that he got out of the job before the current Turkish brohaha.
But of course. A typical land well costs a million or two (USD or GBP, doesn't really matter). A typical North Sea (my main stamping ground) would be 10 to 20 million. Deep offshore, you're looking at 20 to 30 million. Per well. Add a few 10s of million for seismic surveying and detailed prospect evauation seismic. Per field, but you keep on re-doing it as seismic gets better. Don't forget to allow for building infrastructure to get to the prospect (and to get the hydrocarbons out) - that can be a good few bucks. If you're going into the Southern Ocean, you're going to need to service a marine rig from Cape Town or Punta Arenas, so look at a week of steaming time each way with equipment. Budget for around a half-million a day for renting the big boats you're going to need - one at the rig, one sailing in , one sailing out, one in or around harbour. You might as well make them all anchor handlers, and on exclusive hire (well, who you're going to share them with?) ... that's no small ticket. You might have to delay your well until you can get supply boats.
Just going for a gut feeling (IANA-drilling-engineer, IANA-accountant), I'd guesstimate a Weddell Sea well at $100 to $150 million. That's per well drilled. How you're going to produce the field is a separate question, where the really big bucks get involved.
Producing a small North Sea field pushes a billion USD, in an area with abundant infrastructure and absolutely riddled with pipelines and refinery capacity. So applying a similar multiplier as for a single well, look at an investment in the region of 5 billion for a field in the Weddell Sea. ASSUMING there is something there (see previous comment). That's why the 1998/1999 drilling campaign in the Falklands "failed" : they found hydrocarbons, but not in anything vaguely like sufficient quantities to make it worth developing. (Corollary : oil prices around 6 or 7 times higher today ; conference on development prospects in the South Atlantic last month ; 2 + 2 = 4 ; drilling maybe 2010? ; producing maybe 2015?)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Bugger - missed that trailing .LT. /i .GT.
And at this time of night I can't remember the appropriate HTML entities.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Wrong way around. Wind is driven by ocean currents.
And I'm in the Southern Hemisphere. We're having record heat here in Australia as well as droughts. Winters are weaker, summers longer and hotter. Sydney is getting Brisbane's weather, Melbourne is getting Sydney's and Hobart is getting Melbourne's.
Antarctic ice increasing? Tell that to the Ross Ice Shelf.
when we hung the phone up on Halliburton telling them that we thought staying alive was more important than big pay checks, the day-rate was going over $2500.
Christ almighty. If Halliburton was hiring programmers in Iraq at that rate, I would go there immediately. That kind of money is the worth the risk of my life. If I live, it means my son is guaranteed an excellent education. Hell, for that kind of money, I could put my brother in law's kids through college too, and he went to Iraq for a hell of a lot less money than that!
5 billion bucks? 7 Shuttle launches? Well, I guess you could do so. Ask NASA.
Unmanned is a lot cheaper. You make one baseline probe design, and you build say, 5 or 10 of them. Spread the design cost over a series of flights. Launch into space at multiple asteroids.
I'm wondering what on Eros would be worth 20 trillion
I've read that some folks say that the asteroid is very purely iron, nickel, platinum, gold... when the dust all settles, the cost of getting that ore back is very high.
there's no reason to believe that there's oil in space
No, but there is a lot of methane to be had, and who knows what's going on Titan. There's all sorts of weird hydrocarbons forming up there. Here's the thing... nuclear stuff is pretty rare, so far, and that's what you need for space. But, if you had like an asteroid base, and could tap a big ball of methane and oxygen your way, you'd have plenty of fuel to move on. It's funny but I think we'll always be burning something, just because there's so much to burn.
I take it that is an Americanism for "low pay"? Yes.
Hmmm, no. Chump change in that context means that the pay would be insignificant compared to the investment return. So, yeah, if I was a billionaire, staring at becoming a trillionaire, because of what you tell me about some rock, paying you a $1000 a day in consulting fees, is really chump change. It's not cheap in the absolute sense, but the value you would be delivering would be so vast, like, why not?
This is my sig.
it was never a troll, just my sense of humor.
:-D
thanks though
Your life, your choice. If you die, then your son grows up as the orphan of someone who died for someone else's money. Pay stops on the day of your death, and you only get paid for days in-country.
I thought for quite a time about the $1000 a day offer (and again over the increased offers). I thought about my newly married wife and her daughter. I thought about the various times I've had machinery (or rocks) trying to kill me. I thought about a lot of things. And I told the Boss that I wasn't interested in the work. TTBOMK, I was the only married member of the staff the Boss offered the job to, because he knew that I have a liking for exotic workplaces and living on the edge. If I couldn't justify it to myself, then there wasn't really any reason to waste the nerve ending of the other married staff members with the prospect - they'd very likely come to the same conclusion as me, but agonise over it for longer.
Of course, there was (and is) nothing to stop any of the company's staff from resigning, going freelance, and taking up the offer. Just don't expect there to be a staff job waiting if you don't like it on the freelance side of the road. You get the full day rate, but you have to be prepared to take 6 months with zero income, and to then have two long-cultivated jobs come to the payback phase at the same time. (You can only be in one place at a time!)
I've not heard anything to suggest that Eros (in particular) is anything other than fairly normal silicates ; NiFe would have a pretty distinctive reflection spectrum, but in any case neither are rare metals. The PGE (Platinum Group Elements, including gold) might be worthwhile, if they were in any significant concentration. That's a big IF : PGEs are, if I recall my geochemistry correctly, strongly partitioned into sulphide phases, so in an asteroidal setting are going to go into any differentiated "core" with the NiFe. It's only on planetary-scale objects (Mars fits ; Ceres might ; Vesta probably didn't, even before it's big bang) that you're going to get enough hydrothermal activity for long enough to have a real chance of doing significant hydrothermal concentration.
Don't confuse Sci-Fi "wouldn't it be nice if" with "is" (or even "is probably", or "is possibly"). I like my Sci-Fi too, but it isn't reality.
What you can get from asteroids in the realistic term is reaction mass and volatiles. Without going to the "bottom of a hole".
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
these days if I can't torrent it in audio or convert it to .pdb onto my treo for consumption on mass transit I don't read it. at least Open Office has that as a save-as option
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
When will they grow dinosaurs on chips?