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New Whale Species Unearthed In California Highway Dig
sciencehabit writes "Thanks to a highway-widening project in California's Laguna Canyon, scientists have identified several new species of early toothed baleen whales. The new fossils date to 17 to 19 million years ago, or the early-mid Miocene epoch, making them the youngest known toothed whales. Three of the fossils belong to the genus Morawanocetus, which is familiar to paleontologists studying whale fossils from Japan, but hadn't been seen before in California. These three, along with the fourth new species, which is of a different genus, represent the last known occurrence of aetiocetes, a family of mysticetes that coexisted with early baleen whales. Thus, they aren't ancestral to any of the living whales, but they could represent transitional steps on the way to today's whales."
Nature: creates universe, life, billions of years of different species, creatures of every conceivable size and type, vast oceans, huge forests, nicotine, sugar and alcohol.
Humans: internal combustion, digital computers, drone strikes and Minecraft.
It makes me feel tiny, insignificant and sort of helpless, and to think the same of my species.
I will say, in recent years, the human race has started to... change. Just look at Youtube comments!
I haven't RTFA or even summary of course, but I bet those stupid mammals got ridden down on the 5 like everyone else.
There are more of them. I can feel them moving around underfoot at times when I visit California.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Was there, or was there not, a bowl of petunias found anywhere near the whale's carcass?
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I think you're leaving out some of the good stuff. The moon landings and the Large Hadron Collider make me feel a bit better about what humans are able to achieve. And it's not as if we're done yet, either.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Is it OK?
wtf headline. I was hoping they found a live whale under the street. Guess it'll be just another day...
Only if you assume you are not made by nature. If you hadn't had your study of evolution replaced by fundamental Christian teachings, you would also know that humans, internal combustion, digital computers, drone strikes and Minecraft would be under nature as well.
Yeah, like corporate serfdom!
There goes another one of ID's already weak arguments against evolution...
Neat!
Wait a minute. Has anyone seen Oprah lately?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The summary says
Thus, they aren't ancestral to any of the living whales, but they could represent transitional steps on the way to today's whales.
If they're not ancestors, in what sense do they represent transitional steps? Are the two not synonymous?
At the pace humanity is going, we're going to surpass nature in the decades to come.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
If you hadn't had your study of evolution replaced by fundamental Christian teachings
Uh, no. Saying that humans have come up with internal combustion, digital computers, drone strikes, Minecraft, or anything else does not logically lead to "I believe in an Invisible Sky Daddy". On the other hand, dismissing human accomplishments as having come from "nature" does. You know, like how hand-egg players will thank their particular flavor of Invisible Sky Daddy for the skills to do what they did.
If you want to believe in an Invisible Sky Daddy, that's fine. But when you claim that the attribution of human accomplishments and advancements to humanity equates to a belief in an Invisible Sky Daddy, while the attribution of human accomplishments and advancements to "nature" does not? I don't know what to say to that, other than it feels like you are trying to be deliberately deceptive.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Your comment makes little sense, whether you believe human beings sprang out of nature (and thus are a subset of "Nature"), or were created by a deity.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Um, you totally forgot beef jerky. Come on. You're better than this.
Whale jerky, like beef only better.
Such a new whale species, and already extinct.
Give me millions of years and I'll create all sorts of cool shit. Remember that "nature" has had aeons to do all this stuff, humans have had what, 100 000 years or less? Hardly the same time scale.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
a Nullaquan dustwhale? Are they harvesting Flare from its innards even as we speak? That would sell well in SoCal.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I bet it killed itself after causing the world's first stock market crash.
I think you're leaving out some of the good stuff. The moon landings and the Large Hadron Collider make me feel a bit better about what humans are able to achieve.
IMHO Bob Marley and Shakespeare are two out of many better examples ...
You may think of yourself as the cupcake, but some of us have an outsized ego.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
And here I thought I had the whole set.
I find that I feel small in the presence of cold nature.
I live in Northern California and have a geology degree. The article was informative, but it is just shy of giving the useful information from the refereed source, the lithology and formation of the Middle Miocene unit in Leguna Canyon from which the evidently considerable number of fossils comes from. I.d have to find some other source to get the geologic setting for that site.
This is interesting for the geology of California was quite different than it is now. The San Andreas system was just being formed as North America drifted west from the Atlantic spreading ridge and was overtaking the East Pacific Rise. As it did this strike-slip faults were formed when the ridge system and trench that stood off California since the early Jurassic, about 150 MY, were destroyed. The Miocene records the changing environmnts caused by the tectonic change from deep water fie grained oil bearing shales of the Monterey Shale to sandy deposits affected as land was created and eroded.
The fauna described is similar to the one that lives in these waters today, although more primitive, ancestral. It supplies important information about the range of animals that were known from other parts of the world. The lithology of the deposit would tell us more, Did the fauna live near shore which would be the case if then are found in sandy deposits whose grains are derived from land, or were they part of the abyssal shale that is so common in California, earlier in the Miocene?
The San Andreas strike slip, which amounts to 350 km of right lateral displacement in less than 30 MY has changed the areal distribution of Miocene sediments in California. Places that would have been adjacent to Orange County in Miocene time are now in central and northern California. The Monetrey Shale type locality is in southern Monterey County and it can be seen as far north as Santa Cruz, but it is also found very wide spread in the Southern San Jouquen Valley. During the Miocene most of its setting was an off-shore deep water environment off terraines that are today in southern California and Mexico. I expect that the Leguna Canyon setting is probably the inshore equivalent of these offshore abyssal envirornments, provided they are not too much younger. If that then the enironments for these younger Miocene units as all become more shallow water ones, a trend which continues into younger units as the land emerged into Pliocene time.
Terms like "Invisible Sky Daddy" are not meant to insult and degrade. They are meant to highlight the irrationality of such beliefs in the hope that the otherwise rational individuals who hold them might reassess their beliefs and ultimately reject them.
Grow some skin, god-lover, before you consider trying to grow some balls and live without a protective god to cover your sorry incompetent arse.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
The article is a summary, as far as I can tell, of a symposium discussion involving a number of specialists in whale palaeontology. http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2013/webprogram/Session5818.html has the list of speakers, including ... just links to abstracts. http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2013/webprogram/Paper9513.html
I guess you'll need to contact the authors directly to get (advance) copy of the paper(s). Though they're quite likely to do that, when they've got a paper ready for publication.
(Geologist here too.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Hope we can get these whales back in the water before they dry out and die!!!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)