Find Along Chilean Highway Suggests Ancient Mass Stranding of Whales

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Find Along Chilean Highway Suggests Ancient Mass Stranding of Whales

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 26, 2014 @03:03PM from the look-at-the-bones dept.

sciencehabit writes "In 2010, workers widening a remote stretch of highway near the northwestern coast of Chile uncovered a trove of fossils, including the skeletons of at least 30 large baleen whales. The fossils—which may be up to 9 million years old—are the first definitive examples of ancient mass strandings of whales, according to a new study. The work also fingers a possible culprit."

37 of 63 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Let me guess... by msauve · 2014-02-26 15:08 · Score: 3, Funny

"The work also fingers a possible culprit"

Anthropomorphic Global Warming?

(not a troll, just a funny, vote me down if you will)

--
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
1. Re:Let me guess... by EvilSS · 2014-02-26 16:05 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  "The work also fingers a possible culprit" Anthropomorphic Global Warming? (not a troll, just a funny, vote me down if you will)
  Don't be stupid. It was obviously caused by US Navy sonar. Yes, our sonar is THAT powerful.
  
  --
  I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
2. Re:Let me guess... by The+Grim+Reefer · 2014-02-26 16:24 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  "The work also fingers a possible culprit" Anthropomorphic Global Warming? (not a troll, just a funny, vote me down if you will)
  Don't be stupid. It was obviously caused by US Navy sonar. Yes, our sonar is THAT powerful.
  Actually, that highway is a toll road and they didn't have exact change. If you ever saw a 20 meter tractor trailer try to make a U-turn, just imaging what it must have been like trying to get 30, 30 meter whales to turn around. It's no wonder they didn't make it.
3. Re:Let me guess... by Applehu+Akbar · 2014-02-26 16:49 · Score: 1
  
  No, the US Navy of course. This discovery pushes the first use of sonar back several million years.
4. Re:Let me guess... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-26 16:58 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I think it will become clear when they find 30 smashed flower pots of petunias ...
5. Re:Let me guess... by gman003 · 2014-02-26 17:05 · Score: 1
  
  No, the US Navy of course. This discovery pushes the first use of sonar back several million years.
  Not to mention the invention of the United States.
6. Re:Let me guess... by guises · 2014-02-26 17:46 · Score: 1
  
  Anthropomorphic Global Warming?
  The global warming got greedy and started whaling for profit?
  
  (The word you're looking for is anthropogenic.)
7. Re:Let me guess... by Cryacin · 2014-02-26 17:59 · Score: 1
  
  Come on now, we all know it's really caused by aliens using their cell phones. Geez.
  
  --
  Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
8. Re:Let me guess... by JustOK · 2014-02-26 20:48 · Score: 1
  
  GAY aliens. They said they'd get us all in the end.
  
  --
  rewriting history since 2109
9. Re:Let me guess... by RockDoctor · 2014-02-26 21:11 · Score: 1
  
  Not to mention the invention of the United States.
  Not ot mention the human species.
  Actually, that far back, you're pre-dating all of the likely common ancestors of the anthropoid apes, with the possible exception of the common ancestor of the Pongoidae and the rest of the anthropoid apes.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
10. Re:Let me guess... by RockDoctor · 2014-02-26 21:16 · Score: 1
  
  (The word you're looking for is anthropogenic.)
  You insensitive sight-ist clod! He could be blind, and groping for a Freudian Slit ... I mean worm. Word! Dammit!
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
11. Re:Let me guess... by Half-pint+HAL · 2014-02-27 00:04 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  No, the US Navy of course. This discovery pushes the first use of sonar back several million years.
  Not to mention the invention of the United States.
  Didn't you know that the United States has existed since the dawn of time, ruled by white people? Modern revisionists want to claim that them thar injuns is "native Americans", but we all know the truth....
  Incidentally, the whales were presumably stranded when the Great Flood subsided. The Mountains of Ararat must therefore be in the Americas. That's how white men got there, see?
  
  --
  Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
12. Re:Let me guess... by 228e2 · 2014-02-27 03:02 · Score: 2
  
  mmm . . . whale jam . . . .
  
  --
  Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
13. Re:Let me guess... by Half-pint+HAL · 2014-02-27 03:21 · Score: 1
  
  (wondering whether the downvotes were failure to detect sarcasm, or just not liking the humour....)
  
  --
  Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
14. Re:Let me guess... by RockDoctor · 2014-02-27 21:52 · Score: 1
  
  People have been failing to ignite me for years. Flame away.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Oceanic Algal Blooms? by rmdingler · 2014-02-26 15:20 · Score: 4, Informative

And I had to read a good ways down through TFA to get to the teaser, including the second paragraph, where a marine biologist is quoted as saying, "This is an awesome snapshot of deep time."
You're welcome.

--
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
1. Re:Oceanic Algal Blooms? by RockDoctor · 2014-02-26 21:20 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  'Oceanic algal bloom' is a credible proposition (though there wasn't any of the palynological or micropalaeontological evidence that one could reasonably have hoped for, and there is evidence of fairly active current movement, which doesn't really help an algal bloom hypothesis). But volcanic gas clouds (e.g. a sulphide-rich ignimbrite projecting out into the bay) is also credible.
  At this time, the cause of death isn't clear, and there are multiple credible possibilities.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Sonar by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-26 16:04 · Score: 2, Funny

It had to be the damn Navy testing advanced sonar!
Activists! Run forth and protest!
When your mom ends up beaching herself from one of those tests, you won't think it's so funny.
Re:All man's fault by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-26 16:07 · Score: 1

Greenpiece? Who are they?
George Lucas by istartedi · 2014-02-26 16:17 · Score: 2

George Lucas's fault. He thought he could do something with whales and time travel in the Star Wars franchise, and this is the result.

--
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
1. Re:George Lucas by Half-pint+HAL · 2014-02-27 00:10 · Score: 2
  
  George Lucas's fault. He thought he could do something with whales and time travel in the Star Wars franchise, and this is the result.
  I knew he was running out of ideas, but ripping off Star Trek IV...?!?
  
  --
  Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Re:I call bullshit by AudioEfex · 2014-02-26 16:18 · Score: 1, Troll

Agreed. This cannot be true. Before humans came and fucked up the world nothing bad ever happened in nature, everything was in perfect alignment and all species thrived and there were no extreme weather cycles. The only way this could be true is if time travel to the past eventually got discovered in the future and we went back with all our evil human things and did this.
I think they should get out some metal detectors and start searching for DeLoreans.
Re:I call bullshit by Bing+Tsher+E · 2014-02-26 16:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, no, no. Not Humans. White Anglo Humans.
I'm guessing too by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-26 16:29 · Score: 1

They probably are all roadkill. They are all laying next to the road! Pretty obvious.
A sanguine thought by TrollstonButterbeans · 2014-02-26 16:29 · Score: 1

Santiago is the capital of Chile. I can remember this because Santiago always ate a lot of chili.

Even during the most in-climate of weather.

--
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
1. Re:A sanguine thought by gwolf · 2014-02-26 16:55 · Score: 1
  
  And Chileans do know at least a bit of chilli (unlike their Argentinian neighbours). But barely enough. Their food is thankfully quite tasty by itself. But, as a Mexican, being in Chile and not being able to find any real chilli... Was quite odd.
Re:All man's fault by Applehu+Akbar · 2014-02-26 16:51 · Score: 3, Funny

Hippie chicks who put out.
Article seems a bit confused by djupedal · 2014-02-26 17:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

The article says:
"Second, most of the baleen whale skeletons had been preserved “belly-up”—a position that suggests the creatures died at sea, rolled upside down as they decomposed, and then remained inverted when high tides or storm surges deposited them on shore. That ultimate resting position is typical of modern baleen whales that die at sea, Goldbogen says.

Finally, ripples preserved in the rocks indicate that the carcasses ended up lying crosswise to currents that had cast them onto the beach—just as in modern mass strandings, Pyenson says."

We've been told that modern 'strandings' are the cause of death (witness all the efforts to return the creatures to deeper waters), not the result.
1. Re:Article seems a bit confused by RockDoctor · 2014-02-26 21:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  If you RTFP (it is Open Access ; use it, or lose it!) you'll find that the original researchers don't take that paradigm. They're not at all clear about why the whales died, and think that many of the died and hit the seabed in depths of tens to a hundred or so metres (various lines of evidence : sediment patterns, levels of seabed life ; nearby unambiguous shoreline deposits ; constraints on the angle of slope of the seabed for sediment stability). Though parts of the sequence of beds in which the whales were found were definitely emergent (above sea level) at times, that's not considered the case for the particular beds (plural ! They represent thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years of repeated events.) in which the whale fossils have been found.
  TFP isn't confused. The coverage by a journalist working for Science Magazine may be. (I RTFP a few days ago, and promoted it to several geological discussion lists.)
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
2. Re:Article seems a bit confused by Half-pint+HAL · 2014-02-27 00:13 · Score: 1
  
  If the alignment of dead, washed-up whale carcasses is the same as that of living, washed-up whale bodies, it at the very least suggests that mass strandings are unintentional, and that the sea has overwhelmed the animals rather than them running themselves aground to escape predators, which was one the theory.
  
  --
  Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Re:All man's fault by riverat1 · 2014-02-26 17:09 · Score: 1

Yeah but if it's green you'd better wear a condom.
Re:I call bullshit by Sique · 2014-02-26 20:46 · Score: 1

What? Humans died before 1982 too? The Green River Killer must be innocent!

--
.sig: Sique *sigh*
Re:All man's fault by RockDoctor · 2014-02-26 21:25 · Score: 1

Yeah but if it's green you'd better wear a condom.
Why? Captain Kirk never did, even when he was doing the green chicks in the Shatner.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:This was caused by Beta. by Half-pint+HAL · 2014-02-27 00:07 · Score: 1

Hmm... on the one hand, we do get various posts here from people remaining anonymous because they work for the company in question, but on the other hand we also get rashes of anonymous racism and other abuse. The anonymous beta-bashing is pretty pointless, though: the one group who do know who you are is Slashdot....

--
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
You're all missing the point by boristdog · 2014-02-27 04:33 · Score: 1

The article mentions an "aquatic sloth"
AQUATIC SLOTH!
the cause by zeroryoko1974 · 2014-02-27 04:50 · Score: 1

It was obviously caused by one of our submarines going back in time and using sonar to confuse the whales into grounding themselves
This could be great if it destroys carrier lock-in by fastgriz · 2014-02-27 06:44 · Score: 1

Being able to swap radio modules could be fantastic if it reduces the friction involved in switching carriers.