Researchers Discover Major Jurassic Fossil Site In Argentina (phys.org)

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Researchers Discover Major Jurassic Fossil Site In Argentina (phys.org)

Posted by BeauHD on Sunday February 28, 2016 @06:30PM from the natural-preservation dept.

Paleontologists in Argentina have announced the discovery of a major Jurassic-era fossil site four years after it was first discovered. The site, which spans 23,000 square miles (60,000 square kilometers) in Patagonia, southern Argentina, came to light this week with the publication of a report in the journal Ameghiniana. "No other place in the world contains the same amount and diversity of Jurassic fossils," said geologist Juan Garcia Massini of the Regional Center for Scientific Research and Technology Transfer (CRILAR). The fossils are so well preserved, that researchers say each rock extracted from the site could possibly open the door to a new discovery.

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Re: fp by Uber+Zuper · 2016-02-28 18:41 · Score: 1

I can't tell if that is sarcasm or facetiousness...
Such a big site by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 18:41 · Score: 1

60,000 square kilometers is a huge amount of land to protect from vandalism and ignorant sight see-ers. I just hope they can hide the site in google earth to keep it protected for all of humanity.
1. Re:Such a big site by The+Real+Dr+John · 2016-02-29 01:54 · Score: 1
  
  Hopefully the site is big enough and remote enough that poaching will be minimal. It will be fascinating to see what they turn up.
  
  --
  A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
2. Re:Such a big site by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  I think we're ok with the poaching since these animals have been dead for a little while.
3. Re:Such a big site by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 04:40 · Score: 0
  
  Such a big site will make the value of Jurassic fossils fall to near zero.
4. Re:Such a big site by phantomfive · 2016-02-29 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  Not likely, but if that happens, it's a good thing
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
5. Re:Such a big site by HornWumpus · 2016-02-29 10:09 · Score: 1
  
  The choices aren't: 'leave it alone' or 'real scientists can find it'.
  The choices are 'find it' or 'let it erode away'. Keeping amateurs out is senseless. Even if 99% are just taking home, the 1% are finds that would have been wasted otherwise.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
6. Re: Such a big site by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 10:14 · Score: 0
  
  Patagonia is pretty much a flat, people-free land for the most part. If that specific part is good for soybean agriculture though, then yeah, that place is screwed.
7. Re:Such a big site by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 14:26 · Score: 0
  
  These fossils aren't eroding anywhere in a hurry. Trophy hunters are essentially grinding for loot and want to do it cheaply and quickly. They destroy much more than they preserve.
8. Re:Such a big site by HornWumpus · 2016-03-01 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  What? The rocks they are in are certainly eroding, same as all rocks.
  The choice remains: fossils of dust.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
9. Re:Such a big site by RockDoctor · 2016-03-01 10:19 · Score: 1
  
  The joke within caving circles is applicable : "the site imposes it's own access restrictions."
  Patagonia is not a hotspot of tourist activity. By the time you get there, you'll be well aware that you've spent a good number of days getting there, and you'd better kill all witnesses if you think you're going to get away with vandalism.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
10. Re:Such a big site by RockDoctor · 2016-03-01 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  The choices aren't: 'leave it alone' or 'real scientists can find it'. The choices are 'find it' or 'let it erode away'.
  Having just been reading the paper abstract (it's in pre-print at the moment, and I don't have the paper. Hmmm, "Alan Channing", there's a name that rings a bell.), where do you get that information from?
  Since specifically, the abstract refers to examining microscopic and mesoscopic (hand specimen size or smaller) fossils in chert deposits, it is not going to be particularly susceptible to "eroding to dust". That is genuinely an issue in, for example, the "badlands" of the Rockies foothills, but from the abstract, I would doubt it will be much of an issue for these fossils.
  Unless of course, you have a different source of information.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
11. Re:Such a big site by HornWumpus · 2016-03-02 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  60,000 square kilometers divided by how many 'qualified' researchers?
  At _any_ erosion rate the % of surface that can be examined by the qualified will by tiny.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
12. Re:Such a big site by RockDoctor · 2016-03-02 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  Sir, you need to spend a few days doing "field walking". You may be surprised about how efficiently one can recognise "hand specimen" size fragments, but that is why geology students are required to examine thousands of specimens. "Earth Science" students, on the other hand, barely get into the hundreds.
  But hey, that's just my professional skill set. If you've got 30 years of fieldwork experience, please feel free to tell me better.
  (NB : this does not apply to microfossils. For that, there are established sampling protocols. As you'd know.)
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
13. Re:Such a big site by HornWumpus · 2016-03-03 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  I don't doubt you're much better at it than some amateur rockhound.
  60,000 square kilometers is too much to walk (How many football fields is that? Who let such fucked up units on /.?), much less search. Unless you have a large population of searchers.
  Lets say, for arguments sake, that you can scan 5 meters on ether side of you, that makes it a 100km walk per km^2. Assume you can do it a full speed hike, 30km/day. Using those values gets you to 20,000 man days per traverse.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
14. Re:Such a big site by RockDoctor · 2016-03-05 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. It's not possible to comprehensively sample any site of any significant extent. In the 1980s IIRC some Canadian palaeontologists with a lot of student and volunteer searchers did a really detailed search of some transects below and up to the K-Pg boundary. They did a few hundreds of square metres (I think that's several football fields. Round or rugby ball I'm not sure. Not the football fields with the plastic men on rotating sticks.), but they achieved the desired result of assessing the abundance of dinosaur taxa in the several metres (a million years or so) leading up to the K-Pg boundary. They showed that the purported decline in dinosaur abundance and diversity was a sampling effect, and there was no evidence to support the hypothesis that the abundance and diversity of dinosaurs declined in the period before the K-Pg boundary. The fossils they found ranged from a few mm to a few centimetres.
  That is one of the very few attempts at comprehensive sampling. Because it is so time consuming, and produces so much material that you simply cannot process it with any credible amount of resources.
  Note the size of the fossils found. Millimetres to centimetres. Not multi-metre femurs and strings of vertebrae. Bones the size of those in your hands (not surprisingly ; each hand or foot comprises about 1/8 of your bone count, and it is essentially the same for all tetrapod vertebrates - sharks and more derived animals).
  If you go back to read the paper, you'll find that the fossils in question are up to millimetres long, and are encased totally in chert lumps beds. (We actually had a similar deposit in my Department's metaphorical back yard - but this deposit is a different age.) In the field, you can identify the chert because the rest of the rock falls apart. And you bag a number of samples from each outcrop. You maybe even need to draw a sketch map of each site so you can see which samples are from above which other samples. Then you take all the samples back to the lab - likely hundreds of kilometres away. So far, you may have collected thousands of fossils, but you are unlikely to have seen a single fossil.
  In the lab, you choose representative samples from particular beds. (Remember that mapping you did in the field? If you got that wrong, the whole collecting trip was a complete waste of time because you cannot relate one sample to another. Throw them in the bin and go back to re-map the site and re-collect.) You cut a thick section bedding-parallel from each of your representative samples - this will be typically 30mm x 20mm x 1-2mm, so call that 60-120 cu.mm.
  Mount your thick section in the microscope. Now you may start to see your fossils. Do a quick scan - say an hour or so per slide, for around 1-2 cu.mm of evaluation per minute. Repeat that for your second section from that sample, which you cut bedding-perpendicular. Say 2 hours for each sample. Repeat that for each mapping unit that you identified. There's probably a solid week at the microscope there.
  You can now add fossil types and morphologies to your map, and try to decide if it is worth processing second samples from some of the richer mapping units. You'd better re-do some of the poorer samples too - you may have chosen a bad sample. You'll also have a list of identified morphologies and of unidentified morphologies. Some of those may need second samples.
  Before you know it, your couple of days of mapping and couple of hours of sample collecting has resulted in a month of laboratory work. If you have to cut your own slides, two months.
  Now do you see why, for this sort of site, comprehensive collecting is simply not worth doing? If you searched - say - 100m.sq of the site (a sports ground, I guess. I don't follow team sports.) and collected every rock which you thought might contain a fossil, then sliced them into translucent slabs to search for fossils (because only a tiny fraction of fossils will be visible on the surface of the chert blocks ; you have to examine the volume), then
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Surprising by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 19:08 · Score: 0

That all the fossils didn't turn into oil
1. Re:Surprising by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 23:18 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Fossils are mineral replacements of bones, either through mineralization or sediment filling in the void opened as the organic material decayed. Most oil by contrast is the result of bacterial action and pressure over even longer time spans and at much higher pressures (think plate subduction).
2. Re:Surprising by vtcodger · 2016-02-29 04:16 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  "Fossils are mineral replacements of bones, either through mineralization or sediment filling in the void opened as the organic material decayed."
  Sometimes. Sometimes not. Wood, leaves, enamel, bone, and especially Calcium Carbonate and Calcium Phosphate shell material can last an impressive amount of time unaltered. Proteins and DNA not so much. But even there the oldest known DNA used to be 15 million years or so from leaves preserved in clay in Idaho. I wouldn't be surprised that someone has found older material since.
  
  --
  You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
3. Re:Surprising by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  Dinosaurs don't make oil. Planktonic algae that settles into the sediment at the bottom of oceans and lakes does, once it is sufficiently buried and gets heated up.
4. Re:Surprising by RockDoctor · 2016-03-01 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  The parent AC is referring to an advertising campaign from the 1930s (maybe post war - wrong time for me, and wrong continent) of an oil company called, I believe, "Sinclair Oil," who had a campaign about how "dinosaurs are squeezed down to make our oil". They also had some moderately entertaining dinosaur-themed marketing material which retains it's popularity amongst collectors.
  Being "popular" material designed for entertainment and marketing and not for presenting the science of the 1930s (let alone anything more recent), this trope remains popular with creationists, and trotting it out is a good sign that someone has been beaten around the head a few times too often with a religious indoctrination book or several.
  
  over even longer time spans and at much higher pressures (think plate subduction)
  For the "oil window", look at temperatures in the region of 100-200 centigrade and pressures of 3 to 10 kilobars (about 2-5 km depth depending on a lot of things about your basin). fairly high, but eminently achievable in an intracratonic setting. You don't need subduction to generate hydrocarbons, but a lot of hydrocarbon provinces are in subduction zones. Compare, for example, the transtensional (not subduction, nor intracratonic) oil province of California with the intracratonic and non-subductional Permian Basin of northern Texas (where I think Sinclair Oil had many of their holdings ; of course the Permian Basin pre-dates the dinosaurs, but not the mammal-like reptiles).
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I discovered something and put it in a haiku by TheHaikuLover · 2016-02-28 19:16 · Score: 0

His erect penis,
Plugged inside a man's anus.
He is a faggot.
Ask Larry King... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 19:21 · Score: 0

... if he knew the Fossil...
Original article (paywalled, abstract only) by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 19:21 · Score: 1

First glimpse of the silicified hot spring biota from a new Jurassic chert deposit in the Deseado Massif, Patagonia, Argentina
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 19:37 · Score: 1

Without commenting on the OP, why is the nonsense in the parent acceptable anywhere? Ethnic slurs are generally not acceptable under any conditions and in any company. However, it's seemingly acceptable and commonplace to use LGBT slurs in many settings. The word "retard" is also very offensive because there are lots of people with real disorders that make learning difficult. We'll all be much better off as a society when people who feel it's okay to use such offensive slurs are unwelcome. I don't really believe in microaggressions and things like that, but there's no place for things that are blatantly offensive.
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 19:58 · Score: 1

Opposing grossly offensive slurs doesn't make someone a "pussy" nor does it merit offensive slurs about one's sexuality. That I find your comments offensive has no bearing on my sexuality or whether I'm a "pussy" or not. There's also an implication in the parent that a gay man is somehow less manly than a straight man. That stereotype is also offensive and needs to go away. I don't consider opposing offensive slurs as being a form of political correctness; it's just common decency that apparently isn't common enough. Insulting the sexuality of others and questioning their manliness says more about your own problems and insecurity than about the person you're insulting. Comments like yours might have been tolerated among juveniles in the past when LGBT rights weren't respected as they are today. Now it simply makes you and insecure bigot. And society will be better off when bigotry like yours is extinguished.
Re: Suckers will buy any fairytale up for sale by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 20:28 · Score: 0

He is a scientist what would you expect. all scientists are god-less sorcerers who practice the art of the devil
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 20:32 · Score: 0

I've live through real oppression and hardships in my life. I find your comments offensive.
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 20:49 · Score: 0

That is no excuse
Will they call it Jurassic Park? by haruchai · 2016-02-28 23:00 · Score: 4, Funny

Seems like the appropriate name for it.

--
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
1. Re:Will they call it Jurassic Park? by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-02-29 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  Seems like the appropriate name for it.
  Even more exciting, I hear they were able to extract DNA form some of the bones they found there.
  Combined it with DNA from a pig, and implanted the resulting embryo.
  When the resulting pig/dinosaur was born, they knew they had Jurassic Pork.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
2. Re:Will they call it Jurassic Park? by haruchai · 2016-02-29 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  While a slab of Brachio-bacon sounds tempting, I'm pretty sure that DNA manipulation isn't kosher.
  
  --
  Pain is merely failure leaving the body
3. Re:Will they call it Jurassic Park? by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-02-29 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  While a slab of Brachio-bacon sounds tempting, I'm pretty sure that DNA manipulation isn't kosher.
  I'll bet the rebbes have discussed the kosherness of dna altered food.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 23:14 · Score: 0

Choosing to be offended by anonymous online messages vs being physically attacked by your "neighbors" are entirely different things.
Re: Bernie Sanders is from South America? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-28 23:53 · Score: 0

Yeah , to hell with people. Money rules!
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 00:29 · Score: 0

It is still no excuse to behave like that towards others you do not even know.
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 01:00 · Score: 1

At least with retards we recognize the birth defect and treat it as such -- rather than try to convince everyone that they're no different than anyone else.
while they are down there, by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 01:48 · Score: 0

maybe they can find the rest of the nazis.
Re:fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 01:52 · Score: 0

You missed Sunday School that week.
The dinosaurs didn't get an invite on the Ark.
Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 01:58 · Score: 1

They finally found the RNC headquarters?
1. Re:Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · 2016-03-01 05:46 · Score: 0
  
  You mean Brokeback Mountain?
2. Re:Let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · 2016-03-01 06:51 · Score: 0
  
  Right, cause nothing screams youth & vigor like two septuagenarian white candidates, one of which is literally brain-damaged.
Are we moving Nublar Island yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 02:21 · Score: 0

Are we moving Nublar Island to the Southern Hemisphere now? Getting closer to the bones?
Excellent by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 02:49 · Score: 0

Even more evidence of the global flood.
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 02:54 · Score: 0

Actually, they did; Juveniles of applicable kinds from which the dino species we know of descended from. Creationists believe in speciation, which is covered by Gen 1:24.
Re: Suckers will buy any fairytale up for sale by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 03:08 · Score: 0

You shouldn't be talking about this here. Thetly might kill us all with their magic ray guns. Just get rid of the alien remains like the elders asked
Re: Bernie Sanders is from South America? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 03:33 · Score: 0

Yeah , to hell with people. Money rules!
Only simpletons think it's good to be told what to do by do-gooder busybodies who arrogantly feel they know what's best for everyone.
This guy gets around... by fahrbot-bot · 2016-02-29 03:59 · Score: 0

Researchers Discover Major Jurassic Fossil Site In Argentina
John McAfee?

--
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Re: Bernie Sanders is from South America? by sysrammer · 2016-02-29 05:34 · Score: 1

Yeah , to hell with people. Money rules!
Only simpletons think it's good to be told what to do by do-gooder busybodies who arrogantly feel they know what's best for everyone.
Like various AC's on this board?

--
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Quick! Bomb it! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 06:34 · Score: 0

Paleontologists in Argentina have announced the discovery of a major Jurassic-era fossil site four years after it was first discovered. The site, which spans 23,000 square miles (60,000 square kilometers) in Patagonia, southern Argentina, came to light this week with the publication of a report in the journal Ameghiniana. "No other place in the world contains the same amount and diversity of Jurassic fossils"
Quick! Nuke the entire site from orbit, repeatedly, until all evidence is destroyed. We can't risk our True Believers(tm) discovering the Earth is more than 6 thousand years old! There would be chaos: dogs and cats living together, world peace, rational thought ... it doesn't bear thinking about!
-- Your GOP leadership
Re: Bernie Sanders is from South America? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 06:40 · Score: 1

Only simpletons think it's good to be told what to do by do-gooder busybodies who arrogantly feel they know what's best for everyone
Is this a reference to US foreign policy?
Re: Bernie Sanders is from South America? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 07:19 · Score: 0

US Democrat policy
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 18:02 · Score: 0

Oh look at all the fascist assholes who want to dictate how other behave. The more you morons what to tell me I am offensive, the more offesive I will become. FUCK YOU. I live only once and I am not going to waste it tip toeing. EAT A SHIT LOG YOU FUCKING PC BITCHES.
Re: fp by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-29 18:20 · Score: 0

Being offended is a choice. It's obvious you choose to be a professional victim. Your guilt speak and manipulation won't work. Now kindly fuck off you fat, low life, piece of shit pussy. You are a coward. Go FUCK YOURSELF.
What the paper says ... by RockDoctor · 2016-03-01 10:58 · Score: 1

Is unavailable because it hasn't been published yet. The abstract is available online at http://www.ameghiniana.org.ar/...
Though the summary and article don't seem to grasp it, the fossil discoveries under discussion are actually "exceptionally well-preserved, in-situ and transported, tri-dimensionally silicified plants, animals and microorganisms," and "also contains vegetative and reproductive structures of fungi, oomycetes, cyanobacteria, algae, testate amoebas, ciliates and numerous remains of unresolved taxonomic affinity."
From that, there is no indication that they found anything larger than a few millimetres.
Now, don't get me wrong - microfossils are incredibly important (I've signed hundreds of thousands of dollars more for job tickets for micropalaeontologists than I have for regular palaeontologists), but I rather doubt there will be a discovery here that will appear in Jurassic Park 7 (or whatever number they're up to now).

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"