Today – 1/16Today – 1/16

• Critter in the news

• Beginning and end (?) of dinosaurs

• First writing assignment

.5-pt XC quiz:

The Karoo is:

a) a river in Ugandab) an extinct birdc) a mild east wind in Botswanad) a desert in South Africa e) all of the above

Administration:

“Get to know you” form worth 2 pts XC

Ross’ OH: Th 2:30-3:30

Note taker

D2l

Dino cancer

Possible test question:

Scientists think that the oldest known fossil cancer, a softball-sized dino tumor, may have:

a) resulted from an injury sustained in competition for a mate

b) been caused by a virusc) started during a teenage growth-spurtd) all of the above

Stratigraphy:

Study of rock layers

Reconstruct ancient environments and the evolution of ancient landscapes

Correlate rocks of same age that are widely separated geographically

Biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, carbon isotope stratigraphy

http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/npl/rudist2005/images/Rudists.html

www.nhmc.uoc.gr

Biostratigraphy

Karoo Biostratigraphy

www.museums.org.za/sam/resource/palaeo/cluver/time.htm

www.museums.org.za/sam/

www.mathematical.com

Lystrosaurus↑Gorgon↓

www.kjzg.com.cn

Diictodon

Fate of mammal-like reptiles at the end of the Permian:

Dicynodonts – “two dog-teeth” mostly die out except for Lystrosaurus, famous as evidence for continental drift. Herbivores

Gorgonopsians all die out. Top predators of the day. Last gorgonopsian = end of Permian

All had five fingers and toes, sprawling stance. Stance bad for breathing, activity level

Biostratigraphy

www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/Thomas

Principle of faunal succession

“Fossil species succeed each other in a definite and recognizable order”

Sedimentary rocks represent time: lower = older, upper = newer

Distinctive fossils or assemblages of fossils can be used to correlate widely separated rocks as being the same age. Shelly marine fossils and microfossils, and pollen are usually best – widespread and distinctive.

Some lingo

Species: a population of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspringGenus: a collection of one or more speciesGenera: plural of genusGradualism, uniformitarianism: biological and geological changes happen very slowly through time – nothing exciting ever happens

Genus species – Tyrannosaurus rex

http://strata.ummp.lsa.umich.edu/jack/

Diversity of marine animals through time

Five major mass extinctions, where 50% or more species go extinct:

Three are of interest to us:1. Permo-Triassic, 250 Ma – made way for

the ancestors of the dinosaurs (archosaurs)

2. End Triassic, ~ 200 Ma – took out last of large archosaur competition to the dinosaurs

3. K-T, 65 Ma, took out dinos

www.fossilmall.com

www.trilobites.info

http://members.aol.com/Waucoba5/dv/owensvalleygroupfusulinids2

Some organisms that disappeared at the end of the Permian

Proposed causes of dinosaur extinction

Out-competed by smarter, egg-eating mammals

Disease

Falling sea level

Volcanically driven climate change

Asteroid strike! (had been written off by 1980 because no crater had been found)

1980 - Walter and Luis Alvarez discover

iridium rich clay layer

www.physast.uga.edu/~jss/

www.geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/ktbits.gif

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/

Location of the Chicxulub crater - site of the K-T impact!

1 pt XC outline, groups of 3-4

Title 3 or 4 printed names1) First paragraph – summary of content

a) the findb) the interpretation…

2) Second paragraph – questionsa)…

3) Third paragraph – affective discussiona)

www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/images/chicxulb.gif

Chicxulub - “tail of the devil”

Animation of Chicxulub crater formation

Evidence for K-T impact

World-wide clay layer with iridium, shocked quartz, spherules, and carbon

65 Ma tsunami deposits ringing the Caribbean

Chicxulub crater

It was a BIG explosion!

Asteroid or comet was 10 km (6 mi) across

Moving at 75,000 km/hr (45,000 mi/hr)

5 billion times the energy of Hiroshima

World-wide forest fires, tsunamis, acid-rain, year-long “nuclear winter”

At least 75% of all species went extinct, including 90% of all plankton

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

Asteroid 1950-DA, March 16, Asteroid 1950-DA, March 16, 28802880

Unlike the K-T impact that killed the dinos, the cause of the P-T extinction is still the subject of vigorous debate!

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/

X

Pangea

Tethys

Sea

The blue planet, 260 Ma

http://dsc.discovery.com

Siberian Traps

Insert pic of AC

Petrified tree? AC shot from above! With inset of teeth

What fossils tell us about dinosaurs

How they looked - size, shape, skin How they behaved - diet, locomotion, social life, as parentsPhysiology - thermal regulation, growth patternsHistory of life - speciation and extinction, relationships among groupsEnvironmental reconstruction, rock ages geochemistry, paleogeography, interaction between physical and biological worlds

www.dinoland.dk

web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/

← Griffin inspired by Protoceratops? ↓

www.oum.ox.ac.uk/geolcoll.htm

1677 – Robert Plot publishes first known description of a dinosaur bone. However, he mistakes it for the femur of a giant human!

www.lhl.lib.mo.us/events_exhib/exhibit/ex_paper_dino.shtml

1815 – William Buckland finds Megalosaurus jaw

home.uchicago.edu/~shburch/dinopaper.html

1830’s – Meet Meg, the happy water lizard

1831

1833

1836 – Gideon Mantell discovers the teeth of Iguanodon

www.lhl.lib.mo.us/events_exhib/exhibit/ex_paper_dino.shtml

Iguanodon – notice the sprawling legs1842 – Richard Owen defines the “Dinosauria”, which

translates as “terrible lizards”

Depiction by Owen circa 1850

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1853 dinosaur reconstructions being prepared for display in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London

http://www.ric.edu/rpotter/cryspal.html

www.simondevlin.com

www.owen.k12.ky.us/trt/beverly/Megalosaurus_files/frame.htm

http://www.healthstones.com/dinosaurdata/dinodata.html

Nicholas Steno – “Father of stratigraphy”

Second half of the 1600’s

Said fossils were remains of organisms

Principle of Original Horizontality – rock layers laid down horizontally, any deviation from this due to later disturbance

Law of Superposition – lower layers are older, upper layers are more recent

Early 1800’s geology comes alive!

1795 – Theory of the Earth by James Hutton: how rock layers form, hot inside, old, uniformitarianism, natural selection

1815 – Geologic map by William Smith: biostratigraphy

1830-1833 – Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell: stratigraphy

1859: On the Origin of Species by Darwin

Archaeopteryx – London specimen, found 1861

Taphonomy - the study of how fossils get preserved

How sedimentary rock deposits are formed and how dead animals get in themHelp us understand ancient ecosystemsHelps us understand biases in the fossil recordSome organisms and parts of organisms rarely preserved

www.fossilhut.com

Solnhofen specimen - 60’sBerlin specimen - 1877www.sonoma.edu/users/g/geist/bio.html

www.cmnh.org

paleo.cc/paluxy/livptero.htm

Pterodactylus kochi

leute.server.de/frankmuster/P/Pterodactylus.htm

www.hayashibara.co.jp/html/shinka/

Ichthyosaur from Holzmaden

www.urweltmuseum.de/Englisch/shop_eng/fossilienverkauf_eng.htm

www.johnsibbick.com/prehist-pages/pre-p-20.asp

www.breckminerals.com

Brief history of bird origins debate

Archae has teeth, hand claws, and a bony tail like dinos; but feathers like birds

1926 Heilmann decides birds did not descend from dinos because dinos lack wishbones (since found)

1964 Deinonychus discovered

1972 Walker suggests birds descended from an ancestral crocodilian

www.dinosoria.com

Deinonychus

www.amherst.edu/~pratt

Connecticut Valley dinosaur tracks described by Edward Hitchcock 1836 - 1858

Ichnology: study of trace fossils

1856 - Joseph Leidy publishes first description of North American dinosaur

fossils

Hadrosaur “duckbill”

www.dinosaursinart.com

Stegosaurus stenops

Stegosaurus ungulatus

www.dinosaursinart.com

Allosaurus fragilis

1878 - Iguanodon mass grave found in Belgium

http://digitalidesigns.net/

Brontosaurus, now called Apatosaurus

Ornithischia - “bird-hipped”

Saurischia - “lizard-hipped”

1889 - 1892 Hatcher finds 32 ceratopsians

www.geo.uw.edu.pl

www.amnh.org

Torosaurus Pentaceratops

www.peabody.yale.edu

http://homepage.mac.com

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

Komodo Dragon

Pangolin

Rhinoceros skin

www.petinfo4u.com

Dakosaurus - NationalGeographic.com