Here are some pictures of the 2018 Holiday Party held on Friday, December 7th, 2018.
The new Sue exhibit is schedule to open on December 21st, 2018. It will include many new facts and clarifications. Those changes are nicely summarized in a new Field Museum blog post.
Though SUE the T. rex’s fossils are a snapshot of life 67 million years ago, the science around extinct animals is rarely set in stone.
SUE arrived here at the Field in 1998 and was unveiled in 2000, wowing the world as the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex specimen discovered. But this didn’t mean scientists’ work was done; in a lot of ways, it was just getting started. SUE presented a unique opportunity to study hundreds of different bones that all belong to the same animal—a thrill for paleontologists.
As Field scientists and visiting researchers ask new questions and examine different parts of SUE’s skeleton, we keep honing in on a more complete picture of T. rex—both in life and in fossil form. We’ve been able to study why T. rex’s arms are tiny; learn what caused the holes in SUE’s jaw; and get a more accurate idea of how long SUE lived (28–33 years).
Now, SUE’s updated skeleton and new gallery bring to life the latest on what we know about T. rex. Curator of Dinosaurs Pete Makovicky gave us a rundown of some of the changes that give SUE a new look.
The Bozeman Daily Chroniclepeter has a story about the 9th circuit court ruling that all fossils in Montana are minerals. The AAPS is working with Peter Larson and an attorney to file an Amicus Brief. The goal is to as the court for an en banc hearing by a larger panel of judges to get this decision overturned.
A recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Decision reclassified fossils as minerals. Fossils now fall under the purview of Mineral Rights, taking their legal ownership from the land or property owner and placing them under the domain of the property's "Mineral Rights" holder.
This ruling applies to all fossils; vertebrates, invertebrates and plants. The drastic change in established law now puts academic and commercial paleontologist as well as the casual fossil collector and museum collections in great peril.
If this ruling stands, mineral right holders will be able to file lawsuits to take possession of any fossils collected on land that is privately held. Many museums are in jeopardy of losing important type specimens, and many wonderful fossil specimens that had been legally collected, prepared and sold could be seized and forfeited.
A court ruling like this can easily spill from Montana to rest of the states.
There are appeals to the decision being drafted, and AAPS, among other groups and museums want to fight this decision. AAPS has created a Go Fund Me page to raise funds to have an attorney produce and file an Amicus Brief. The goal being to ask the court for an en banc hearing by a larger panel of judges and get this decision overturned.
To read more about this and help donate to the cause to save fossils and preserve land owners rights, follow this link:
https://www.aaps.net/newsletter-index.html
We have new ESCONI shirts. Did you get one yet? They are available in children S (6-8) and adult sizes, S, M, and L.
They are available at all meetings and some field trip. Get yours today!
Oceans and asteroids share a similar chemical signature.
Cosmos Magazine has an article about the origin of Earth's water. A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets challenges the widely-accepted ideas - maybe it didn't come from an asteroid impact.
Earth’s water may not have originated solely from material carried by asteroids, according to new US research.
A study in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets led by Steven Desch from Arizona State University challenges widely-accepted ideas about the asteroidal origin of hydrogen in the planet’s water by suggesting it came in part from the solar nebula – clouds of dust and gas left over after the formation of the Sun.
And the researchers believe their findings could provide new insights about the development of other planets and their potential to support life.
To date, many scientists have supported a theory that all of Earth’s water came from asteroids, primarily because the ratio of deuterium, a heavier hydrogen isotope, to normal hydrogen is similar in ocean and asteroidal samples.
Certainly the ocean chemical signature is close to what is found in asteroids, but that may not be the whole story, explains Desch.
“It’s a bit of a blind spot in the community,” he says. “When people measure the ratio in ocean water and they see that it is pretty close to what we see in asteroids, it was always easy to believe it all came from asteroids.”
Spanish and Argentine investigators working on the extraction of the remains of three dinosaurs in the Argentine province of Neuquen. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images
The Guardian has a story about a new sauropod dinosaur discovered in Argentina. It lived about 110 million years ago and was found by a team of Spanish and Argentinian paleontologists. Lavocatisaurus agrioensis was described in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
A team of Spanish and Argentinian paleontologists have discovered the remains of dinosaurs that lived 110m years ago in the centre of the country, the National University of La Matanza has revealed.
The remains came from three separate dinosaurs from the herbivorous group of sauropods, the best known of which are the Diplodocus and Brontosaurus. This new species has been named Lavocatisaurus agrioensis.
“We found most of the cranial bones: the snout, the jaws, a lot of teeth, also the bones that define the eye sockets for example and, in that way, we were able to create an almost complete reconstruction,” said Jose Luis Carballido, a researcher at the Egidio Feruglio museum and the national council of scientific investigations.
Parts of the neck, tail and back were also found.
“Not only is this the discovery of a new species in an area where you wouldn’t expect to find fossils, but the skull is almost complete,” added Carballido.
The Smithsonian has a piece about a recently rediscovered 70 million year old fossil bird from the Cretaceous Period. The specimen was originally found 25 years ago in the Kaiparowits Formation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It's called Miracre eatoni, and it was about the size of a turkey vulture. It has been described in a new paper in the journal PeerJ.
The completeness of the fossil allowed researchers to figure out how the birds flew and shows that by the end of the Cretaceous some enantiornithines had developed many features that made them good flyers with traits similar to those that modern birds developed after the mass extinction.
“We know that birds in the early Cretaceous, about 115 to 130 million years ago, were capable of flight but probably not as well adapted for it as modern birds,” Atterholt says in a press release. “What this new fossil shows is that enantiornithines, though totally separate from modern birds, evolved some of the same adaptations for highly refined, advanced flight styles.”
The wait is almost over, SUE the T. rex* will be back on display at the Field Museum, starting Friday, December 21. Plan your visit to see SUE's new digs and experience the world’s biggest and most complete T. rex like never before.
Step into the world of SUE and uncover what our scientists discovered about the life of our fearsome fossil. Experience a unique multimedia show for visitors of all ages to see how scientists believed SUE walked and stalked prey.
Learn how the fossil was unearthed, and how scientists continue to make discoveries about SUE today, including important updates to the skeleton, resulting in a more scientifically accurate pose than ever before. Check out fossils of other dinosaurs and animals from the Cretaceous period, and test your T. rex knowledge with an interactive quiz, all under the watchful eye of SUE.
SUE can't wait to eat, er, meet you on 12.21.18.
“EnSUEsiasts” can follow @SUEtheTrex on Twitter for updates.
*The Griffin Dinosaur Experience, made possible by the generous support of the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund, includes a special traveling exhibition, Antarctic Dinosaurs; Máximo the Titanosaur; updates to SUE the T. rex and the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet; and new dinosaur education programs.
For more information, send an email to ESCONI webmaster at diannal20@yahoo.com
