Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Zanno, Field Museum, Nothronychus graffami in News

MSNBC...

A multi-institutional team of scientists this week reports the discovery of a giant new dinosaur in Utah, Nothronychus graffami, which stood 13 feet tall and had nine-inch-long hand claws that looked like scythes.

Its skeleton, described in the current issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B, represents the most complete remains ever excavated of a therizinosaur, meaning "reaper lizard." It is one of only three such dinosaurs ever found in North America.

Lead author Lindsay Zanno told Discovery News that therizinosaurs, including the new Utah species, "are unusual in that they have small heads with a keratinous beak at the front of the mouth — the same material as the beak of modern birds — and small leaf-shaped teeth."

"Their bellies are proportionally enormous, supporting large guts," added Zanno, who is a researcher in the Department of Geology at The Field Museum. "They have greatly enlarged claws on their hands, short legs and tails, and four-toed feet."

SUMMER EVENTS - 2009

SUMMER EVENTS - E.S.C.O.N.I and CGMA At the  Dupage County Fair July 22, 2009 thru July 27, 2009

 

 

E.S.C.O.N.I. members will be participating at the Dupage County Fair as part of the CGMA (Chicagoland Gem and Mineral Association) Demonstations from July 22 to July 27.   CGMA Members will show wire wrapping, silver smithing, fossil preparation, geode splitting and more.

 

 

 

 

Grandmothers Find Gold

Via New York Times:

Sweden....Berry picking is a serious business to Mrs. Wiik (pronounced VEEK), who was born in this village of 171, and her friend, Harriet Svensson, 69. For 40 years the two, widows with children and grandchildren, have explored every patch of field and forest clearing in the region, hunting for mushrooms and wild berries — blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cloudberries.

But the women are also amateur geologists. They never leave home for a stroll in forests or fields without their geologists’ hammers, with their 30-inch handles, and their magnifying eyepieces, dangling from ribbons around their necks.

So in that terrible August when the blueberry crop failed, they decided to poke around for minerals....Using their hammers, they cleared soil from around the stones, digging for about six hours, deeper and deeper, until they found a rock with a dull glimmer...

Platinum Inclusions in Diamonds

From Geology.com:

...journal Nature, researchers from the Carnegie Institution and the University of Cape Town presented their findings after studying 2 billion year-old diamonds mined near the famed Bushveld Complex, a unique and mysterious geological formation in central South Africa. After analyzing mineral inclusions within the diamonds, the researchers believe both the diamonds and the magmas that gave rise to the Bushveld Complex have an ancient subcontinental mantle source...

Illustration Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation.

Greening Led to Cambrian Explosion

Via ScienceNews:

...While scientists can pinpoint this pivotal period as leading to life as we know it today, it is not completely understood what caused the Cambrian explosion of life. Now, researchers led by Arizona State University geologist L. Paul Knauth believe they have found the trigger for the Cambrian explosion.

It was a massive greening of the planet by non-vascular plants, or primitive ground huggers, as Knauth calls them. This period, roughly 700 million years ago virtually set the table for the later explosion of life through the development of early soil that sequestered carbon, led to the build up of oxygen and allowed higher life forms to evolve...

Photos from Flickr

One can see many beautiful photos on Flickr. Here is a beautiful photo of a pyrite crystal as taken by cobalt123.