Nomadic Expedition Gobi Trip Photos 2

Some of the canyons of the Nemegt Basin.


While one crew worked on the Oviraptor nest in the torrential rain the rest of stayed dry (after we'd retrieved all the blown away tents) and prepped and packed fossils.


Reopening the 2006 small theropod bone bed.

In the western sayr of the Nemegt Basin we came upon an odd sight – a stacked series of stones. It took us a while to figure out that it was a platform used by poachers to get at the fossils exposed under a ledge. Miriam points to the fossils that must have been too difficult for them get out.


A marker from one of the early Russian expeditions.

Dr. Julia Sankey collects a theropod tooth. Isolated teeth are rare in the Nemegt Fm.


One of the nicer turtles that we collected.


Susan Owen Kagan(lt) with Dr. Badamgarov.


Part of pelvis left behind by poachers who smashed and destroyed a beautiful skeleton just to collect the teeth and claws (just one of the dozens of poached quarries in the Nemegt Basin).


Julia and Nick Longrich work on one of the lizards they collected.


Dr. Eva Koppelhus and Victoria Arbour help pack up camp.


One my goals on this expedition was to collect the remains of a Tarbosaurus from a poached quarry. Although the specimen was smashed, and the skull, hands and feet were missing, much of the rest of the skeleton was there including an articulated series of dorsal vertebrate that were still in situ. Alas, this is what we found - an empty vodka bottle (one of many) in the hole left by the poachers who must have returned and re-poached their own quarry!

Nomadic Expedition Gobi Trip Photos 1

The first of an uncoming batch of photos from my time in the Gobi this past summer. First up, photos from the Nomadic Expeditions trip that I co-lead with Philip Currie from the U of Alberta, and Dr. Badamgarov from the Paleontological Institute in Ulaanbaater:


Our camp in the Late Cretaceous Nemegt Basin. The tall grey tents were all destroyed in a wind and sand strom a few days later.


Sue and Melissa collect a fossil in the Western Sayr [=valley/coulee].


A hadrosaur(?) tibia in the Western Sayr.


Al doles out cheer in our supper ger. Astrid's at the far left and Tom Owen and Phil Currie are to Al's right.


Our guide/coordinator from NE, Singa, helped out at most of our quarries whenever he could. Mary Ann is in the foreground.


The aftrermath of heavy rains that lasted almost 24 hours.


After the rains came the heavy winds that blew many of the tents to the horizon. Miriam and Victoria reinact fighting the winds.


Victoria with one of the many footprints to be found in the basin.

New hadrosaur, Gryposaurus monumentensis

A new species of Gryposaurus (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) from the late Campanian Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah, USA. 2007. T.A. Gates and Ascot Sampson. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 151: 351–376.

Congrats to Bucky and Scott on thier new hadrosaur species (and to Mike Getty and the rest of the crew who also put their collective shoulders to the task!).



From NationalGeographic.com:

The skull was buried in sediments dating to the Late Cretaceous period—about 75 million years ago—in what is now Utahs Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A team of high school students and volunteers from the Alf Museum in Claremont, California, first discovered the fossil in remote sandstone badlands in 2002.

The fossil was excavated and airlifted by helicopter from the where it was discovered and taken to the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.

Gates and colleague Scott Sampson studied the skull, and concluded that it is a new species of hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur. The species was given the scientific name Gryposaurus monumentensis in honor of the national monument where the skull was unearthed.

Download the paper for free HERE.

Mass Drowning of Wildebeest In Kenya

Anyone who has worked in large dinosaur bone beds (hands up everyone who’s worked with me in a Centrosaurus bone bed (I can’t see you in back!)) will be very interested in this story:

From Blake de Pastino at National Geographic News:

In a bizarre mishap that conservationists describe as "heartbreaking," an estimated 10,000 wildebeest have drowned while attempting to cross Kenya's Mara River during an annual migration. The deaths, which occurred over the course of several days last week, are said to account for about one percent of the total species population.

The drownings created a grotesque wildlife pileup, after part of the migrating herd tried to ford the Mara at "a particularly treacherous crossing point," according to Terilyn Lemaire, a conservation worker with the Mara Conservancy who witnessed the incident. The first animals into the river failed to cross and drowned, while others continued to stampede into the water behind them, Lemaire told National Geographic News by email.

"Once they jumped into the water, they were unable to climb up either embankment onto land and, as a result, got swept up by the current and drowned," she said.
Some 2,000 wildebeest drowned at the crossing in a single afternoon, Lemaire estimated.

"There was no unusual flooding at the time, and there seems to be no extraneous circumstances to these deaths," she said. "The wildebeest merely chose a crossing point that was too steep."

Drowning deaths are not uncommon during the migration, Lemaire added, but her organization has never witnessed fatalities on this scale.

"It is customary every year for the wildebeest to pick a particularly treacherous crossing point and for there to be a significant die-off," she said, "but the number of deaths during these crossings almost never exceeds one thousand."
The deaths occurred at Kenya's Maasai Mara National Reserve, as the herd was beginning its swing to the east on its way back to the Serengeti.

More than a million wildebeest undertake an epic migration every year in late summer, leaving their calving grounds in the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania to seek greener pastures in Kenya to the north. The animals, also known as gnu, journey some 3,200 km each year, often joined by thousands of zebras and Thomson's gazelles.

The remains formed what she described as "pungent islands of bloated carcasses. The crocodiles, storks, and vultures have not had to worry about where to find their next meal," she wrote.

"Those that aren't consumed will be left and will eventually decompose in the water. These thousands of carcasses will undoubtedly affect the health of the water, but to what extent, only time will tell."

Read Terilyn Lemaire's blog entry with more photos at Mara Conservation

Listen, do you smell that?!

Late Archean Biospheric Oxygenation and Atmospheric Evolution. 2007. Alan J. Kaufman et al. Science 317: 1900-1903.

A Whiff of Oxygen Before the Great Oxidation Event?. 2007. Ariel D. Anbar et al. Science 317: 1903-1906.

From the press release:

Two teams of scientists report that traces of oxygen appeared in Earth’s atmosphere roughly 100 million years before the “Great Oxidation Event” 2.4 billion years ago. The Great Oxidation Event is when most geoscientists think atmospheric oxygen rose sharply from very low levels and set the stage for animal life that followed almost two billion years later.

graphs=real science

Analyzing layers of sedimentary rock in a kilometer-long core sample they retrieved in 2004 from the Hamersley Basin in Western Australia, the researchers found evidence for the presence of a small but significant amount of oxygen 2.5 billion years ago in the oceans and likely also in Earth’s atmosphere.

Because the core was recovered from deep underground, it contains materials untouched by the atmosphere for billions of years.

A cartoon by Tom Bagley, just beacuse I can.

Live Newt at SVP

image

The former U.S. Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, will be speaking on Thursday, October 18, at the Austin Convention Center, from 12:30 to 1:30, during the lunch break on the SVP schedule. His presentation will be entitled:

“Dinosaurs, Birds, and the Challenge of Science in the 21st Century”

Note: I'm on the road this week so expect postings to be light.

Horned-Dinosaur Symposium Photos 4

Andy Farke

Field Trip particiapants wave from the new DPP pachyrhinosaur quarry.

Peter Dodson

Don Brinkman, Bob Sullivan & Joe Vipond.

Tony Fiorillo

Horned-Dinosaur Symposium Photos 3

Dinosaur Park in all its beauty.


Dave Eberth explains it all (while Don holds the map).

Philip Currie

Doug Wolfe


Hmmm...is the bus supposed to tip that way, Fred?

Horned-Dinosaur Symposium Photos 2

Tetsuto wears a suit!


Long-time volunteers Brad, Carolyn, Karen with Dr. Vickaryous.

One of Jim Kirtland's new ceratopsids from Utah (hope that knee is better Jim!).


Don Brinkman leads the field trip participants to DPP.


Waiting to hike down to the Centrosaurus BB 91.

Horned-Dinosaur Symposium Photos 1

Photos taken between Sept 21-24, 2007, at the symposium:


Nick's turtle (with cake) collected this past summer from the Milk River Formation as part of the Southern Alberta Dinosaur Research Group's on-going work and now under prep at the RTMP.


Donna M. and David Evans.


Donna's tatoo of "Mr. Daspleto", a prep project that consumed much of her life at one point.


Part of the U of Calgary VP grad student contingent: (L to R) Robin, Caleb, Jordan & Nic.


Some of the U of Alberta students: (L to R) Victoria, Miriam, & Tetsuto.

Mammoth DNA

Whole-Genome Shotgun Sequencing of Mitochondria from Ancient Hair Shafts. 2007. M. Thomas P. Gilbert, et al. Science 317: 1927-1930.

Art by Roy Krenkel from Tanar of Pellucidar

Abstract: Although the application of sequencing-by-synthesis techniques to DNA extracted from bones has revolutionized the study of ancient DNA, it has been plagued by large fractions of contaminating environmental DNA. The genetic analyses of hair shafts could be a solution: We present 10 previously unexamined Siberian mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) mitochondrial genomes, sequenced with up to 48-fold coverage. The observed levels of damage-derived sequencing errors were lower than those observed in previously published frozen bone samples, even though one of the specimens was >50,000 14C years old and another had been stored for 200 years at room temperature. The method therefore sets the stage for molecular-genetic analysis of museum collections.

From the press release:

A new DNA-method to examine hair will give us more precise information about why the mammoth died out, or what the ingredients are in the cocktail of human races that are mixed in Europe and elsewhere.



“So far you would have to drill in old bones if you wanted to compare the genetic imprint of mammoths to that of elephants, or if you wanted to see how they coped during the ice-age before they died out. Usually, the problem is that the remaining DNA samples have been scarce, and that they have been “polluted” by bacteria. But DNA from hair is very clean because it has been encapsulated in keratin, a kind of plastic membrane that protects the hair and the DNA” says Thomas Gilbert.

The centre of research has been the mitochondria. A mitochondrion is a kind of power plant in the cell, and it is very suitable for use in comparable DNA-studies of both mammals and humans.

Cerasinops hodgskissi

Last week Brenda Chinnery-Allgeier, one of the co-conveners of the Horned Dinosaur Symposium at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, and all around terrific person, was the lead author on a new basal ceratopsian published in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology

From the press release:

A dinosaur skeleton found 24 years ago in Montana has finally been identified as a new species that links North American dinosaurs with Asian dinosaurs. The dinosaur would have weighed 30 to 40 pounds, walked on two feet and stood about three feet tall. The fossil came from sediment that's about 80 million years old.



Co-author Jack Horner, curator of paleontology at Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies, said he found the nearly-complete skeleton in 1983 near Choteau, in northwest Montana, but it was located in extremely hard rock and took a long time to prepare.

"I knew it was probably a new dinosaur, but it took someone that really knew what they were doing to be able to describe it," Horner said.

The dinosaur, nicknamed Cera, was named Cerasinops hodgskissi after landowner Wilson Hodgskiss. who gave him permission to collect the skeleton for the Museum of the Rockies, Horner said. The fossil was found about five miles south of Choteau, in a different area than the famed Egg Mountain site.

The C. hodgskissi is such a simple specimen that it's hard to describe in terms of distinguishing characteristics, Horner said. Tests, however, showed that it represents a very primitive species that shares characteristics of Neo-ceratopsian dinosaurs in North America and Asia. Ceratopsian dinosaurs have horns, but these do not.

Im In Ur Gobi Pullin Ur Tail

U of A VP grad students Miriam Reichel (lt) and Victoria Arbour (rgt) goof around in pass through the Hongrenel Dunes in the western gobi while we wait for the trucks to cool down (Aug. 24). Miriam had bought a camel hair rope from one of the nomads and was using it as a belt, much to everyone else's amusement.

Now that I'm more or less back from my summer adventures I'll be posting a lot of photos from my Gobi expeditions and the smashing successful recent Horned Dino conference at the RTMP in Drumheller from this past weekend.

Feathered Velociraptor

Feather Quill Knobs in the Dinosaur Velociraptor. 2007. Alan H. Turner, et al. Science Vol. 317: 1721.


Fig. 1. (A) Dorsal view of right ulna of Velociraptor IGM 100/981. (B) Detail of red box in (A), with arrows showing six evenly spaced feather quill knobs. In (B), a cast of IGM 100/981 was used. (C) Dorsal view of right ulna of a turkey vulture (Cathartes). (D) Same view of Cathartes as in (C) but with soft tissue dissected to reveal placement of the secondary feathers and greater secondary coverts relative to the quill knobs. (E) Detail of Cathartes, with one quill completely removed to reveal quill knob. (F) Same view as in (E) but with quill reflected to the left to show placement of quill, knob, and follicular ligament. Follicular ligament indicated with arrow.

Abstract: Some nonavian theropod dinosaurs were at least partially covered in feathers or filamentous protofeathers. However, a complete understanding of feather distribution among theropod dinosaurs is limited because feathers are typically preserved only in lagerstätten like that of Solnhofen, Germany or Liaoning, China. Such deposits possess clear taphonomic biases toward small-bodied animals, limiting our knowledge regarding feather presence in larger members of feathered clades.

We present direct evidence of feathers in Velociraptor mongoliensis based on the presence of quill knobs on the posterior forearm. This report of secondaries in a larger-bodied, derived, and clearly flightless member of a nonavian theropod clade represented by feathered relatives is a substantial contribution to our knowledge of the evolution of feathers.

The Post Crania of Early Man

Postcranial evidence from early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. 2007. David Lordkipanidze, et al. Nature 449: 305-310.

Abstract: The Plio-Pleistocene site of Dmanisi, Georgia, has yielded a rich fossil and archaeological record documenting an early presence of the genus Homo outside Africa. Although the craniomandibular morphology of early Homo is well known as a result of finds from Dmanisi and African localities, data about its postcranial morphology are still relatively scarce.



Here we describe newly excavated postcranial material from Dmanisi comprising a partial skeleton of an adolescent individual, associated with skull D2700/D2735, and the remains from three adult individuals. This material shows that the postcranial anatomy of the Dmanisi hominins has a surprising mosaic of primitive and derived features. The primitive features include a small body size, a low encephalization quotient and absence of humeral torsion; the derived features include modern-human-like body proportions and lower limb morphology indicative of the capability for long-distance travel.

Thus, the earliest known hominins to have lived outside of Africa in the temperate zones of Eurasia did not yet display the full set of derived skeletal features.