Quartz in ancient bird stomach sheds new light on what it would have eaten
A bizzare, never-before-seen form of preservation could shed new light on a primeval type of bird.
Figuring out the lifestyle of animals can be difficult even for today’s creatures but for those that lived over 100 million years ago, it’s a massive challenge. But sometimes, researchers get lucky and find unusual fossils that shed new light on these ancient creatures.
A reconstruction of the bohaiornithid
Sulcavis, a close relative of Bohaiornis guoi, hunting an insect. Image credits: S. Abramowicz, Dinosaur Institute, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Norway: Lundin Energy drills dry well northwest of the 7220/11-1 (Alta) oil/gas discovery in the Barents Sea – 7219/11-1
02 Feb 2021
PL 533 B, has concluded the drilling of wildcat well
7219/11-1.
The well was drilled about 40 kms southwest of the Johan Castberg field, 35 kms northwest of the 7220/11-1 (Alta) oil/gas discovery and 225 kms northwest of Hammerfest.
The exploration target for the well was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks in the lower part of the Torsk Formation from the Early to Middle Palaeocene Age.
The well encountered a sandstone layer approx. 90 metres thick, mainly with poor reservoir quality. There are traces of petroleum.
Emilia A. Caylor; Barbara Carrapa; Kurt Sundell; Peter G. DeCelles; Joshua M. Smith
Abstract: The Upper Cretaceous Fort Crittenden Formation exposed in the Santa Rita and Huachuca Mountains of southeastern Arizona is a syntectonic deposit that has been associated with Laramide tectonic activity. However, the spatio-temporal relationships among Cretaceous sedimentation, magmatism, basement exhumation, and possible flat slab-related processes in the southern Laramide region remain poorly understood. Age controls for uplift and erosion of local topography and syntectonic deposition in response to deformation remain particularly poor. The Fort Crittenden Formation comprises 800?2500 m of locally derived fluvial to alluvial fan sedimentary rocks and records paleodrainage reorganization in response to active tectonics. Changes in sedimentary facies, provenance, and paleoflow suggest deposition in a tectonically partitioned intraforeland basin. New detrital zircon data constrain the timin
Science
2 months, 3 weeks
Scientists now have a much clearer picture of how some dinosaur species had sex thanks to the discovery of an unusually well-preserved fossil.
Found in Liaoning province, northeastern China, the 120 million-year-old fossil belonged to a Psittacosaurus.
This carnivorous species of dinosaur – roughly the size of a Labrador – was believed to have existed in parts of China, Mongolia, Siberia, and possibly Thailand and Laos during the Early Cretaceous period.
An intact cloaca.
The cloaca helped males know when sexy time was up. IMAGE: Cell.
The fossil, which is currently housed at Germany s Senckenberg Natural History Museum, comes with a well intact cloaca.
Norwegian oil and gas exploration seismic data company PGS has signed an agreement with Uruguay s state oil company ANCAP to reprocess over 11 000 km of existing 2D lines of various vintages, applying the latest seismic imaging techniques.