Vertebrate Paleontology's Extinction

Pursuing geology as a career began as a child, enjoying playing in the rocks as do many adolescent children. Most of my youthful endeavors of this sort took place at my grandparent’s home in Jefferson City, Missouri. Specifically in their front and side yards in which they had pleasant shrubbery to match the gravel of which their grandson had intentions of creating into excavation sites. Minus the commercial equipment of course. For theatrical sake, let us imagine a five year old running a backhoe. Supervised or not, it is quite a petrifying thought. While amongst the rocks years later, thoughts about history that could be found within them arose. Then began my interest in common fossils, preserved in the rocks found at any average

Stephen Gould’s essay “Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs” completely agrees with Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb’s essay “Argument, Critical Thinking, and Rationality.” Gould’s essay deals with three theories for the extinction of the dinosaurs, two of which he argues are entirely invalid because they are not in accordance with the basic rules of argument laid out by Williams and Colomb in their essay. Gould also states that the third theory of dinosaur extinction, natural disaster, follows all the rules that Williams and Colomb espouse, and thus is a sound argument. Gould, Williams, and Colomb all state that the world has a problem with irrational arguments being shoved down people’s throats, and call for a

Day 1: It's day one of my expedition, exciting, we are documenting on a thought to be extinct tribe.

One summer my parents informed my brother Ben and I we were going on a trip to Yellowstone National Park. I had never been so excited for anything in my life. I had a passion and love for nature, and being that Yellowstone had some of the most beautiful and interesting geological features on Earth, I knew I would have a blast. They said we would be going in a few weeks, and I literally couldn’t wait. I kept asking questions upon questions, and finally, my dad just got annoyed. “Go research it, Juliette.” He said. “The internet will know more than I do.” I took his advice and went to research Yellowstone.

The question of what caused the extinction of megafauna during the Late Pleistocene period is one that archaeologists have struggled to answer for decades, but why should it matter? Discovering with certainty the cause of megafaunal extinction would

The lecture and reading are both about merits and demerits of collecting and buying the fossils by private collectors. The author of the reading states that rare and scientific fossils that are being sold to private collectors would have many negative consequences to scientists and general public. The lecture casts doubt on the claim made in this argument. She thinks that private collectors have rather benefitted for the public and scientists in further exploration of fossils.

The Black Hills Institution crew was very careful when transporting and Sue to Hill City. After arriving, the crew worked hard and carefully on preserving Sue and avoiding to make any mistakes. The people who worked on her when removing rocks and minerals from around the fossil were considered one of the best paleontologists even though they did not have a Ph.D. This said by Phillip Manning Ph.D. It was see y many that the Black Hills Institution knew

Throughout the book, Shubin illustrates the life of a paleontologist through engaging stories. Paleontologists work long hours, days and even years just to make one meaningful discovery, however each discovery contributes to a missing puzzle piece in evolution.. Shubin compares searching for fossils in the Arctic as “worse than finding the proverbial needle in the haystack” (Shubin, 2009). While reading through Shubin’s accounts of discovering fossils the reader will feel as if they are there uncovering new insights into the history of evolution. One can expect to learn about the arm, hand, teeth, head, nose, eyes and ears of

The fossils that are yet to be found in this project just very well may double the museum’s collection which is already at 3.5 million fossils. The project contains 16 fossil deposits that were recently unknown which makes us wonder how many more deposits are there left to discover (The Natural History Foundation, 2016). As technology advances and our understanding of these fossils grows it will be interesting to see what the future years will bring to the field of

The central idea of this article is the study of the Storr Lochs Monster and how its study can be applied to more fossils being found and studied in Scotland and in the Middle Jurassic Period. The author states that very few fossils can hunted down and studied in Scotland, and in the rest of the world fossils from the Middle Jurassic Period, when this creature lived, are very rare. Steve Brusatte, the Paleontologist from Scotland, said "We know that quite a lot was happening during the Middle Jurassic Period" he also said "It's frustrating because it seems like an active period in evolution but one with very few fossils" and also inputted that he hopes after the study of the Storr Lochs monster that an increase in Scottish paleontology can

Mary Anning’s contribution to the development of the understanding of how reptiles contributed to evolution and to the understanding of fossils as extinct life forms was important.

The author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils because amphibians that look dissimilar to fish were discovered in 365 million year old rocks, while fish without amphibian characteristics were discovered in 385 million year old rocks. Thus, it is possible that the evolutionary intermediary, or the “missing link” between fish and amphibians, would be discovered in 375 million year old rocks, between the two time periods. The rocks examined were sedimentary in composition, as the gradual and relatively gentle formation of sedimentary rock under conditions of mild pressure and low heat are conducive to the fossilization of animal remains. Sedimentary rock is also often formed in rivers and seas, where animals are likely to live. This site provides a resource that describes means by which fossils are formed and how the fossil record may be interpreted, and shows some examples of fossils demonstrating evolution through geological periods: http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord.htm. In 2004, Shubin and his colleagues were looking for fossils on Ellesmere Island, in northern Canada. This location was chosen because of its lack of human development, as well as of obstructing natural formations and life forms such as trees, which

In the science of paleontology, the history of life is studied. Paleontologists study fossils to learn the past ecologies, evolution, and the origins of humans. In order to understand the processes that have led to both the origination and destruction of organisms since life began, paleontologists incorporate both scientific knowledge and studies. Fossil findings are critically important for confirming predictions of evolution theory. Of the many discoveries that are made yearly to add depth to the understanding of evolution, an example is a recent discovery of a creature they named Tiktaalik. The Tiktaalik was uncovered to be a transitional animal between shallow-water fishes and limbed animals. The creature supports the idea that it emerged from both mammals and reptiles, suggesting that the two are related. These findings support prediction of evolution, contradicting the belief that God

There have been many theories to explain the dinosaur extinction. However, Walter Alvarez and colleagues had discovered the evidence for dinosaur extinction. They found the rocks laid down precisely at the K-T boundary contain extraordinary amounts of the metal iridium. And those materials of the rocks would not normally found on Earth’s surface. Then, they discovered those rocks were asteroids. Scientist discovered the K-T impact crater was deeply buried under in Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. The crater was 150-kilometer-wide. Scientists calculated that it likely caused by an object about 6 miles (10 km) across, would have released as much energy as 100 trillion tons of TNT. (Choi & Contributor, 2016) Moreover, scientists have concluded that

The Rising Star cave was pointed out to scientists by a group of spelunkers who squeezed through the narrow opening and saw the multitude of bones around the underground chamber. The opening was so narrow that few scientists could enter. Because of this, the cave was excavated by a team of six women called the “underground astronauts”. They uncovered more than 1,500 fossils belonging to the same species (Wilford 2015). The bones were distributed across nearly the entire chamber, including side passages (Dirks et. al. 2015: 14). The remains make up at least 15 individuals of a wide span of ages; almost every bone is represented more than once in the find. This allows researchers to study a full population instead of studying individuals (Kepp 2015). Many of the hands, feet, wrists, and ankles are nearly complete, though many of the longer bones are fragmented (Dirks et. al. 2015: 21). It is the largest find of fossils in Africa to date. These fossils have been classified as part of a new species of hominin, called Homo naledi because “naledi” means “star” in the Sotho language of the region (Gibbons 2015). It also refers to the Dinaledi Chamber within the Rising Star cave (Berger et. al. 2015: 3). This makes Homo naledi the best known fossil species in the human genus (Bower 2016).