Three research studies conducted at and including Wrangel-St. Elias National Park show evidence that dinosaurs once roamed the area, marine invertebrate fossils are the most abundant and varied fossil resources in several national parks in Alaska and there are troubling levels of harmful mercury in fish found at the park. In a study published in Cretaceous Research and conducted in October 2012 by Anthony R. Fiorillo, Thomas L. Adams and Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, evidence of dinosaurs was based on the finding of an unnamed nonmarine sedimentary package of rocks. Found in the Wrangellia Terrane and considered to be Cretaceous age, the rocks are light colored with medium grey shales and indicate a bounty of horsetails, ferns and gymnosperm wood. …show more content…
While a theropod “beast-footed” carnivore includes the T. Rex, the ones that likely roamed Wrangel-St.Elias National Park were considerably smaller. The researchers found evidence of a single theropod that was likely a tiny 9 cm long and 7 cm wide due to an impression of the sinusoidal shape. Several ornithopod, medium and large plant-eating dinosaurs, was identified by blunt and rounded digit impressions which are usually 22 cm long and 26 wide. It was the first evidence that dinosaurs roamed this vast region. In a broader study of several national parks in Alaska, conducted in October 2009 by Robert B. Blodgett and David. M. Rohr, documented the varied and abundant marine invertebrate fossils. The team studied Paleozoic and Mesozoic marine faunas in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Denali National Park, Yukon-Charley River National Preserve and Glacier Bay National Park. They found that upper triassic gastropods from the chitistone limestone in Wrangell-St. Elias included a wide variety of early norian gastropods very similar to the fauna of the Hells Canyon region of the boundary of Oregon and …show more content…
Wrangell-St Elias is one in four Alaskan national parks that tested positive for mercury. In some cases the levels exceeded the State of Alaska’s human consumption levels of mercury for women and children. The test was part of a multi-year U.S. geological survey and study of fish in high elevation lakes and streams. Mercury was found in all fish and can be harmful to other fish, wildlife, humans etc. The mercury was found in fish in Copper, Tanada, and Summit Lakes. Consuming high amounts of mercury can damage developing brains in babies and
Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge is a protected park in New Mexico located in the Chihuahuan desert around 20 miles north of Socorro, New Mexico. The Rio Salado flows through the refuge and is a tributary of the Rio Grande joining the Rio Grande just 15 miles north of Socorro, New Mexico. The refuge area currently hosts the Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program by the University of New Mexico. While research into parasites in mammals and other species that habituate in the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge has been done, there has not been any studies on snails and digenean parasites in the region. Understanding and mapping the physid snail and digenean parasite habitat could help estimate the biodiversity of the digenean
Kathy Conlan is an expert in understanding the weird and wonderful world of marine creatures that live deep under the Arctic ice. She specializes in marine benthic biology and amphipod systematics. Kathy studies how human and natural changes affect marine life in the Arctic and Antarctic, the effects of pollution on marine life as well as global warming. She is past chief officer for Life Sciences in the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and is a judge for SCAR’s Martha T. Muse Prize for Science and policy in Antarctica, represents Canada for the Canadian Committee on Antarctic Research, taught at Huntsman Marine Science Centre and Students On Ice, mentors university students and gives speaches and “Show and tells” at the museum.
At the intersection of Neva Road and U.S. 36 we examined three different members, the Smoky Hill, Fort Hayes, and Codell, which belong to two different formations, Niobrara and Benton. The Smoky Hill and Fort Hayes belong to the Niobrara formation while Codell belongs to the Benton Formation. In the Niobrara’s Smoky Hill and Benton, Inoceramid clam (giant clam) fossils were found. These three formations are of Late Cretaceous.
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
The Crato Formation lithologies were most likely deposited when there was a marine transgression; which is what the Cretaceous period is renowned for (Hu et al. 2012). The build-up of laminated limestones and different lithologies in the stratigraphic column could suggest that it was a lagoon depositional environment (Martill and Frey, 1998).
Biologists, suited in wetsuits and snorkels, gently lift a large rock underwater before poking a dive light into the crevice. Two small eyes peek out at them, a wide grin and a flattened wrinkled body floating and bobbing with the current. The Eastern Hellbender, ancient giant salamanders that have roamed the Earth for millions of years, living dinosaurs that roam the bottom of non-polluted streams and shallow rivers preying on crawfish and earthworms.
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
I am going to tell you a little Haleakala National Park. Did you know that it was established on July 1, 1961 in Maui, Hawaii. I am going to tell you what the National park was used for, back in WW2 it was used as a Military base from 1941-1948. Did you know that it’s the only National Park that cares for some endangered animals that exist nowhere else?
There are three different chemical forms that mercury exists in and each has a specific effect on human health, however for the purpose of this paper only two will be talked about. The first is elemental mercury (Hg), which also called metallic mercury. In this form the primary health effect is when it is breathes as vapor where it can be absorbed through the lungs. Symptoms of this kind include tremors, emotional changes, insomnia, neuromuscular changes, headaches, disturbances in sensations, changes in nerve responses, and performance deficits on tests of cognitive functions. At higher doses there can be kidney effects, respiratory failure, and even death. In this form it is emitted into the air from coal-fired power plants, waste incinerators, smelting plants, which is by far the leading man-made source of mercury in the Great Lakes. It is released into the air and transported by air currents and will eventually fall and be deposited in soil or water. This is particularly important to the people living in Michigan because in Detroit the mercury found in rain has been
British Colombia in Canada, much like California in the United States, used to be a shallow sea and home to much sea life and is now home to thousands of marine animal fossils. For this reason it is believed that Dinosaur Provincial Park consisted of a lot of sands and muds that are characteristic of costal plains (Sues, Henderson, & Tanke, 2010, pg. 1292). When Sues, Henderson, and Tanke (2010) where going about measuring fossil shifts and the amount of fossils that have been lost they took into account the amount of soil that erodes away every year, the vertical and horizontal distribution fossils found within the park, and large landmarks such as rivers and glaciers that could effect fossils in the area (pg.1293). Accounting for these factors
These techniques led to the discovery of the boundary between the two eras. A single thin layer of clay found within predominantly limestone rocks established this. By comparing the marine life found in, above, and below the clay, the marine life, like the dinosaurs, had been terribly affected by the extinction event. The percentage of life in the upper layers was dramatically lower than that in the lower. This was far more compelling than what was suggested by dinosaur’s fossils.
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals from morphological, taxonomic, and ecological viewpoints. Birds are the most diverse group of vertebrates apart from perciform fish. With the help of fossil evidences, paleontologists have recognized more than 500 definite genera and over 1,000 distant species of non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are represented on every continent by both surviving species (birds) as well as fossil remains. During the first half of the 20th century, before birds were acknowledged to be dinosaurs, the majority of the scientific community suspected dinosaurs to have been listless and
According to the research made by Alvarez (1980), it was due to an asteroid impact that single-handedly destroyed dinosaurs to extinction. Advocacy of this mechanism has been aided by the availability and tangibility of supporting evidence in the form of impact craters- the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan Peninsula's date and timing of impact (dating produced an almost exact date of 65 million years ago), location, enormous size-170 km (Hildebrand et al.1991) and its high iridium content ( a metal not commonly found at the Earth's surface) make it seem that with a theoretical asteroid 10 km big caused the crater great damage at the end of the Cretaceous (Alvarez et al. 1980).
In statistical terms, the GBR is a habitat for 400 coral species, 500 seaweed species, 4,000 mollusk species, 1,500 fish species, 20 sea snake species, six turtle and dugong species, and over 200 bird species. It is additionally visited by about 30 species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. The GBR is vital to the survival of many of these species, such as the dugong, whose GBR population is one of the largest in the world. It is not surprising that such an extensive ecosystem was declared a World Heritage Area in 1981 by meeting all four of the natural heritage demands. These criteria involve geological representations of evolution, current biological and ecological processes, outstanding beauty, and considerable biodiversity (Chadwick and Storrie p.1-2, CRC p.1-2, Guynup p.22).
For over a century, paleontologists have been collecting abundant dinosaur fossils from the Western Interior of North America, with many of these fossils found in rocks dating back to the final stages of the Cretaceous Period. Only recently, however, have we learned that most of these dinosaurs existed on a “lost continent” today referred to as ‘Laramidia”. (Switek, 2010)