Rareresource
Friday, March 12, 2010
Dinosaurs strike roof at the Mount
To sight Dinosaur Footprints, all you have to do is look up.
And now a staircase and viewing platform has been constructed at the Fireclay Caverns in Mount Morgan, tourists can get an even better view of the best examples of early Jurassic Dinosaur footprints in existence.
As an integral part of the Mount Morgan Town and Mine tour, run by TMC Tours, the Fireclay Caverns have fascinated locals and visitors similar for years.
But given the height of the ceiling, the infrastructure improvement was required.
Mount Morgan Promotion and Development (MMPAD) president, Mr. John Steinberger said the new platform would complement the fantastic Dinosaur Fossil display at the Mount Morgan Mine Administration building and present a richer, more immersive experience for all.
"The younger ones who are all dinosaur mad are going to like this," Mr. Steinberger said.
Created by Mount Morgan Miners in the late 1800s as they excavated a rich clay deposit for firebricks to employ in the mines furnaces, the Fireclay Caverns are one of the largest man-made caverns in Australia.
Labels: Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaurs research, Real Dinosaur picture, Walking with Dinosaurs
Friday, March 5, 2010
Dog-sized creature was almost a dinosaur
Dino-like animal was tiny, weighing about that of a young child
A four-legged animal about the size of a large dog with a long tail is now the oldest known relative of Dinosaurs, dating back few 240 million years.
Paleontologists recently examined the bones from at least 14 individuals of this proto-dinosaur that were found out in southern Tanzania.
The dino-like animal was small, weighing about that of a young child, and possiblely munched on plants.
Until now, the Fossil record proposes that the oldest known dinosaurs went back just 230 million years. But the new finding, tells scientists dinosaurs were around much earlier and their lineage had already split off from a group of dinosaur-like relatives by about 240 million years before.
From the various bones of the species now called Asilisaurus kongwe, Sterling Nesbitt, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and his colleagues pieced together a nearly whole skeleton of the animal.
The researchers believe the dinosaur relative was about 3 to 10 feet long (1 to 2 meters) from nose to tail and about 3 feet (1 meter) tall from head to toes, Nesbitt said. The animal weighed in the neighborhood of 10 to 30 kg.
It walked on all fours and sported an upturned beak possibly enveloped in a horny substance and peg-like teeth tipped with tiny serrations.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs research
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Giant Snake Ate Baby Dinosaurs
The final thing hatchling Dinosaurs might have seen were giant snakes, researchers say.
Scientists found out the nearly complete remains of an 11-foot-long, 67-million-year-old serpent coiled around a crushed Dinosaur egg right next to a hatchling in the nest of a sauropod dinosaur, the largest animals to have ever walked the Earth.
"We think that the hatchling had just exited its egg, and that activity attracted the snake," said researcher Dhananjay Mohabey, a paleontologist at the Geological Survey of India. It was such a thrill to find out such a portentous moment frozen in time.
The dinosaur eggs likely were laid along the sandy banks of a small, quiet tributary and sheltered afterward by the mother with a thin layer of sediment. These dinosaurs did not seem to look after their young - no evidence for adults has been established at the site.
The fact the bones and delicate structures, such as eggshells and the snake's skull, are set in anatomical order (as they would appear in real life) points to rapid entombment of a serpent caught in the act, as opposed to them all getting washed together after they died.
"Burial was rapid and deep," said Shanan Peters-, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin. Probably a pulse of slushy mud and sand released during a storm.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs research
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Island of dwarf dinosaurs did exist
An island of "dwarf dinosaurs" which was only a theory for 100 years really did survive, scientists have announced.
The idea of the tiny prehistoric beasts on Hateg Island, Romania, was proposed 100 years before by the colourful Baron Franz Nopcsa, whose family owned estates in the area.
He discovers that many dinosaur remains on Hateg were half the size of their close relatives in older rocks in England, Germany, and North America.
The baron's theory has been checked for the first time by Professor Mike Benton at the University of Bristol, and six other authors from Romania, Germany, and the United States.
The team found that the Hateg Island dinosaurs were in fact dwarfs and not just young dinosaurs.
A favourite theme of evolutionary ecologists is whether there is an "island rule" - where gigantic animals isolated on islands evolve to become smaller.
Three species of the Hateg dinosaurs - the plant-eating sauropod Magyarosaurus and the plant-eating ornithopods Telmatosaurus and Zalmoxes - are half the length of their close relatives elsewhere.
The team examined these three dinosaurs, each of them represented by many specimens. They found no evidence of any large bones such as they would expect to locate in their normal-sized relatives.
More importantly, a close study of the bones proved that the Dinosaurs had reached adulthood so they were not just underdeveloped youngsters.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs research, Walking with Dinosaurs
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Scientists decipher dinosaur colouration
Labels: dinosaur age, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur fossils, Dinosaur unit
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Dinosaur exhibition is first display for Golisano Children’s Hospital Treehouse Gallery
Mesozoica: The Age of Dinosaurs is the former exhibition to
be featured in the Gallery of the Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital. The exhibition features laboratory cast specimens of significant Fossil Discoveries and various dinosaurs. It is on display through March 31 for the benefit of patients and family members and their visitors during their reside in the hospital. Gallery hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Mesozoica: The Age of Dinosaurs is curated by the International Museum Institute of New York and was recently on display in the entrance hall of the Mulroy Civic Center.
“We’re enchanted to make our inaugural exhibit this exciting presentation of these prehistoric creatures and other important discoveries,†said Leola Rodgers, associate administrator for Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital.
Rodgers said that the gallery will host exhibitions throughout the year. Upcoming exhibitions may attribute artwork from area schools and colleges.
â€We have a wonderful space that permits patients and their families to leave the clinical setting and enjoy a intriguing art exhibit or other kinds of displays.â€
Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital, which opened in September 2009, features large private patient rooms, with a two-story treehouse enclosing a gallery, solarium, performance space and chapel.
Labels: Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaurs research, Real Dinosaur picture, Walking with Dinosaurs
Monday, December 28, 2009
'Queen of the Dinosaurs' dies in Scotts Valley
When Peggy Thompson's husband Larry died in 1965, she was in her early 40s, raising 3 small children and running a Scotts Valley nursery school.
If that weren't enough of a burden to carry from day to day for a new widow, she also had a different role to play.
She was the Queen of the Dinosaurs.
Peggy Thompson, who died Dec. 14 at the age of 86 at her home in Scotts Valley, was the owner and operator of one of the more unusual businesses in the extensive history of Santa Cruz County. It was called Lost World, and it was a Scotts Valley tourist attraction that featured 25 to 30 enormous, realistic, life-sized models of various different Species of Dinosaurs, some of which could be seen by drivers — many of whom were definitely startled out-of-towners — on Highway 17.
The entrance to Lost World was on Scotts Valley Drive, and featured a huge animatronic tree that served as the park's entrance, close to a T-rex looking out over the turret of a castle. The park also featured what was formerly known as the Tree Circus, a grove of trees meticulously grafted into the kinds of whimsical shapes never found in nature. The Thompsons bought the Tree Circus from its creator, Axel Erlandson, renaming it the Enchanted Forest, keeping Erlandson as a hired caretaker.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs research, Walking with Dinosaurs