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A geology charity in Gloucestershire (the Gloucestershire Geology Trust (GGT)) has been awarded £39,500 by the Heritage Lottery Fund grant to recruit "geowardens". The money will be used to train volunteers to manage the Huntley and Longhope Geology and Landscape Trail. The trail sites include fossilised coral reefs and an outcrop of volcaniclastic rocks centred around the village of Huntley. This village has a special role in the geological history of the county and of great importance. because you can see and touch the rocks that were part of the collision of continents some 460 million years ago, and where the Earth's crust was wrenched apart around 250 million years ago. The wardens will be trained in conservation and rural skills to help conserve the geodiversity around the villages of Huntley and Longhope.
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A new study has suggested that Neanderthals were already on the verge of extinction in Europe by the time modern humans arrived. By conducting a new DNA analysis, Neanderthals in western Europe died out as early as 50,000 years ago. This would make it several thousands of years before our own species appeared. The study was made on fossil specimens from Europe and Asia from a period ranging from 100,000 years ago to about 35,000 years ago and have shown to mark a considerable genetic variation between western Neanderthal and Asian Neanderthal. Changes in the climate and other factors may have been important contributors.
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A wide diversity of fossils from amphibians, plants, fish to invertebrates, was discovered in the Borders. This has unearthed a missing chapter of evolution, and has changed our understanding of the theory of evolution on earth. The fossils are dated from the “Romer’s Gap” time, a period between 345 and 360 million years ago, when it was concluded low levels of oxygen limited evolution on earth. The gap was named after the American palaeontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer who made the conclusion. However, the newly-unveiled fossils shed light on a period that previously had been almost blank.
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An anonymous discoverer has handed a dinosaur bone to Sunderland Museum. It was discovered in their back garden when digging up tree roots. Experts concluded that the bone was up to 130myrs old and is thought to be from an Iguanodon. However, the rocks from where the bone was discovered are from the Permian, which are 250myrs old. The only explanation is that the bone was lost or dr0pped by someone in the past and that it perhaps originated from the Wealden of southeast England, which is famous for Iguanodon remains. The dinosaur bone is now on display at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.
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Ever since 1706, when surgeons first dissected an elephant in Scotland, the structure of the elephant’s foot has always baffled scientists. They found what was thought to be a strange and large lump of cartilage that helped support the elephant’s colossal weight. However, a series of recent CT scans, histology and dissection has concluded that this large lump is actually a sixth toe, because it has a strong similarity with an unusual bone that is found in the front feet of pandas. To find out why elephants have six toes, scientists had to refer to the fossil record. Early elephants, which were present 55mya, had completely different feet, being flat. However, about 40mya, as they grew larger, their feet evolved, also getting larger with a sixth toe used to give the elephant a tip-toed stance. And it seems that elephants are still evolving this sixth toe today.
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A new species of ichthyosaur has been discovered from deposits laid down at a time when most of that family of reptiles were thought to have died out. The rare ichthyosaur find from the Braunschweig area, northern Germany, is 130myrs old, dating from the Lower Cretaceous. Most ichthyosaur fossils date from the Jurassic era, millions of years before. The discovery was made during roadworks in 2005, although it has taken time for this new species, Acamptonectes densus, to be officially named. Interestingly, because the neck vertebrae were so tightly packed, it would not have been able to move its neck and, certainly, this find will raise new question about the Jurassic extinction theory.
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A fracture discovered on an ancient skull from China may be the oldest documented evidence of violence between humans. The fossil is around 50,000-200,000 years old, and suffered blunt force trauma to the right temple. They actually survived the injury which completely healed. Although highly unlikely, a hunting accident may have been the cause. Scientists do admit, that the power of the blow points towards deliberate violence. The type of injury may have been a stone cobble, being smashed into the persons head.
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The geological important site (SSSI) at Bearreraig Bay, in the isle of Skye, has been damaged in an organised search for valuable specimens. SNH has appealed for witnesses to contact the police. Tonnes of rock has been disturbed at the site and Dinosaur footprints may also have been removed from Valtos on Skye. The actions went against guidelines in the Scottish Fossil Code. The codes does allow for the use of mechanical diggers, rock saws and even explosives for extracting fossils, but only when it was to the benefit of palaeontological research.
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There has always been an ongoing debate over the fate of the earliest birds, which first evolved around 200mya. Researchers at Yale University now suggest that the same meteorite impact that coincided with the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65mya also saw a rapid decline in early bird species. They claim that just a few groups survived the mass extinction, evolving into modern bird. By studying fragmentary bird fossils collected up to 100 years ago from locations across North America, scientists have been able to date bird fossils to within 300,000 years of the extinction event. Specimens have been reanalysed and reclassified using features of the shoulder joint to assign the fossils to modern and ancient groups. Until now, many early birds have been thought to have evolved in the same way as modern species. However, this recent research shows most of the early birds to be very different.
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The oldest rodent fossils have been found in South America, along the Ucayali River near Contamana, in Peru. Specimens comprising tiny teeth of mouse-sized and rat-sized animals have been dated at 41mya, some 10myrs older than all previous discoveries. Features seen in the dentition suggest the animals probably ate soft seeds and plant parts, just like many small rodents do today. An analysis of pollen from the same samples suggests they would have scurried around in a similar rainforest to the modern Ucayali River and would have measured between 15 and 18cm from nose to tail.
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An amazing find has been made in a small grey puddle, tucked away in a corner of the world famous Giant’s Causeway. A colony of stromatolites was spotted by Professor Andrew Cooper from the School of Environmental Sciences at the nearby University of Ulster, who was looking for very different sorts geological formations. Although this could indicate that they could be far more widespread than previously known, it seems that a very unusual set of events caused them to occur in just one specific spot. Stromatolites are formed by blue-green algae that excrete carbonate to form a dome-like structure and were very common in the Precambrian. Over thousands of years these build up into a hard rock that continues to grow. Normally, they are found in warm, saline waters, but these Irish ones seem to have been formed in quite different conditions.
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The Cotswold Water Park covers 42 square miles on the Gloucestershire/Wiltshire border and contains about 150 lakes. Parts of the park are home to sand and gravel quarries (indeed, the lakes are the remains of disused quarries), one of which has yielded an array of important fossils over recent years. The Cotswold Water Park Society holds regular trips to the site and, on one of those trips in March 2011, two children found two rare specimens of the ammonite, Rieneckia. One of these ammonites measured 40cm in diameter and will be displayed at the Gateway Information Centre, along with a range of other fossils from the park.
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Fossil remains, recovered from the Hotel Mesa Quarry in Utah, of a new sauropod dinosaur, have suggested that it must have had extremely powerful legs. The dinosaur has been named Brontomerus mcintoshi, which translates from the Greek as “Thunder-thighs”. The fossilised bones of two specimens - an adult and a juvenile - have been dated to about 110myrs-old. The remains are not complete, due to the site having being looted by commercial fossil hunters, but are enough to classify it as a new species.
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Scientists are studying a unique 95myrs-old specimen of a snake with the leg bones preserved. The snake (Eupodophis descouensi), found in the Lebanon, is only one of three examples in the world to have preserved leg bones. Using high-resolution 3D images (because all the bones were obscured inside the limestone matrix), it was revealed that, although the snake had ankle bones, it had neither feet nor toes. This suggests evolutionary change was underway to make snakes completely ‘legless’. One of two theories suggests a land origin for these animals, in which lizards started to burrow and, as they adapted to their subterranean existence, their legs were reduced and lost – firstly, the fore-limbs and then the hind-limbs. However, a second theory suggests that their origin was in water and they evolved from marine reptiles. Scientists are hoping to solve the mystery using this latest find.
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In 1834, fossilised remains, which were initially thought to be of a large reptile, were found on Durdham Downs by quarry workers. However, they were identified in 1836 as an entirely new species of dinosaur – Codontosaurus. A family day event on the 22 February 2011 and a public lecture on 24 February 2011 celebrated this important find.
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