Oh That's A Pretty Angry Hoser There, Eh?: New Dromaeosaurid Fossils Discovered In Alberta

[Zillamaster55]

[url=http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/boreonykus-certekorum-new-dinosaur-canada-03715.html]Source[/url]
[quote]Dr. Phil Bell from the University of New England and Dr. Philip Currie from the University of Alberta, announced the discovery of Boreonykus certekorum this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

According to the team, this new dinosaur lived about 72 million years ago (Late Cretaceous epoch).

It had killer claws and was a relative of Velociraptor, a small carnivorous dinosaur made famous by the Jurassic Park movies.

The fossilized remains of the ancient animal were unearthed from the Wapiti Formation, near the city of Grande Prairie, central-western Alberta.

“The bones we have show it would have had big hand and foot claws, a real killing claw,” the paleontologists said.

“The claws would have been used to hunt down prey.”

“We have a handful of teeth that are like serrated steak knives. These would have been pretty savage predators.”

The scientists estimate the creature was about 13 feet (2 m) long and as tall as a dog.

“It skin was probably feathered to keep the dinosaur warm in the cold dark winters in north Canada,” Dr. Bell and Dr. Currie said.[/quote]
[t]http://cdn4.sci-news.com/images/2016/03/image_3715-Boreonykus-certekorum.jpg[/t]

Fuckin' radical

[elix]

To give you an idea of how much work paleontologists do and what they have to work with, if all of us humans just died outside today, right now, end of human civilization, RIP forever... in 65 million years, there'd be ~50 intact human bones in the fossil record, worldwide.

We just discovered a new dinosaur that died out some 72 million years ago.

Alberta was even further north 72 million years ago, but had a large sea lapping at it. (I couldn't find any maps of 72Mya, 65Mya can't have been insanely different)
[IMG]http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/images/tracks/geog13.jpg[/IMG]

[Zillamaster55]

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;50087798]To give you an idea of how much work paleontologists do and what they have to work with, if all of us humans just died outside today, right now, end of human civilization, RIP forever... in 65 million years, there'd be ~50 intact human bones in the fossil record, worldwide.

We just discovered a new dinosaur that died out some 72 million years ago.

Alberta was even further north 72 million years ago, but had a large sea lapping at it. (I couldn't find any maps of 72Mya, 65Mya can't have been insanely different)
[IMG]http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/images/tracks/geog13.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

There was another article out there that I wanted to post, but it was more than a month old, more or less saying that we'll never really know just how many dinosaurs there were, and we're probably at the tip of the iceberg, even today

[ridinmybike]

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;50087798]To give you an idea of how much work paleontologists do and what they have to work with, if all of us humans just died outside today, right now, end of human civilization, RIP forever... in 65 million years, there'd be ~50 intact human bones in the fossil record, worldwide.

We just discovered a new dinosaur that died out some 72 million years ago.
Alberta was even further north 72 million years ago, but had a large sea lapping at it. (I couldn't find any maps of 72Mya, 65Mya can't have been insanely different)
[IMG]http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/images/tracks/geog13.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
what about our buildings and nuclear reactors and such

[elix]

[QUOTE=ridinmybike;50098267]what about our buildings and nuclear reactors and such[/QUOTE]

Okay, to give you some context, at 66 million years ago, Antarctica was still connected to Australia by a land bridge and had a subtropical climate with native marsupial life. It's visible in the map above.

This is Antarctica now.

[t]http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1024px-antarctic_lakes_-_sub-glacial_aquatic_system.jpg[/t]

[t]https://i.imgur.com/yTr2jrB.jpg[/t]
This panorama of Pripyat and the Chernobyl exclusion zone was taken no later than 2013, meaning it was taken 27 years or less after the disaster and evacuation. Nature is slowly but steadily working to reclaim it, with no human intervention to hold it back. You can see Chernobyl in the background, along with the then-unfinished new sarcophagus under construction nearby. The exclusion zone is flush with animal life, and I read a report once (about ten years ago to be honest) that studies done on feral mice living in Chernobyl showed that they appeared to be normal and healthy, reproduced fine and all, but their DNA was [I]smashed[/I]. Nature will find a way to overcome any obstacle.

Just as an aside, photos of nature reclaiming human stuff in the exclusion zone is always this odd mix of beautiful and sad.
[t]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54318000/jpg/_54318586_img_8482.jpg[/t] [t]http://www.samys.com/images/newsletter/friedkin_ludwig/ludwig_8.jpg[/t] [t]http://ukrainetrek.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/spring-in-the-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-ukraine-4.jpg[/t]

When you start talking about timescales with "millions" in the years scale, bitches ain't shit when it comes to human-made buildings.

However, by mentioning nuclear reactors, you've inadvertently touched on one way that we [I]will[/I] leave a clear sign in the geological record for an incredibly long time: nuclear radiation. To archeologists, the present day, which is to say the point at which their skills and techniques for radiocarbon dating objects in the past become useless, is January 1, 1950. That's because post-war nuclear testing released so much fallout into the atmosphere, fallout which has circulated worldwide, that by the beginning of 1950 the atmosphere was permanently screwed up with regards to nuclear isotopes following any natural pattern. These isotopes will all eventually fall to the ground (most of it already has) and form a nice little glowing line in the geological record worldwide.

Millions of years from now, if sentient life from elsewhere lands on the planet we currently know as Earth and spends a few centuries excavating various sites for the planet's geological history, they probably won't find many human bones, pieces of human technology, or intact remnants of human buildings (at least not in the way that we have semi-intact Greek ruins -- that are a few thousand years old), but they [I]will[/I] find a distinct layer of radiation at the same relative depth everywhere (plus whatever our descendants lay down before civilization sleeps) that should be a sign of advanced technology (especially because, unless we end up nuking other planets in the future, no other planet remaining in the solar system will have a matching radioactivity layer -- not even the moon).

[ridinmybike]

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;50098381]Okay, to give you some context, at 66 million years ago, Antarctica was still connected to Australia by a land bridge and had a subtropical climate with native marsupial life.

This is Antarctica now.

[t]http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1024px-antarctic_lakes_-_sub-glacial_aquatic_system.jpg[/t]

[t]https://i.imgur.com/yTr2jrB.jpg[/t]
This panorama of Pripyat and the Chernobyl exclusion zone was taken no later than 2013, meaning it was taken 27 years or less after the disaster and evacuation. Nature is slowly but steadily working to reclaim it, with no human intervention to hold it back. You can see Chernobyl in the background, along with the then-unfinished new sarcophagus under construction nearby. The exclusion zone is flush with animal life, and I read a report once (about ten years ago to be honest) that studies done on feral mice living in Chernobyl showed that they appeared to be normal and healthy, reproduced fine and all, but their DNA was [I]smashed[/I]. Nature will find a way to overcome any obstacle.

Just as an aside, photos of nature reclaiming human stuff in the exclusion zone is always this odd mix of beautiful and sad.
[t]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54318000/jpg/_54318586_img_8482.jpg[/t] [t]http://www.samys.com/images/newsletter/friedkin_ludwig/ludwig_8.jpg[/t] [t]http://ukrainetrek.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/spring-in-the-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-ukraine-4.jpg[/t]

When you start talking about timescales with "millions" in the years scale, bitches ain't shit when it comes to human-made buildings.

However, by mentioning nuclear reactors, you've inadvertently touched on one way that we [I]will[/I] leave in the geological record for an incredibly long time: nuclear radiation. To archeologists, the present day, which is to say the end of when their skills and techniques for radiocarbon dating become useless, is January 1, 1950. That's because post-war nuclear testing had released so much fallout into the atmosphere, fallout which had circulated worldwide, that by the beginning of 1950 the atmosphere was permanently screwed up with regards to nuclear isotopes following any natural pattern. These isotopes will all eventually fall to the ground and form a nice little glowing line in the geological record worldwide.

Millions of years from now, if sentient life from elsewhere lands on the planet we currently know as Earth and spends a few centuries excavating various sites for the planet's geological history, they probably won't find many human bones, pieces of human technology, or intact remnants of human buildings (at least not in the way that we have semi-intact Greek ruins -- that are a few thousand years old), but they [I]will[/I] find a distinct layer of radiation at the same relative depth everywhere (plus whatever our descendants lay down before civilization sleeps) that should be a sign of advanced technology (especially because, unless we end up nuking other planets in the future, no other planet remaining in the solar system will have a matching radioactivity layer -- not even the moon).[/QUOTE]
well said