From Argentina with Love: Top Fossils of 2016

Geographic provenance and speculative reconstruction of the gigantic titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur Notocolossus gonzalezparejasi gen. et sp. nov. (From González Riga  et al., 2016; Credit: Scientific Reports)

Since the discovery of dinosaur remains in the Neuquen basin in 1882, Argentina has gained the title of Land of the Giants. And 2016 has brought us amazing fossil discoveries. From Notocolossus to Gualicho, my fossil pick for this year are:

• Notocolossus

Notocolossus gonzalezparejasi gen. et sp. nov. from the Upper Cretaceous of Mendoza Province, Argentina is one of the largest known dinosaurs. The name derived from the Greek notos (southern) and the Latin colossus, in reference to the gigantic size and Gondwanan provenance of the new taxon. The species name honours Dr. Jorge González Parejas, who provided legal guidance on the research, protection, and preservation of dinosaur fossils from Mendoza Province. The holotype of Notocolossus (UNCUYO-LD 301) consists of a partial skeleton lacking the skull. It contains an anterior dorsal vertebra, an anterior caudal vertebra, the right humerus (with 1.76 m in length), and the proximal end of the left pubis. The pes of  Notocolossus is comparatively shorter and more mediolaterally symmetrical than those of other titanosaurs, and indeed, most other sauropods. Notocolossus also presents truncated unguals, characteristics otherwise unknown in the Sauropoda.

Cranium of Sarmientosaurus musacchioi in right lateral view. Scale bar = 10 cm. (From Martínez et al., 2016)

• Sarmientosaurus

Another remarkable new species of titanosaurian sauropod was Sarmientosaurus musacchioi. The holotypic and only known specimen consists of an articulated, virtually complete skull and part of the cranial and middle cervical series. The new titanosaur comes from the Lower Member of the Upper Cretaceous Bajo Barreal Formation on the Estancia Laguna Palacios near the village of Buen Pasto in south-central Chubut Province, central Patagonia, Argentina. It is the most basal known titanosaur to be represented by a well-preserved skull. Furthermore, the cranial endocast preserves some of the most complete information about the brain and sensory system for any sauropod.

Scapulocoracoid of Viavenator exxoni in lateral view. Scale bar: 10 cm (a, acromion; cf, coracoid foramen; gc, glenoid cavity; pvp, posteroventral process. From Filippi et al., 2016)

• Viavenator

The holotype of Viavenator exxoni was found in the outcrops of the Bajo de la Carpa Formation (Santonian, Upper Cretaceous), northwestern Patagonia, Argentina. The new taxon belongs to the South American clade of abelisaurid and possesses, among other characteristics, hypertrophied structures in the presacral axial skeleton. The name derives from the latin word ‘Via’ (road) and ‘venator’ (hunter), meaning the hunter of the road; ‘exxoni’ is in recognition of Exxonmobil’s commitment to the preservation of paleontological heritage of the La Invernada area, Rincón de los Sauces, Neuquen, Patagonia Argentina.

Right postorbital (holotype) of Taurovenator violentei gen. et sp. nov. A, lateral view. Scale bar: 3 cm (From Motta et al., 2016)

• Taurovenator.

Taurovenator violantei gen. et sp. nov. was is a medium-sized carcharodontosaurid theropod from the Huincul Formation (Upper Cretaceous) in northwestern Río Negro province, Patagonia, Argentina. The generic name derives from the Latin words “tauro” (Bull) and “venator” (Hunter). The specific name honours Enzo Violante, owner of the farm where the specimen was discovered. Taurovenator is similar in gross morphology to Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Mapusaurus, but shows two unique features: the presence of a horn-like structure in the orbital brow and the presence of an excavation housed at the posterodorsal surface of the eye socket.

Different appendicular elements of Murusraptor in their original burial positions (From Coria et al., 2016)

• Murusraptor

Murusraptor barrosaensis, from the Upper Cretaceous of Neuquén Province, Argentina, belongs to a Patagonian radiation of megaraptorids together with Aerosteon, Megaraptor and Orkoraptor. Murusraptor, meaning “Wall Raptor”, was discovered in a canyon wall in 2001 during an expedition to Sierra Barrosa in northwestern Patagonia. The holotype specimen includes much of the skull, axial skeleton, pelvis and tibia. The braincase is intact and most of the sutures are still visible, indicating that this was not a fully mature animal. Murusraptor barrosaensis is unique in having anterodorsal process of lacrimal longer than height of preorbital process; sacral ribs hollow and tubelike; short ischia distally flattened and slightly expanded dorsoventrally. Murusraptor also exhibits some characters that are interpreted as convergencies of this taxon with non-tyrannosauroid theropods, including lacrimal with a small pneumatic recess; and a highly pneumatic braincase.

Gualicho shinyae, at the Centro Cultural de la Ciencia.

• Gualicho

Gualicho was discovered on a paleontological expedition led by Sebastian Apesteguía in 2007. The name derived from the Gennaken (Northern Tehuelche languaje) watsiltsüm, an old goddess now considered a source of misfortune. The name was chosen to reflect the difficult circumstances surrounding the discovery and study of the specimen. The specific name honors Ms. Akiko Shinya, Chief Fossil Preparator at the Field Museum. The specimen exhibits a new and unusual combination of characters observed in various remotely related clades including ceratosaurs, tyrannosaurids, and megaraptorans. The didactyl manus with a semilunate distal carpal are indicative of derived tetanuran affinities, while the expanded posterior margin of the metatarsal III proximal articulation, are shared with ceratosaurs. The reduced forelimbs with didactyl manus are similar to those of the tyrannosaurids. However, in tyrannosaurids, the carpal elements are reduced and proximodistally flattened, whereas in Gualicho the semilunate and scapholunare carpals retain a more complex shape typical of the carpal elements of most non-coelurosaurian tetanurans. In addition, the manus of Gualicho differs from tyrannosaurids in having a proportionately more robust metacarpal I with a rectangular, rather than triangular, proximal articulation in end view.

 

References:

Bernardo J. González Riga et al. A gigantic new dinosaur from Argentina and the evolution of the sauropod hind foot, Scientific Reports (2016). DOI: 10.1038/srep19165

Martínez R.D.F. et al. 2016. A Basal Lithostrotian Titanosaur (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) with a Complete Skull: Implications for the Evolution and Paleobiology of Titanosauria. PLoS ONE 11 (4): e0151661; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151661

Leonardo S. Filippi, Ariel H. Méndez, Rubén D. Juárez Valieri and Alberto C. Garrido (2016). «A new brachyrostran with hypertrophied axial structures reveals an unexpected radiation of latest Cretaceous abelisaurids». Cretaceous Research 61: 209-219. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2015.12.018

Matías J. Motta, Alexis M. Aranciaga Rolando, Sebastián Rozadilla, Federico E. Agnolín, Nicolás R. Chimento, Federico Brissón Egli, and Fernando E. Novas (2016). «New theropod fauna from the Upper Cretaceous (Huincul Formation) of northwestern Patagonia, Argentina». New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 71: 231-253

Rodolfo A. Coria, Philip J. Currie. A New Megaraptoran Dinosaur (Dinosauria, Theropoda, Megaraptoridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia. PLOS ONE, 2016; 11 (7): e0157973 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0157973

Apesteguía S, Smith ND, Juárez Valieri R, Makovicky PJ (2016) An Unusual New Theropod with a Didactyl Manus from the Upper Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0157793. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0157793

Christmas edition: Geologizing with Dickens, part II.

Charles Dickens at his desk, by George Herbert Watkins (National Portrait Gallery. From Wikimedia Commons)

Charles Dickens (1812- 1870) revitalized the traditions of Christmas, and to Victorian England, Dickens was Christmas. He had only 31, when began to write A Christmas Carol. The novella tells the story of  Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter old man who finds salvation through the visits of the three Ghosts of Christmas (Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, and Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come). But Dickens also contributed to the popularity of geology in the nineteenth century. Among his friends were Richard Owen and Sir Roderick Murchison. For Dickens, the ideal science is Geology. In his review of Hunt’s Poetry of Science, he wrote: “Science has gone down into the mines and coal-pits, and before the safety-lamp the Gnomes and Genii of those dark regions have disappeared … Sirens, mermaids, shining cities glittering at the bottom of quiet seas and in deep lakes, exist no longer; but in their place, Science, their destroyer, shows us whole coasts of coral reef constructed by the labours of minute creatures; points to our own chalk cliffs and limestone rocks as made of the dust of myriads of generations of infinitesimal beings that have passed away; reduces the very element of water into its constituent airs, and re-creates it at her pleasure…” (London Examiner, 1848).

In 1846, Dickens visited Naples and climbed the Mount Vesuvius. He described that experience in Pictures from Italy. He wrote: “Stand at the bottom of the great market-place of Pompeii, and look up the silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis, over the broken houses with their inmost sanctuaries open to the day, away to Mount Vesuvius, bright and snowy in the peaceful distance; and lose all count of time, and heed of other things, in the strange and melancholy sensation of seeing the Destroyed and the Destroyer making this quiet picture in the sun.”

An eruption of Vesuvius circa 1845. Credit: Enrico La Pira.

Mount Vesuvius is a stratovolcano, consisting of an external truncated cone, the extinct Mt. Somma,  a smaller cone represented by Vesuvius. For this reason, the volcano is also called Somma-Vesuvio. It was formed by the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD released deadly cloud of ash and molten rocks, and lasted eight days, burying and destroying the cities of Pompeya, Herculaneum and Stabiae. Vesuvius has the world’s oldest volcano observatory, established in 1845, and Dickens’s own magazine Household Words, frequently ran travel pieces describing the ascent and descent of Vesuvius, alongside trips to Pompei.

The same year, Dickens began to to write Dombey and Son, using his experiences in Italy to describe a violent eruption: “Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved within dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames came issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood”. 

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins unveiled the first ever sculptures of Iguanodons.

It was an exciting time full of discoveries and the concept of an ancient Earth became part of the public understanding. The study of the Earth was central to the economic and cultural life of the Victorian Society and Literature influenced the pervasiveness of geological thinking. So when the Crystal Palace was reconstructed at Sydenham in 1854, Dickens and his Household Words were very enthusiastic. Megalosaurus became so popular that is mentioned in his novel Bleak House. In this novel the dinosaurs uncovered by the railway in Dombey and Son move centre stage: “Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.”  

In Bleak House and Dombey and Son, Dickens encourage reader to perceive the scene of the city as a geological fragment of a much broader spatial and temporal vision. In his last novel Our Mutual Friend (1864–65), Mr Venus, the taxidermist was slightly based on Richard Owen. By the time when Dickens wrote this novel, Owen was the curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Our Mutual Friend, also exhibits  traces of the work of Lyell, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and Darwin.

References:

A. BUCKLAND, ‘“The Poetry of Science”: Charles Dickens, Geology and Visual and Material Culture in Victorian London’, Victorian Literature and Culture, 35 (2007), 679–94 (p. 680).

A. BUCKLAND. Novel Science: Fiction and the Invention of Nineteenth-Century Geology. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 2013. 400 pp. 9 plts. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-226-07968-4

A brief history of the Climate science

Large rift near the Pine Island Glacier tongue, West Antarctica. Credits: NASA/Nathan Kurtz

At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution the world experiences industrial and demographic boom. As a consequence of these substantial events, scientists of the time begin to question whether climate changes over time or not. In the 1760s, the ability to generate an artificial warming of the Earth’s surface was demonstrated by Horace Benedict de Saussure. In 1824, French mathematician Joseph Fourier published a scientific paper titled “Remarques generales sur les Temperatures du globe terrestre et des espaces planetaires” in the journal Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Tome XXVII (pp.136-167), where he presented some ‘general remarks’ on the temperature of the Earth and interplanetary space describing the Earth’s natural “greenhouse effect” without naming it. Terrestrial temperatures was on Fourier’s mind as early as 1807, when he wrote on the unequal heating of the globe. Following Fourier’s work, physicist C.S.M. Pouillet wrote in 1836 a memoir on solar heat, the radiative effects of the atmosphere, and the temperature of space.

Illustration of John Tyndall’s setup for measuring the radiant heat absorption of gases (From Wikimedia Commons)

In 1861, Irish physicist John Tyndall demonstrated that gases such as methane and carbon dioxide absorbed infrared radiation, and could trap heat within the atmosphere. His interest in radiant heat and its passage through the atmosphere was triggered by his long-standing interest in glaciers and their mass balance. Tyndall’s experimental work suggested the possibility that by altering concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere, human activities could alter the temperature regulation of the planet. In his essay ‘On the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours’, Tyndall credited Fourier for the notion that ‘the interception of terrestrial rays [by the atmosphere exercises] the most important influence on climate’. 

In 1896, Svante Arrhenius  was the first to quantify the contribution of carbon dioxide to the greenhouse effect. He used infrared observations of the moon to calculate how much of infrared radiation is captured by CO₂ and water vapour in Earth’s atmosphere and formulated his greenhouse law: “Thus if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.”

Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927). From Wikimedia Commons

Almost simultaneously, American geologist Thomas Chamberlin proposed that carbon dioxide fluctuations could cause large variations on Earth’s Climate, including Ice Ages.

By 1930s British engineer Guy Callender proves that temperature of Earth has risen compared to previous century, given records of 147 weather stations across the world. Moreover, he shows that carbon dioxide concentrations has increased at the same time and claims that it is the most plausible reason behind the global warming.

After the World War II, the impact of human activity on the global environment dramatically increased. In 1958, Charles Dave Keeling carries out a long-running experiment in Hawaii and Antarctica and enables unequivocal evidences of increasing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere after four-year-research.

Comparison of the effects of anthropogenic emissions (total of 5000 Pg C over 500 years) and PETM carbon release (3000 Pg C over 6 kyr) on the surface ocean saturation state of calcite. From Zeebe, 2013

In 1972, the United Nations summits the first environment conference in Stockholm and the climate change is determined as the agenda item. Since the conference the importance of this issue increases and public start to deal with the notion of climate change.

The earth’s climate has already reached a tipping point. Glaciers  from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are fading away, dumping 260 billion metric tons of water into the ocean every year. The ocean acidification is occurring at a rate faster than at any time in the last 300 million years, and  the patterns of rainfall and drought are changing and undermining food security which have major implications for human health, welfare and social infrastructure.

References:

Hulme, M. (2009), On the origin of ‘the greenhouse effect’: John Tyndall’s 1859 interrogation of nature. Weather, 64: 121–123. doi:10.1002/wea.386

Tyndall J. 1861. On the absorption and radiation of heat by gases and vapours. Philos. Mag. 22: 169–194 and 273–285

Arrhenius, Svante; On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground. Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. 41 (5): 237–276. 1896.

Will Steffen, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney, and Cornelia Ludwig. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, January 16, 2015 DOI: 10.1177/2053019614564785

Smith, B.D., Zeder, M.A., The onset of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene (2013),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2013.05.001

 

High variation in postnatal development of Early Dinosaurs.

Cleveland Museum of Natural History Coelophysis block, originally AMNH Block XII collected in 1948 (From Wikimedia Commons)

Birds originated from a theropod lineage more than 150 million years ago. Their evolutionary history is one of the most enduring and fascinating debates in paleontology. They are members of the theropod dinosaur subgroup Coelurosauria, a diverse clade that includes tyrannosauroids and dromaeosaurids, among others. Features like “hollow” bones and postcranial skeletal pneumaticity, feathers, a unique forelimb digit formula, endothermy, and rapid growth rate arose in non-avian dinosaurs in a gradual process occurring over tens of millions of years.

In contrast with all other living reptiles, birds grow extremely fast and possess unusually low levels of intraspecific variation during postnatal development, suggesting that this avian style of development must have evolved after its most recent common ancestor with crocodylians but before the origin of Aves. Most studies indicates that the low levels of variation that characterize avian ontogeny were present in close non-avian relatives as well.

Two C. bauri casts mounted at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (From Wikimedia Commons)

Compared with birds, the theropod Coelophysis bauri possess a large amount of intraspecific variation. Coelophysis bauri is the type species of the genus Coelophysis, a group of small, slenderly-built, ground-dwelling, bipedal carnivores, that lived approximately 203 million years ago during the latter part of the Triassic Period in what is now the southwestern United States. Using this taxon to interpret development among early dinosaurs, geoscientists Christopher Griffin and Sterling Nesbitt discovered that the earliest dinosaurs had a far higher level of variation in growth patterns between individuals than crocodiles and birds. The presence of scars on the bones left from muscle attachment and marks where bones had fused together helped the researchers assess how mature the animals were compared with their size.

Body size and extinction risk have been found to be related in various vertebrate groups, therefore a high level of variation within a species may be advantageous in an ecologically unstable environment and may have contributed to the early success of dinosaurs relative to many pseudosuchian clades in the latest Triassic and through the End-Triassic Mass Extinction into the Early Jurassic.

References:

Christopher T. Griffin and Sterling J. Nesbitt, Anomalously high variation in postnatal development is ancestral for dinosaurs but lost in birds. PNAS 2016 : 1613813113v1-201613813.

Brusatte SL, Lloyd GT, Wang SC, Norell MA (2014) Gradual assembly of avian body plan culminated in rapid rates of evolution across the dinosaur-bird transition. Curr Biol 24(20):2386–2392

Puttick, M. N., Thomas, G. H. and Benton, M. J. (2014), HIGH RATES OF EVOLUTION PRECEDED THE ORIGIN OF BIRDS. Evolution, 68: 1497–1510. doi: 10.1111/evo.12363 A.