deseretnews.com
At any given moment in the foothills of Salt Lake City, DNA sequencing of a tiny kernel of corn could unlock new information about ancient agriculture in Utah.
A cast of part of the track slab showing several trackways of two different sizes of pterosaurs.
A 900 lb. slab of rock with some of the best preserved pterosaur (flying reptile) tracks ever recognized was discovered on State Land in the San Rafael Swell near the town of Ferron by a team from Marietta College (Ohio). This slab of rock from the Jurassic Summerville Formation preserves at least 9 separate trackways of 2 different sizes of pterosaurs that were walking along a tidal flat near the shore of the Curtis Sea. We know the tracks were made by pterosaurs because, in addition to the hind foot prints, there are tracks made by the wings. So, unlike birds that walk bipedally on their hind feet while folding their wings against their bodies, pterosaurs walked quadrupedally using their folded up wings to support the front of their bodies. This site and the tracks were documented in a scientific publication in 2004 (Mickelson and others, 2004).
Because of the scientific importance of this slab, a team from the Utah Geological Survey (UGS) collected it in 2004 so that it could be placed in the Natural History Museum of Utah (the repository for all of the fossils collected by the UGS from public lands in Utah). Due to its large size, this slab has been stored at the UGS’s Utah Core Research Center since collection.
Recently, the Natural History Museum of Utah agreed to loan the slab to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for display in a new exhibit on pterosaurs. On November 14, a team from Terry Dowd Inc. (a fine art packing company) came to the UGS to package the slab in a custom crate so that it could be transported by truck to New York. The slab was cradled in ethafoam so that it will be well protected during the long drive to New York which began on November 19. Eventually, the slab will be returned to the Natural History Museum of Utah for display.
nationalparkstraveler.com
What did the Colorado Plateau look like 250 million years ago? That’s a question geologists hope to shed some light on via an ambitious project that is pulling rock cores up from as much as 1.5 kilometers down into the plateau’s belly. The Colorado Plateau is an expansive region, taking in parts of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Within this geologic province are some of our most iconic national parks: Arches and Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon and Zion, the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest to name the most recognizeable. What makes them so stunning is the geology from which they rise.
deseretnews.com
A 656-page book chronicling the paleontological discoveries and success evidenced so far at Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has been published, even as new discoveries continue to unfold on a near daily basis.
“I am here to emphasize that we are just getting started at the Grand Staircase,” said Alan Titus, the monument’s paleontologist. “We have a great big sandbox to play in.”
The UGS’s Martha Hayden, Don DeBlieux, and Jim Kirkland with their complimentary copies of the volume.
Following the 1996 establishment of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument (GSENM), paleontological research in this largely unstudied region of the nation accelerated at a remarkable pace, thanks to an infusion of research dollars from the federal government. Much of this research centered on the Upper Cretaceous of the Kaiparowits Plateau, which is at the center of the most continuous belt of terrestrial Cretaceous rocks anywhere in North America. The Utah Geological Survey was in the thick of it with early general survey projects and the later, more focused, Wahweap Project in the southern Kaiparowits Plateau from 2001–2005, which resulted in the discovery of Diabloceratops eatoni. Additionally, significant funded projects were undertaken by the Museum of Northern Arizona and the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU).
The results of this burst of scientific exploration has now been summarized in the massive volume “At the Top of the Grand Staircase: The Late Cretaceous of Southern Utah,” edited by the Alan L. Titus (GSENM) and Mark Loewen (NHMU), published just this past month by Indiana University Press. The 634-page book includes 28 chapters, starting with papers on the geology and sedimentology of the regions, followed by papers on the fossil plants, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, turtles, lizards, crocodilians, marine reptiles, and chapters on each major group of dinosaurs. The UGS’s Jim Kirkland, Don DeBlieux, and Martha Hayden just received their complimentary copies of the volume for their contributions and will be spending the rest of the year looking over this magnificent contribution to our knowledge of Utah’s geological and paleontological record.
sltrib.com
To those who have taken the time to explore Utah’s rivers, standing on the patio of the John Wesley Powell River History Museum and staring at the muddy waters of the Green River below brings back many feelings and emotions. Desolation Canyon, the Gates of Lodore, Split Mountain, Echo Park and the undammed Yampa lie upstream, filled with rapids, incredible scenery and compelling history.
nature.com
On Maine’s rugged coast, just north of the tourist town of Boothbay, an underground seismometer is listening for earthquakes. Engineers activated it on 26 September, completing the US$90-million Transportable Array, an ambitious effort to blanket the contiguous United States with a moveable grid of seismic monitors (see ‘On the march’).
deseretnews.com
Weighing in at more than 2 tons and two dozen feet long, a new species of dinosaur related to Tyrannosaurus rex was fierce enough to be dubbed “King of Gore.” The discovery of “Lythronax argestes” at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah was announced Wednesday at the Natural History Museum of Utah and coincides with the publication of a study in PLoS ONE, an open access scientific journal.
sciencedaily.com
A remarkable new species of tyrannosaur has been unearthed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), southern Utah. The huge carnivore inhabited Laramidia, a landmass formed on the western coast of a shallow sea that flooded the central region of North America, isolating western and eastern portions of the continent for millions of years during the Late Cretaceous Period, between 95-70 million years ago. The newly discovered dinosaur, belonging to the same evolutionary branch as the famous Tyrannosaurus rex, was announced today in the open-access scientific journal PLOS ONE and unveiled on exhibit in the Past Worlds Gallery at the Natural History Museum of Utah at the Rio Tinto Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
usu.edu
Utah State University’s Department of Geology announces the opening of a new museum on the school’s Logan campus, along with the return of the department’s popular ‘Rock and Fossil Day,’ Saturday, Nov. 9, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
All ages are invited to the free event, which features a variety of hands-on educational activities along with admission to museum exhibits.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE UTAH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) is a division of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Several specialized programs comprise the UGS: Data Management, Energy & Minerals, Geologic Hazards, Geologic Information & Outreach, Geologic Mapping, Groundwater & Wetlands, and Paleontology.
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