Tag Archive for: fossils

smithsonianmag.com

Utah is dinosaur country—so much so that the state has a scenic byway system called the Dinosaur Diamond that connects ancient final resting places across the desert. But among the sites holding preserved tracks and dusty fossils, one boneyard stands out as a 148-million-year-old mystery: the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry.

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inverse.com

Late last month, a nearly complete mounted Stegosaurus skeleton was put up for auction in Germany. The piece was a showstopper, valued at $2.7 million and described as the most complete skeleton of its species ever assembled. And even then, there was more, because the fossils showed battle wounds proving the beast had used its tail to successfully defend itself against a predator. Not only was this a Stegosaurus, it was a battle-hardened one.

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huffingtonpost.com

Long-necked Sauropods, like Brontosaurus, were the largest animals on earth, but their brain, not their leg strength, is what kept them from getting any bigger.

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blogs.plos.org

When it comes to absolutely amazing paleontological resources, Utah arguably reigns supreme within the United States (I may be a bit biased). And with the upcoming Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting taking place in Salt Lake City, paleontologists and paleo enthusiasts will be flocking to the Beehive State to discuss and share the latest breakthroughs in the field. To those coming to the meeting this October, one thing I cannot stress enough: do not miss what Utah has to offer in terms of spectacular fossil sites and museums. It will be difficult to avoid, as the SVP host committee this year is offering up eleven (eleven!!!) field trips to different parts of the state to see everything from the Triassic-Jurassic transition to Mesozoic dinosaurs to Eocene fishes to Pleistocene shorelines, and more.

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smithsonianmag.com

Everyone knows Triceratops. Old “three-horned face” has stood as the ultimate in spiky dinosaurs since it was named in 1889. Yet Triceratops was only the last in a long line of horned dinosaurs. Horned dinosaurs thrived on prehistoric Asia and North America for over 100 million years, and it’s only now that paleontologists are uncovering a wealth of ceratopsians that are weirder and more varied than anyone ever expected.

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huffingtonpost.com

A new species of horned dinosaur has been unearthed by scientists in southern Utah.

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phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

A few years back, while crashing at my apartment for the night during a long trip west, a friend of mine asked me “Haven’t paleontologists found all the dinosaurs already?” Museums from coast-to-coast seem well-stocked with primordial reptiles, and, really, when dealing with such giants, how many species could there possibly be? I had to chuckle at my friend’s question. Not only were there more dinosaur species than we ever imagined, but we’re still a long way from finding them all.

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More than a Bank Holiday—Evidence of a large scale dinosaur migration out of Europe.

wcvb.com

More than 100 million years ago, something curious happened.

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news.nationalgeographic.com

Even the largest dinosaurs of all time started their lives breaking out of small eggs. Now, a rare fossil of a baby titanosaur suggests that once these precocious youngsters hatched, they were on their own in a harsh landscape.

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news.nationalgeographic.com

Earlier this month on the Gulf coast of Mexico, an international team began drilling into a vast scar on Earth’s surface. The enormous pockmark, which stretches 110 miles (177 kilometers) wide, was created when a chunk of space rock slammed into the planet about 66 million years ago.

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