Often quite different from their more familiar North American counterparts and adorned with bizarre frills, bumps, dorsal sails, and crests, these new southern “terrible lizards” are changing many of our perceptions about dinosaurs. As an example, consider the now-diminished status of the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex, the fiercest North American predator. The most widely recognized of all dinosaurs, T. rex had long been considered the biggest, baddest carnivore ever to walk the Earth. But now it seems that T. rex, whose name loosely means “king of the tyrant lizards,” is not really the king after all. It has recently been surpassed in both size and probable ferocity by Giganotosaurus from South America and Spinosaurus from Africa. This discussion about southern dinosaurs was inspired by my opportunity to view the spectacular traveling exhibition, Ultimate Dinosaurs. In the presentation, seventeen of these strange southern dinosaurs are displayed. The collection was created and produced by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada, and presented by the Science Museum of Minnesota. The exhibition explains the southern dinosaurs as products of continental drift and subsequent evolutionary isolation through spectacular skeletal mounts and outstanding interpretive displays.
DYNAMIC DINOSAUR DISCOVERIES
This story is from the December 2020 edition of Rock&Gem Magazine.
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This story is from the December 2020 edition of Rock&Gem Magazine.
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MORGAN HILL POPPY JASPER
In California, there are very few places to collect semi-precious stones. Many locations from the past have been either exhausted of the material or the land has been developed.
THE ACORN
The briolette gemstone has the same design attributes of a regular gemstone, however, the pavilion is elongated and the crown is usually domed. This is perfect for an elegant pendant, earrings or a pendulum.
HOW TO PUT A PROTECTIVE CAP ON A CAB
To protect a specimen cab, often a cap is needed. In my case, I had a slab with the because of the color of the background and the pattern. This background had a more silicified consistency than most sandstones. It had no graininess like most sandstone, so I'm inclined to compare it to a jasper. The pattern was typical of a dendrite.
The Resilient Revival of Anne Brontë & Her Stones
For the first time, the Anne Brontë rock collection underwent complete description and identification, and along with Professor Hazel Hutchison of Leeds University and Dr. Enrique Lozano Diz at ELODIZ (a company specializing in spectroscopy analysis), an analysis of that collaboration, Anne Brontë and Geology: A Study of her Collection of Stones, was published in April 2022 in Volume 47, Issue 2 of the peer-reviewed journal, Brontë Studies & Gazette.\"
Amazing Women with Rock-Solid Careers
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The Case of the Bleeding Glacier
It's a gory sight called Blood Falls. Ever since British geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor first noted it in 1911, it has been a mystery.
Asteroid Samples Are Said to Hold Invaluable Secrets
If Only Scientists Can Pop the Lid!
Paleontologists Embrace a New Method for Seeing Fossils within Rock
Fossil bone can be delicate. Attempts to remove it from a hard rock matrix by picking and scratching or etching with acids can be time-consuming and/or may end up obliterating that which you hope to study.
Need a Map of the Ocean Floor?
Call in the Seals!
A Step Closer to Hydrogen, the "Climate-Friendly Fuel"
As I reported last June, the world is racing to find sustainably renewable, nonpolluting sources of energy to replace our carbon-based reserves of coal, oil and gas.