Post: 2 new dinosaurs found in Utah
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09-23-2010, 08:32 PM
#1
Inferno_Ace
Hi
SALT LAKE CITY – Scientists said Wednesday they've discovered fossils in the southern Utah desert of two new dinosaur species closely related to the Triceratops, including one with 15 horns on its large head.
The discovery of the new plant-eating species — including Kosmoceratops richardsoni, considered the most ornate-headed dinosaur known to man — was reported Wednesday in the online scientific journal PLoS ONE, produced by the Public Library of Science.
The other dinosaur, which has five horns and is the larger of the two, was dubbed Utahceratops gettyi.
"It's not every day that you find two rhino-sized dinosaurs that are different from all the other dinosaurs found in North America," said Mark Loewen, a Utah Museum of Natural History paleontologist and an author of the paper published in PLoS ONE.
"You would think that we know everything there is to know about the dinosaurs of western North America, but every year we're finding new things, especially here in Utah," he said.
[Related: How and where you can find fossils]
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has been a hotbed for dinosaur species discoveries in the past decade, with more than a dozen new species discovered. While it is a rocky, arid place now, millions of years ago it was similar to a swamp.
The Utahceratops has a large horn over the nose and short eye horns that project to the side rather than upward, similar to a bison. Its skull is about 7 feet long, it stood about 6 feet high and was 18 to 22 feet long. It is believed to have weighed about 3 to 4 tons.
The Kosmoceratops has similar facial features at the Utahceratops, but has 10 horns across the rear margin of its bony frill that point downward and outward. It weighed about 2.5 tons and was about 15 feet long.
The horns on both animals range in length from about 6 inches to 1 foot.
[Related: Just what are fossils, anyway?]
Paleontologists say the discovery shows that horned dinosaurs living on the same continent 76 million years ago evolved differently.
Scientists say that other horned dinosaurs lived on the same ancient continent known as Laramidia in what is now Alberta, Canada.
The numerous horns are believed to have been used to attract mates and intimidate sexual competitors, similar to horns on deer.
"The horns really are probably developed at puberty, because most likely these are signals for mate recognition, competition between males, things like that," Loewen said. "They're sexual signals and really that's how we think this group of dinosaurs divided."
Thanks Lady for the pics.
"Kosmoceretops"
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The discovery of the new plant-eating species — including Kosmoceratops richardsoni, considered the most ornate-headed dinosaur known to man — was reported Wednesday in the online scientific journal PLoS ONE, produced by the Public Library of Science.
The other dinosaur, which has five horns and is the larger of the two, was dubbed Utahceratops gettyi.
"It's not every day that you find two rhino-sized dinosaurs that are different from all the other dinosaurs found in North America," said Mark Loewen, a Utah Museum of Natural History paleontologist and an author of the paper published in PLoS ONE.
"You would think that we know everything there is to know about the dinosaurs of western North America, but every year we're finding new things, especially here in Utah," he said.
[Related: How and where you can find fossils]
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has been a hotbed for dinosaur species discoveries in the past decade, with more than a dozen new species discovered. While it is a rocky, arid place now, millions of years ago it was similar to a swamp.
The Utahceratops has a large horn over the nose and short eye horns that project to the side rather than upward, similar to a bison. Its skull is about 7 feet long, it stood about 6 feet high and was 18 to 22 feet long. It is believed to have weighed about 3 to 4 tons.
The Kosmoceratops has similar facial features at the Utahceratops, but has 10 horns across the rear margin of its bony frill that point downward and outward. It weighed about 2.5 tons and was about 15 feet long.
The horns on both animals range in length from about 6 inches to 1 foot.
[Related: Just what are fossils, anyway?]
Paleontologists say the discovery shows that horned dinosaurs living on the same continent 76 million years ago evolved differently.
Scientists say that other horned dinosaurs lived on the same ancient continent known as Laramidia in what is now Alberta, Canada.
The numerous horns are believed to have been used to attract mates and intimidate sexual competitors, similar to horns on deer.
"The horns really are probably developed at puberty, because most likely these are signals for mate recognition, competition between males, things like that," Loewen said. "They're sexual signals and really that's how we think this group of dinosaurs divided."
Thanks Lady for the pics.
"Kosmoceretops"
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The following user thanked Inferno_Ace for this useful post:
09-24-2010, 05:38 PM
#11
NeedaLifeSoon
Retired Life
Originally posted by Me
u do know the earth has warm and cold periods? humanity is just speeding up the process
I realize that the world is not coming to an end and we may be going through a warming period that is natural or man induced.
My real point is comprehending how long the dinosaurs walked the earth compared to man.
They were evolving and dominate on the planet for 265 million years.
Mans earliest species started about 2.5 million years ago.
That leaves us another 262.5 million years to dominate the planet as long as the dinosuars.
Where do you think man will be 262 million years from now?
How much more will we evolve over that period of time?
Look how much we evolved over the last 2.5 million years.
We have only been around in our present form for 50,000 yrs.
We may be living on another planet by then and look completely different.
262 million years is a long long time to be running around on planet earth.
09-25-2010, 06:04 AM
#12
xSiiK---AT0MIK
ಠ_ಠ
Originally posted by needalifesoon
I realize that the world is not coming to an end and we may be going through a warming period that is natural or man induced.
My real point is comprehending how long the dinosaurs walked the earth compared to man.
They were evolving and dominate on the planet for 265 million years.
Mans earliest species started about 2.5 million years ago.
That leaves us another 262.5 million years to dominate the planet as long as the dinosuars.
Where do you think man will be 262 million years from now?
How much more will we evolve over that period of time?
Look how much we evolved over the last 2.5 million years.
We have only been around in our present form for 50,000 yrs.
We may be living on another planet by then and look completely different.
262 million years is a long long time to be running around on planet earth.
My real point is comprehending how long the dinosaurs walked the earth compared to man.
They were evolving and dominate on the planet for 265 million years.
Mans earliest species started about 2.5 million years ago.
That leaves us another 262.5 million years to dominate the planet as long as the dinosuars.
Where do you think man will be 262 million years from now?
How much more will we evolve over that period of time?
Look how much we evolved over the last 2.5 million years.
We have only been around in our present form for 50,000 yrs.
We may be living on another planet by then and look completely different.
262 million years is a long long time to be running around on planet earth.
i know what you mean but
in the non too distant future there will need to be population control (like in china just alot harsher) mass famons due to climate change we WILL lose around 7-10% of all agricultiral land slowly at first then a snowball effect the atmospheres (yes there is more than 1) will disapate into space it will turn earth into a mars or moon after the suns radiations kill of every living thing on earth, its not just sea ice that melts, peat bogs (where most of the carbon methane ect is stored) russian peat bogs will raise the average tempature of the earth by around 2-3 degrees C and thats just russia then less reflective ice/snow will raise it again by 1-2 degreese C in aprox 250 years at the currnet useage fuels (and cows, cows produce ALOT of methane) the tempature will raise by around 7-10 degreese C makeing large parts of central america and africa un inhabitable (its too hot and dry to grow any crops and to expensive to irrigate)
not matter how good our technonlogy is if we dont fix this within 200 years we will die, 1000 years at most
and going to different plants with out current knowlage of physics it would take over a billion years just to leave our solar sytem and if you think wormholes ect are possible, yes they are... theoreticly but the gravitatinal pull would rip you and anything you build atom from atom, teleportation is also possible but you need a direct link to the place you teleport its been estimated at our current level of technology it would take 100 million thousand billion years to teleport 1 atom 1 inch
even if we magicly fix the climate we are running out of land to farm on, after a while it becomes arid and crops cant grow on it... we cant fix this but we can slow it down... but we wont its too expensive
i think the human race will cease to be in as little as 750/1000 years
the adverts that say "wer killing the earth"... no we aren't we are killing ourself and all other animals plants ect the earth will surive.. just we wont
its also been estimated our sun only has between 3000 and 4000 years till it turns super nove (the sun expands to hundreds of times its size and will swallow all the plantes up to saturn shrink and then turn into a black hole)
humans wont last too long especialy since wars will start when famons hit the more powerful countrys and then wars will start.. possibly nucuelar
09-25-2010, 03:26 PM
#15
NeedaLifeSoon
Retired Life
I don't want to scare the kiddies out there who may actually belive what they read on this site instead of checking it out themselves.
and going to different plants with out current knowlage of physics it would take over a billion years just to leave our solar sytem:
We have already sent satellites out of our solar system , that took less than 40 years.
its also been estimated our sun only has between 3000 and 4000 years till it turns super nove (the sun expands to hundreds of times its size and will swallow all the plantes up to saturn shrink and then turn into a black hole)
Our Sun is 5 billion years old. After burnung off all of it's hydrogen ( in about another 5 Billion years ) it will start to turn into a red giant, expand to nearly half the size of the current solar system and then shrink and cool into a white dwarf star.
It does not have enough mass to turn super nova.
Either way we have at least another 5 billion years before the sun dies.
I'm sure that the other global warming issues, you pointed out correctly, will have a much greater impact over the next millennia. There is going to be a lot of methane released into the atmosphere as frozen tundra is thawed and the cows keep farting.
And conversion from fossil fuel use is only a small part of the answer.
We need to find out how to trap and use all of the methane released.
and going to different plants with out current knowlage of physics it would take over a billion years just to leave our solar sytem:
We have already sent satellites out of our solar system , that took less than 40 years.
its also been estimated our sun only has between 3000 and 4000 years till it turns super nove (the sun expands to hundreds of times its size and will swallow all the plantes up to saturn shrink and then turn into a black hole)
Our Sun is 5 billion years old. After burnung off all of it's hydrogen ( in about another 5 Billion years ) it will start to turn into a red giant, expand to nearly half the size of the current solar system and then shrink and cool into a white dwarf star.
It does not have enough mass to turn super nova.
Either way we have at least another 5 billion years before the sun dies.
I'm sure that the other global warming issues, you pointed out correctly, will have a much greater impact over the next millennia. There is going to be a lot of methane released into the atmosphere as frozen tundra is thawed and the cows keep farting.
And conversion from fossil fuel use is only a small part of the answer.
We need to find out how to trap and use all of the methane released.
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