Tag: Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Associated Press: Projecto PaleoAngola discovers Angola’s first dinosaur

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 23, 2011

The research of an international team co-led by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs is receiving worldwide coverage for discovery of the first fossil of a dinosaur from Angola. A paper published in the “Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Science” described the long-necked, plant-eating sauropod based on a fossilized forelimb with unique skeletal characteristics that indicates it’s from a previously unknown dinosaur.

An Associated Press story covering discovery of the 90-million-year-old fossil has been published and aired by numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, Newsday, NPR, Forbes, The Daily Mail, and the Hamburger Abendblatt,

SMU paleontologist Michael J. Polcyn is also a member of the Projecto PaleoAngola team.

The PaleoAngola researchers have described Angola as a “museum in the ground” for the abundance of fossils there.

A professor in Dedman College’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Jacobs joined SMU’s faculty in 1983.

Besides Angola, Jacobs also does field work in Mongolia. His book, “Lone Star Dinosaurs” (1999, Texas A&M University Press) was the basis of an exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History that traveled the state. He consulted on the new exhibit, Mysteries of the Texas Dinosaurs, which opened in 2009.

In the laboratory, Jacobs’ research utilizes advanced imaging and stable isotope techniques to investigate paleoenvironmental, biogeographic and phylogenetic issues of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.

Polcyn is director of the Visualization Laboratory in SMU’s Department of Earth Sciences and an SMU adjunct research associate.

A world-recognized expert on the extinct marine reptile named Mosasaur, his research interests include the early evolution of Mosasauroidea and adaptations in secondarily aquatic tetrapods. Polcyn’s research also includes application of technology to problems in paleontology.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By The Associated Press
Scientists say they have discovered the first fossil of a dinosaur in Angola, and that it’s a new creature, heralding a research renaissance in a country slowly emerging from decades of war.

A paper published Wednesday in the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences describes a long-necked, plant-eating sauropod, among the largest creatures ever to have walked the earth. The international team that found and identified the fossilized forelimb bone say it is from a previously unknown dinosaur, citing unique skeletal characteristics.

The fossil was found along with fish and shark teeth in what would have been a sea bed 90 million years ago, leading its discoverers to believe the dinosaur might have been washed into the sea and torn apart by ancient sharks.

The new dinosaur has been dubbed Angolatitan adamastor — Angolatitan means “Angolan giant” and the adamastor is a sea giant from Portuguese sailing myths.

Matthew F. Bonnan, a sauropod expert at Western Illinois University, was not involved with the Angolan research. But after reading the report, he said he expected their claim to have found a new dinosaur to hold up.

“I think they’ve been very careful,” he said, adding the find could add to knowledge about how sauropods adapted to different environments.

Bonnan also said it was “really cool” to see such research coming out of Angola.

“The neat thing about dinosaur paleontology is that it’s becoming more global,” he said, saying that was giving scientists a global perspective on the evolution of dinosaurs.

“The more people and places that we involve in science, the better off we all are,” Bonnan said.

Read the full story.

Tags Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs, Michael J. Polcyn

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WFAA: North Texan finds dinosaurs in our backyards

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 22, 2011

WFAA-TV reporter Jonathan Betz has covered the flying reptile research of SMU paleontologist Timothy S. Myers and the rare discovery of the bones by amateur fossil hunter Gary Byrd. The story, North Texan finds dinosaurs in our backyards, aired March 17.

Myers identified fossilized bones discovered in Texas from a flying reptile that died 89 million years ago. The bones may be the world’s earliest occurrence of the prehistoric creature known as Pteranodon, Myers says.

Pteranodon was a type of pterosaur that lived about the same time as some dinosaurs, about 100 million to 65 million years ago. The only reptiles to dominate the ancient skies, pterosaurs had broad leathery wings and slim torsos.

The specimen identified by Myers had a wing span between 12 and 13 feet, or 3.6 to 4 meters. It was discovered in a rock unit that dates to early in the Late Cretaceous.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Jonathan Betz
WFAA
Look up and you’ll see Gary Byrd on a roof. That’s where his work is.

But it’s what’s underground that fascinates him.

Every free moment, the contractor roams North Texas digging in the dirt.

“When I was a kid, we’d run up and down creeks and look for stuff, and wonder what it was,” he said. “I just kept doing it, kept finding more interesting things.”

For most of his life, the 55-year-old has scoured construction sites and creek beds for dinosaur bones.

Often, he finds just dirt and rocks. But on occasion, Byrd has unearthed some truly extraordinary finds.

His treasures are enough to fill cabinets at Southern Methodist University.

“This specimen is 89 million years old,” he boasted, displaying the rare remains of a pterosaur, an ancient flying reptile that until now, had not been thought to live in Texas.
Byrd plucked the fossilized bones out of a half-built Plano subdivision.

“Finding a fossil of this magnitude is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of find,” said SMU researcher Timothy Myers. “A lot of paleontologists would probably go their entire careers without finding something this significant.”

And that’s not all. Byrd has even discovered a new dinosaur species, a large duck-billed herbivore called Protohadros byrdi — yes, named after Bird himself, who found the remains near a highway.

“That really got me going,” he confessed.

Read the full story.

Tags Dale A. Winkler, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs, Timothy S. Myers

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Discovery News: Mystery Pterosaur in Texas Takes Flight

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 2, 2011

Science journalist Tim Wall has covered the flying reptile research of SMU’s Timothy S. Myers on his popular Discovery News Online blog. Wall’s March 2 entry aptly warns “Don’t mess with Texas Pterosaurs!”

The specimen identified by Myers had a wing span between 12 and 13 feet, or 3.6 to 4 meters. It was discovered in a rock unit that dates to early in the Late Cretaceous.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Tim Wall
Discovery News Online
Don’t mess with Texas Pterosaurs! They are the oldest yet found in North America. One recently found specimen may even be the oldest Pteranodon in the world.

The mystery flying reptile a type of pterosaur, took a final plunge 89 million years ago into the waters of the inland sea that once covered the central United States. It sank to the bottom, fossilized, and lay there until amateur fossil hunter Gary Byrd found the ancient aviator’s bones. They were uncovered during the excavation of a culvert in a new subdivision north of Dallas.

Pterosaur Windsurfed Across Surface of Prehistoric Seas
“I found a couple parts of a fish, and then when I saw these my initial thought was that they weren’t fish,” Byrd, a roofing contractor by day, said in a Southern Methodist University press release. “I kind of knew it was something different — a birdlike thing. It’s very rare you find those thin, long bones.”

Byrd already has a species of duckbill dinosaur, Protohadros byrdi, named after him in 1994. He donated the fossils to Southern Methodist University’s Shuler Museum of Paleontology.

At the museum, Timothy Myers identified the bones as belonging to the left wing of a pterosaur, most likely a Pteranodon.

New Dino-Eating Pterosaur Evolved in Unusual Way
“If it wasn’t crushed so badly, it would be possible to determine if it really is Pteranodon,” Myers said in a SMU press release. “These bones are easily flattened. They are hollow inside, because they have to be lightweight to allow a pterosaur to fly. So they compress like a pancake as they’re embedded in layers of rock.”

Read the full story.

Tags Dale A. Winkler, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs, Timothy S. Myers

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Flying Texas reptile: World’s oldest Pteranodon? First specimen of its kind discovered as far south as Texas

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date February 28, 2011

Unique specimen is first of its kind discovered as far south as Texas, where it flew over a vast ancient sea

Fossilized bones discovered in Texas from a flying reptile that died 89 million years ago may be the earliest occurrence of the prehistoric creature known as Pteranodon.

Previously, Pteranodon bones have been found in Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming in the Niobrara and Pierre geological formations. This likely Pteranodon specimen is the first of its kind found in Texas, according to paleontologist Timothy S. Myers at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who identified the reptile. The specimen was discovered north of Dallas by an amateur fossil hunter who found various bones belonging to the left wing.

Adult pterosaur, toothless variety with about a 12-foot wing span
The specimen identified by Myers is an adult pterosaur of the toothless variety and while larger than most birds, wasn’t among the largest pterosaurs, Myers said, noting it had a wing span between 12 and 13 feet, or 3.6 to 4 meters. It was discovered in the Austin Group, a prominent rock unit in Texas that was deposited around 89 million years ago, early in the geological time period called the Late Cretaceous.

Pterosaurs, many of which survived on fish, lived at a time when a massive ancient sea cut across the central United States. The Western Interior Seaway was a shallow body of water that split North America in half from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

More than a thousand Pteranodon fossils have been unearthed from the middle part of the seaway.

No definitive Pteranodon specimens have emerged from the southern part that is now Texas.

The SMU specimen, if it is Pteranodon, would be the first discovered so far south in the Western Interior Seaway, said Myers, a postdoctoral researcher in SMU’s Huffington Department of Earth Sciences.

Myers reported and described the specimen in “Earliest Occurrence of the Pteranodontidae (Archosauria: Pterosauria) in North America; New Material from the Austin Group of Texas” in the Journal of Paleontology.

Left wing suggests Pteranodon; cause of death a mystery
Key to identifying the SMU fossils as Pteranodon is a humerus of 5.7 inches, or 14.5 centimeters. The humerus is the uppermost bone in the wing and attaches to the torso. The humerus of the SMU specimen, while complete, did suffer some damage during fossilization when it became compressed and distorted through millions of years of compaction.

“If it wasn’t crushed so badly, it would be possible to determine if it really is Pteranodon,” Myers said. “These bones are easily flattened. They are hollow inside, because they have to be lightweight to allow a pterosaur to fly. So they compress like a pancake as they’re embedded in layers of rock.”

While it’s difficult to narrow the humerus definitively to a specific genus and species, some features clearly identify the specimen as part of the Pteranodontidae family, most likely the genus Pteranodon. It exhibits, for example, the prominent warped deltopectoral crest that is characteristic of members of the Pteranodontidae family, called pteranodontids, he said.

Discovered along with the humerus were parts of the elongated fourth finger that in pterosaurs forms the wing. The SMU specimen’s metacarpal — at 20 centimeters — is incomplete, missing an estimated 37 percent of its length.

The fossils do not solve the mystery of the reptile’s cause of death, Myers said. But it appears the animal probably died in flight over the sea and then fell into the water. Its carcass probably floated for some time, so that when the flesh decomposed the bones separated at the joints, known as “disarticulation,” before they settled to the sea floor and were buried.

“We know it was disarticulated when it was buried because the bones weren’t preserved in correct anatomical position,” Myers said. “Abrupt truncation of the broken end of one of the bones and infilling of the break with sediment also indicates that the breakage and disarticulation took place prior to burial.”

May be oldest Pteranodon in world
If the specimen represents Pteranodon, Myers said, it would be the oldest one in North America by 1 million to 2 million years, and the second oldest pteranodontid in the world.

Pterosaurs were alive from the Late Triassic — more than 200 million years ago — to the Late Cretaceous, evolving from small-bodied creatures to some of the largest animals to ever inhabit the skies, Myers said. An older pteranodontid specimen, belonging to the genus Ornithostoma, previously was identified in England.

“Any pterosaur material is fairly rare to find unless you have exceptional preservation conditions. They are frail, fragile bones, and they require rapid burial to be well preserved,” Myers said. “The SMU specimen was deposited relatively far offshore in deep water, perhaps 50 to 80 feet deep. It’s fairly exceptional because of the number of elements. Typically you’ll only find one piece, or one part of a piece in the local rock.”

During the Early Cretaceous, many types of pterosaurs lived around the world, Myers said. The earliest ones had thin, razor-sharp teeth. In the transition from Early to Late Cretaceous, the toothed variety disappear from the fossil record and toothless forms, like the SMU specimen, become more common, he said.

Dallas area specimens illustrate pterosaur evolution
North Texas is fortunate to have had both the toothed and toothless kinds discovered in the area, illustrating the evolutionary transition, noted Myers.

Besides the toothless specimen just identified by Myers, an older toothed pterosaur, Aetodactylus halli, previously was discovered in the Dallas area. Aetodactylus, also identified by Myers, lived 95 million years ago.

“This new specimen adds a lot more information about pterosaurs in North America,” Myers said. “It helps constrain the timing of the transition from toothed to toothless because there’s only a few million years separating this specimen and Aetodactylus.”

Amateur fossil collector Gary Byrd of Rockwall, Texas, discovered the new SMU pterosaur fossils about 10 years ago.

A roofing contractor who keeps an eye out for fossils, Byrd made the find after stopping to look at two freshly excavated culverts while driving through a new subdivision in Collin County. Using a hammer and pick he dug out the bones and brought them to SMU paleontologists Louis Jacobs and Dale Winkler. Jacobs and Winkler indicated the fossils were likely a pterosaur. Byrd donated the fossils to SMU’s Shuler Museum of Paleontology.

“I found a couple parts of a fish, and then when I saw these my initial thought was that they weren’t fish,” Byrd recalled. “I kind of knew it was something different — a birdlike thing. It’s very rare you find those thin, long bones.”

This isn’t the first time Byrd has hit it lucky finding fossils. In 1994 he discovered dinosaur bones that he donated to SMU’s Shuler Museum. The specimen was identified as a rare primitive duck-billed dinosaur and named Protohadros byrdi after Byrd. — Margaret Allen

Tags Dale A. Winkler, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs, Timothy S. Myers

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3D digital download of giant Glen Rose dinosaur track is roadmap for saving at-risk natural history resources

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date February 7, 2011

Paleontologists propose the new term “digitype” for full-resolution three-dimensional digital models that preserve and archive endangered fossils

Portable laser scanning technology allows researchers to tote their latest fossil discovery from the field to the lab in the form of lightweight digital data stored on a laptop. But sharing that data as a 3D model with others requires standard formats that are currently lacking, say paleontologists at Southern Methodist University.

The SMU researchers used portable laser scanning technology to capture field data of a huge 110 million-year-old Texas dinosaur track and then create to scale an exact 3D facsimile. They share their protocol and findings with the public — as well as their downloadable 145-megabyte model — in the online scientific journal Palaeontologia Electronica.

The model duplicates an actual dinosaur footprint fossil that is slowly being destroyed by weathering because it’s on permanent outdoor display, says SMU paleontologist Thomas L. Adams, lead author of the scientific article. The researchers describe in the paper how they created the digital model and discuss the implications for digital archiving and preservation. Click here for the download link.

“This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using portable 3D laser scanners to capture field data and create high-resolution, interactive 3D models of at-risk natural history resources,” write the authors.

“3D digitizing technology provides a high-fidelity, low-cost means of producing facsimiles that can be used in a variety of ways,” they say, adding that the data can be stored in online museums for distribution to researchers, educators and the public.

SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs is one of the coauthors on the article.

“The protocol for distance scanning presented in this paper is a roadmap for establishing a virtual museum of fossil specimens from inaccessible corners across the globe,” Jacobs said.

Paleontologists propose the term “digitype” for digital models
Scientists increasingly are using computed tomography and 3D laser scanners to produce high-quality 3D digital models, say Adams and his colleagues, including to capture high-resolution images from remote field sites.

SMU’s full-resolution, three-dimensional digital model of the 24-by-16-inch Texas footprint is one of the first to archive an at-risk fossil, they say.

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The SMU paleontologists propose the term “digitype” for such facsimiles, writing in their article “High Resolution Three-Dimensional Laser-scanning of the type specimen of Eubrontes (?) Glenrosensis Shuler, 1935, from the Comanchean (Lower Cretaeous) of Texas: Implications for digital archiving and preservation.”

Laser scanning is superior to other methods commonly used to create a model because the procedure is noninvasive and doesn’t harm the original fossil, the authors say. Traditional molding and casting procedures, such as rubber or silicon molds, can damage specimens.

But the paleontologists call for development of standard formats to help ensure data accessibility.

“Currently there is no single 3D format that is universally portable and accepted by all software manufacturers and researchers,” the authors write.

Digitype is baseline for measuring future deterioration
SMU’s digital model archives a fossil that is significant within the scientific world as a type specimen — one in which the original fossil description is used to identify future specimens. The fossil also has cultural importance in Texas. The track is a favorite from well-known fossil-rich Dinosaur Valley State Park, where the iconic footprint draws tourists.

The footprint was left by a large three-toed, bipedal, meat-eating dinosaur, most likely the theropod Acrocanthosaurus. The dinosaur probably left the footprint as it walked the shoreline of an ancient shallow sea that once immersed Texas, Adams said. The track was described and named in 1935 as Eubrontes (?) glenrosensis. Tracks are named separately from the dinosaur thought to have made them, he explained.

“Since we can’t say with absolute certainty they were made by a specific dinosaur, footprints are considered unique fossils and given their own scientific name,” said Adams, a doctoral candidate in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU.

The fossilized footprint, preserved in limestone, was dug up in the 1930s from the bed of the Paluxy River in north central Texas about an hour’s drive southwest of Dallas. In 1933 it was put on prominent permanent display in Glen Rose, Texas, embedded in the stone base of a community bandstand on the courthouse square.

The footprint already shows visible damage from erosion, and eventually it will be destroyed by gravity and exposure to the elements, Adams said. The 3D model provides a baseline from which to measure future deterioration, he said.

In comparing the 3D model to an original 1930s photograph made of the footprint, the researchers discovered that some surface areas have fractured and fallen away. By comparing the 3D model with a synthetically altered version, the researchers were able to calculate volume change, which in turn enables reconstruction of lost volume for restoration purposes.

Model comprises 52 scans totaling 2 gigabytes
Adams and his research colleagues took a portable scanner to the bandstand site to capture the 3D images. They employed a NextEngine HD Desktop 3D scanner and ScanStudio HD PRO software running on a standard Windows XP 32 laptop. The scanner and laptop were powered from outlets on the bandstand. The researchers used a tent to control lighting and maximize laser contrast.

Because of the footprint’s size — about 2 feet by 1.4 feet (64 centimeters by 43 centimeters) — multiple overlapping images were required to capture the full footprint.

Raw scans were imported into Rapidform XOR2 Redesign to align and merge them into a single 3D model. The final 3D model was derived from 52 overlapping scans totaling 2 gigabytes, the authors said.

The full-resolution 3D digital model comprises more than 1 million poly-faces and more than 500,000 vertices with a resolution of 1.2 millimeters. It is stored in Wavefront format. In that format the model is about 145 megabytes. The model is free for downloading from a link on Palaeontologia Electronica‘s web site.

3D digital footprint also available as a QuickTime virtual object
A smaller facsimile is also available from the journal as a QuickTime Virtual Reality object. In that format, users can slide their mouse pointer over the 3D footprint image to drag it to a desired viewing angle, and zoom and pan. Click here for the link to the QuickTime video.

Besides the 3D model, included with the Palaeontologia Electronica article is a link to a pdf of the original 1935 scientific article in which SMU geology professor Ellis W. Shuler described and identified the dinosaur that made the track.

Shuler’s article, no longer in print, is “Dinosaur Track Mounted in the Band Stand at Glen Rose, Texas,” published in Field & Laboratory. The clay molds and plaster casts Shuler made of the bandstand track are now lost, Adams said. Click here for the article.

Besides Adams and Jacobs, other co-authors on the article are paleontologists Christopher Strganac and Michael J. Polcyn in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU.

The research was funded by the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at SMU. — Margaret Allen

SMU is a private university in Dallas where nearly 11,000 students benefit from the national opportunities and international reach of SMU’s seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility on campus for live TV, radio or online interviews. To speak with Adams or to book him in the SMU studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Christopher Strganac, Dedman College, Ellis W. Shuler, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs, Michael J. Polcyn, Thomas L. Adams

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Unique specimen is first of its kind discovered as far south as Texas, where it flew over a vast ancient sea

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