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UPI: Study finds Jurassic ecosystems like today’s

News wire UPI covered the research of SMU paleontologist Timothy S. Myers for the news site.

Myers’ latest study found Jurassic ecosystems were similar to modern: Animals flourish among lush plants. The study set out to discover whether that same relationship held true 150 million years ago during the Late Jurassic when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

“The assumption has been that ancient ecosystems worked just like our modern ecosystems,” said Myers. “We wanted to see if this was, in fact, the case.”

Myers is research curator for SMU’s Shuler Museum of Paleontology in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences of Dedman College.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

UPI
The Earth’s ecosystems in the Jurassic period were similar to modern ones with animals flourishing, taking advantage of lush plant growth, U.S. researchers say.

In modern ecosystems animal populations do well in regions where the climate and landscape produce lush vegetation, and scientists at Southern Methodist University wanted to find out if the same relationship held true 150 million years ago during the Late Jurassic when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

“The assumption has been that ancient ecosystems worked just like our modern ecosystems,” paleontologist Timothy S. Myers said in an SMU release Tuesday. “We wanted to see if this was, in fact, the case.”

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

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

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Red Orbit: Climate And Biota Have Been Ecologically Connected For Millions Of Years

Science writer Rayshell Clapper for redOrbit.com covered the research of SMU paleontologist Timothy S. Myers for the news site’s science section.

Myers’ latest study found Jurassic ecosystems were similar to modern: Animals flourish among lush plants. The study set out to discover whether that same relationship held true 150 million years ago during the Late Jurassic when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

“The assumption has been that ancient ecosystems worked just like our modern ecosystems,” said Myers. “We wanted to see if this was, in fact, the case.”

Myers is research curator for SMU’s Shuler Museum of Paleontology in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences of Dedman College.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Rayshell Clapper
redOrbit.com

According to Southern Methodist University paleontologists Timothy S. Myers, Louis L. Jacobs, and SMU sedimentary geologist Neil J. Tabor, the modern relationship between animals and vegetation is similar to millions of years ago.

In their study, the SMU scientists used fossil soils from the Late Jurassic age gathered from locations where animal fossils were previously found to determine the levels of carbon isotopes. The team used fossils gathered from North America, Europe, and Africa. The main problem with the study, though, is that few places in the world are well-sampled enough for terrestrial fossils, so Myers and his team discovered a new and creative use of an already existing method and already existing geological data.

To gather his results, Myers used a traditional method to estimate carbon dioxide in the ancient atmosphere, only he applied it to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide in ancient soils. To do this, the team took measurements from the nodules of calcite that take on the isotopic signature of the carbon dioxide gas around them. This comes from two sources: the atmosphere and the plants decaying in the soil.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide has a more positive isotope while the decaying plants have more negative isotopes. Therefore, more carbon dioxide from plants means a lusher, wetter environment, which is exactly what their research found.

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

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

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Study finds Jurassic ecosystems were similar to modern: Animals flourish among lush plants

CO2 levels in fossil soils from the Late Jurassic confirm that climate, vegetation and animal richness varied across the planet 150 million years ago, suggesting future human changes to global climate will heavily impact plant and animal life.

In modern ecosystems, it’s widely known that animals flourish in regions where the climate and landscape produce lush vegetation.

A new study set out to discover whether that same relationship held true 150 million years ago during the Late Jurassic when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

“The assumption has been that ancient ecosystems worked just like our modern ecosystems,” said paleontologist and lead author Timothy S. Myers, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. “We wanted to see if this was, in fact, the case.”

To test the theory, Myers analyzed fossil soils from the Late Jurassic by measuring the ratios of carbon isotopes. His analysis indicated that the Jurassic soils contained high levels of CO2 from vegetation.

Nodules of ancient soil are fairly common in present day rock, forming as a result of seasonally dry conditions. They harden into mineralized clods, making them easy to spot and sample as they weather out of ancient soil profiles. (Image: Myers)

From that, Myers was able to infer the presence of lush plant life in certain regions during the Jurassic. The soils came from locales where scientists previously have gathered animal fossils — North America, Europe and Africa. Combining the data with the known fossil sampling allowed Myers to confirm that the modern relationship between animals and vegetation held true even millions of years ago.

“Our analysis represents the first time that anyone has tried to apply ecological modeling to this relationship in the fossil record,” Myers said.

Relatively few places in the world are well-sampled for terrestrial fossils, so Myers’ discovery of a new use for an already existing method represents a useful tool, he said. The new use allows scientists to tap the geochemical data of soils from anywhere in the world and from other geologic time periods to infer the relative abundance of plants and animals, particularly for areas where fossils are lacking.

“This not only provides a more complete picture of the ancient landscape and climate in which ancient animals lived,” Myers said. “It also illustrates that climate and biota have been ecologically connected for many millions of years and that future human-caused changes to global climate will have profound impacts on plant and animal life around the world.”

Myers and his co-researchers reported the findings in Paleobiology, “Estimating Soil pCO2 Using Paleosol Carbonates: Implications for the Relationship Between Primary Productivity and Faunal Richness in Ancient Terrestrial Ecosystems.”

Co-authors were SMU sedimentary geochemist Neil J. Tabor and paleontologists Louis L. Jacobs, SMU, and Octávio Mateus, New University of Lisbon, Portugal.

“Devising new and creative methods to understand how Earth and life have functioned together in the past is the foundation for predicting the future of life on our planet,” said Jacobs, a vertebrate paleontologist and professor in SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences. “It is the only approach that provides a long enough perspective of what is possible.”

New method applied to old hypothesis confirms regional variability
Typically researchers count the number of animal species discovered in a region to determine how many different types of animals once lived there. Scientists call that a measure of faunal richness.

Myers took a different approach. Using a traditional method typically used to estimate carbon dioxide in the ancient atmosphere, Myers instead applied it to estimate the amount of CO2 in ancient soils.

Measurements were taken from nodules of calcite that form in soil as a result of wet and dry seasons. These nodules take on the isotopic signature of the CO2 gas around them, which is a mixture derived from two sources: the atmosphere, which leaves a more positive isotopic signature, and plants decaying in the soil, which leave a more negative isotopic signature.

A higher volume of CO2 from plants indicates a lusher, wetter environment.

“There’s a lot more litter fall in an environment with a lot of plants, and that produces a lot of organic material in the soil, creating CO2. So we see more soil-produced CO2, displacing the atmospheric CO2. These are established relationships,” Myers said.

“Our method can be used to infer relative levels of richness for areas where soils have been preserved, but where fossils are lacking because conditions were unsuitable for their preservation,” he said.

The research demonstrates creative use of existing geological data, said co-author Tabor, an expert in ancient soil in SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences.

“Vertebrate paleontologists have been accumulating information about vertebrate fossils in the Jurassic for well over 100 years. In addition, geochemists have been systematically sampling the composition of ancient soils for several decades,” Tabor said. “In these respects, the data that are the foundation of this study are not extraordinary. What is remarkable, though, is combining the paleontology and geochemistry data to answer large-scale questions that extend beyond the data points — specifically, to answer questions about ancient ecosystems.”

Data from Morrison Formation, Central Africa and Portugal
Myers tested Upper Jurassic soil nodules collected from the Morrison Formation in the western United States. The formation extends from Montana to New Mexico and has been the source of many dinosaur fossil discoveries.

He also analyzed Upper Jurassic soil nodules from Portugal, another location well-sampled for dinosaur fossils. The region’s paleoclimate was broadly similar to that of the Morrison Formation.

In addition, Myers tested a small Upper Jurassic core sample from Central Africa, where there’s no evidence of any major terrestrial life. Unique minerals in the rocks indicate that the region had an arid environment during the Late Jurassic.

Based on their hypothesis, the researchers expected to see regional variations in plant productivity — the amount of new growth produced in an area over time, which is an indirect measure of the amount of plant life in an environment. Forests, savannas and deserts all have different amounts of plant productivity, although those specific ecosystems can’t be identified on the basis of plant productivity alone.

The researchers expected to see higher plant productivity for Portugal than for the Morrison Formation, with the lowest productivity in Central Africa.

“Essentially that’s what we found,” Myers said. “We understand it’s tenuous and not a trend, but few places in the world are well-sampled. However, it’s still a useful tool for places where all we have are the soil nodules, without well-preserved fauna.”

Soil nodules are fairly common, Myers said. They form as a result of seasonally dry conditions and may be preserved in all but the wettest environments. Since they harden into mineralized clods, they are easy to spot and sample as they weather out of ancient soil profiles.

CO2 in ancient calcite nodules offers key to ancient climate
From the analysis scientists can draw a more complete picture of the ancient landscape and climate in which prehistoric animals lived.

“The Jurassic is thought of as very warm, very wet, with lots of dinosaurs,” said Myers, research curator for SMU’s Shuler Museum of Paleontology. “But we see from our analysis that there was regional variability during the Late Jurassic in the climate and in the abundance of animals across the planet.”

The Late Jurassic extended from 160 million years ago to 145 million years ago. — Margaret Allen

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

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

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Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news SMU In The News

KDFW Fox 4 Lone Star Adventure: Dinosaur at Lake Lewisville

KDFW Fox 4 reporter Richard Ray interviewed SMU paleontologist Timothy S. Myers for the TV journalist’s Lone Star Adventure series.

Ray interviewed Myers about a new dinosaur fossil discovered north of Dallas-Fort Worth at Lake Lewisville by amateur fossil hunter Dan Bidleman, Denton.

Myers is research curator for SMU’s Shuler Museum of Paleontology in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences of Dedman College.

Watch the video.

EXCERPT:

By Richard Ray

This week’s Lone Star Adventure takes us north of Dallas to Lewisville Lake, fossil hunting with a North Texas man whose remarkable find first got the attention of an amateur paleontologist – an amateur who is something of an expert — and now has professional scientists working with the bones.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

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

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WFAA: North Texan finds dinosaurs in our backyards

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.

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