Tag: Louis L. Jacobs

Uncovering Angola’s ancient giants: Louis Jacobs’ presentation

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 6, 2009

Fossil finds in the rock outcrops of the coast of Angola in Africa are a “museum in the ground,” according to SMU vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs.

Internationally recognized for his fossil discoveries, Jacobs and a team of researchers have unearthed fossils in the outcrops from Namibe, at the southern end of Angola’s coast, to Cabinda, at the northern end.

Jacobs’ work in Angola is jointly funded by the Petroleum Research Fund and National Geographic Society. He’ll present details July 9 at the monthly meeting of the Angola Field Group in Luanda.

A professor in Dedman College‘s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Jacobs joined SMU’s faculty in 1983. Currently he has projects in Mongolia, Angola and Antarctica. 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 is consulting on a new exhibit, Mysteries of the Texas Dinosaurs, which is set to open in the fall of 2009.

From the Angola Field Group’s blog:

The Angola Field Group invites you to: Uncovering the Hidden Remains of Angola’s Ancient Giants, a presentation this Thursday, July 9, at 8:00 p.m. at the Viking Club with dinosaur hunter Dr. Louis Jacobs who calls the fossils of Angola a “museum in the ground.”

Dr. Jacobs and his team first came to Angola in 2005 and again in 2007 to hunt for fossils of giant marine lizards first reported in the 1960’s, but they unearthed much more than that. He will present a review of their finds from the rock outcrops of the coast of Namibe province all the way up to the coast of Cabinda, conducted in cooperation with Agostinho Neto University and ISPRA University in Lubango.

Dr. Jacobs teaches geology and paleontology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and has conducted fieldwork worldwide. He’s internationally recognized as a dinosaur expert and six fossil species have been named after him.

Read the full entry.

Tags Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs

Plants & Animals Researcher news

Discovery News: Surprise! Not all stegosaurs had short necks

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date February 26, 2009

Vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, a professor in Dedman College‘s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, is quoted in Discovery News online in the February 25 story “Long-Necked Stegosaur Defies Reputation.”

Jacobs is known for his work documenting changes in fossil mammals in Pakistan, which helps scholars correlate climatic changes with evolutionary changes seen in animals, and which helps calibrate the rate of DNA evolution in mammals. He’s also credited for discovery of what’s now known as “Malawisaurus,” a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in Malawi, Africa, 115 million years ago.

Excerpt

By Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News

The classic image of a stegosaur calls to mind a grazing beast with short legs and a short neck, but a newly discovered species from Portugal was found to have one of the longest necks ever recorded for a dinosaur, relative to overall body size, according to a new study.

“Miragaia longicollum,” meaning “long-necked wonderful goddess of the Earth,” had more neck vertebrae than almost any other dinosaur, tying the record previously set by three Chinese sauropods, the study found.

Octavio Mateus, who led the research, told Discovery News that the new species and other stegosaurs were four-legged plant eaters “with a row of plates and spines along the body from the neck to the tail.” One swift swing of the tail could jab the sharp spines into would-be attackers. …

Louis Jacobs, director of the Shuler Museum of Paleontology at Southern Methodist University, told Discovery News that the new study “is quite interesting because it shows a body form, and by inference, an ecological diversity among stegosaurs that was not suspected before.”

Read the full story

Tags Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs, Shuler Museum of Paleontology

Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news

National Geographic: Rare fossil of pregnant whale is missing-link

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date February 3, 2009

Vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, a professor in Dedman College‘s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, is quoted in the February 3 online story “Early whales gave birth on land, fossils reveal” by National Geographic News Service.

Excerpt

By Tasha Eichenseher
National Geographic News

It’s an evolutionary discovery Darwin himself would have been proud of.

Forty-seven million years ago primitive whales gave birth on land, according to a study published this week that analyzes the fossil of a pregnant whale found in the Pakistani desert.

It is the first fetal fossil from the group of ancient amphibious whales called “Archaeoceti,” as well as the first from an extinct species called “Maiacetus inuus.”

When the fossil was discovered, nine years ago, University of Michigan paleontologist Philip Gingerich was thrown off by the jumble of adult and fetal-size bones.

“The first thing we found

[were] small teeth, then ribs going the wrong way,” Gingerich said. Later, “it was just astonishing to realize why the specimen in the field was so confusing.”

The head-first position of the fetus was especially telling.

Land mammals are generally born head first, and marine mammals are born tail first. …

Whales’ slow transition from land to sea is documented in other fossils, but this is the most complete to fill a gap during this time period…..

“This is a big discovery because it tells us about life history, or the way early whales lived their lives, [which is something] that is difficult to learn from fossils,” Gingerich said.

The most famous other seafaring animals to be found fossilized with a complete fetus were ichthyosaurs, a reptile group that lived roughly 245 to 100 million years ago.

“Not since have we seen fossils of marine-dwelling vertebrates that tell us so much about the biology of evolving an ocean dwelling way of life from a terrestrial ancestor,” said Louis Jacobs, a vertebrate paleontologist at Southern Methodist University in Texas.

“It is a missing link of the most informative sort,” Jacobs added.

“Charles Darwin would delight.”
Read the full story

Tags Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Louis L. Jacobs

Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Student researchers

Mistaken ID for official Texas state dinosaur; name to change

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date January 13, 2009

It’s a case of mistaken dino-identity. The official State Dinosaur of Texas is up for a new name, based on Southern Methodist University research that proved the titleholder has been misidentified.

State Rep. Charles Geren of Fort Worth filed a resolution January 7 to change the name of the state dinosaur from Pleurocoelus to Paluxysaurus jonesi to correctly name the massive sauropod whose tracks and bones litter the central Texas Jones Ranch.

Peter J. Rose is the scientist behind the name change: His master’s level study of dinosaur bones at SMU eventually led him to dispute the long-accepted notion that the large, sauropod bones found in and around the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas, were the same as Pleurocoelus bones first found in Maryland in the late 1800s.

Rose determined it was a different dinosaur altogether — a previously unrecognized genus and species he named Paluxysaurus jonesi, after W.W. Jones, the owner of the land on which the fossils were found. Once Rose’s discovery was published in 2007, Pleurocelus’ grand Texas title no longer fit.

Geren filed his resolution on behalf of constituents at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, which is a partner with SMU in ongoing research at the Glen Rose site, about 60 miles southwest of Fort Worth. Aaron Pan, Ph.D., the museum’s curator of science, believes it’s crucial to get the record corrected.

“I think it’s going to be good for Texas paleontology and dinosaur research in general,” Pan said. “Peter Rose’s research has found that it is a new genus and a new species. This dinosaur is unique to Texas, and it is the most abundant dinosaur fossil found in the Glen Rose area.”

SMU geological sciences professor Louis L. Jacobs, who was Rose’s mentor, said that nobody before Rose had made an adequate study of the sauropod bones found at the Glen Rose site. Jacobs has described Texas as a kind of “free trade zone for the age of reptiles” since dinosaurs from three different geologic time periods have been found in three different geographic areas of the state. Paluxysaurus jonesi is believed to have lived 112 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period.

“It just goes to show that Texas is a great place to make great discoveries — even when you might think everything has been found,” Jacobs said.

Rose, 29, received his master’s degree in geological sciences from SMU in 2004. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in paleontology at the University of Minnesota, he concedes he is excited about the proposal to change the state dinosaur’s name to correspond with his research.

“But when you come down to it, whether it’s a new species is not the big question. More important are some of the bigger picture ideas about how these organisms evolved and what they were doing when they were alive,” Rose said. “I hope the future work I do has some broader implications. Currently I’m doing more climate research with implications, I hope, for global climate change.”

Tags Aaron Pan, Louis L. Jacobs, Michael J. Polcyn, Paluxysaurus jonesi, Peter J. Rose

Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Learning & Education Plants & Animals Researcher news

Louis Jacobs co-writes, consults for international paleo video

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 12, 2008

Vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs is scientific consultant and co-writer of a new 33-minute video just released by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

A professor in Dedman College‘s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Jacobs introduces the “We Are SVP” video. An internationally known vertebrate paleontologist, he is a former president of the society.

The video features many other respected paleontologists from around the world, all of them talking about the work they do and its importance to science and society. The goal of the video is to educate students, teachers and the public about vertebrate paleontologists and the importance of their work.

“Because we study fossils, especially dinosaurs, we capture the imagination of children, and that makes vertebrate paleontology a gateway for all science,” Jacobs says in the video.

Also appearing is SMU geology student and SMU President’s Scholar Karen Gutierrez.

The society’s 2,300 members in 54 countries are scientists who study fossils of animals with backbones and complex brains, including dinosaurs.

Vertebrate paleontology’s findings provide the evidence for environmental change and contribute to understanding everything from climate change and evolution to ecology.

“Our field expeditions and our laboratory work provide the evidence for environmental change, including its most serious consequence — extinction,” Jacobs says in the video.

Jacobs joined SMU’s faculty in 1983. Currently he has projects in Mongolia, Angola and Antarctica.

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 is consulting on a new exhibit, Mysteries of the Texas Dinosaurs, which is set to open in the fall of 2009.

Jacobs is also known for his work documenting changes in fossil mammals in Pakistan, which helps scholars correlate climatic changes with evolutionary changes seen in animals, and which helps calibrate the rate of DNA evolution in mammals. He’s also credited for discovery of what’s now known as Malawisaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in Malawi, Africa, 115 million years ago.

In the early 1980s, Jacobs worked for paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey as head of the division of paleontology at the National Museums of Kenya.

The SVP video is narrated by “Law & Order” television star Sam Waterston. The video was produced by longtime New York theater producer Steve Cohen. Executive producer was Ray Marr of Shade Tree Studios in Dallas. Portions of the video were shot at the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas.

Tags Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Karen Gutierrez, Louis L. Jacobs