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Dinosaurs Without Bones – Anthony J. Martin

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Dinosaurs Without Bones

Dinosaur Lives Revealed by Their Trace Fossils

Anthony J. Martin

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: March 4, 2014

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


What if we woke up one morning all of the dinosaur bones in the world were gone? How would we know these iconic animals had a 165-million year history on earth, and had adapted to all land-based environments from pole to pole? What clues would be left to discern not only their presence, but also to learn about their sex lives, raising of young, social lives, combat, and who ate who? What would it take for us to know how fast dinosaurs moved, whether they lived underground, climbed trees, or went for a swim? Welcome to the world of ichnology, the study of traces and trace fossils—such as tracks, trails, burrows, nests, toothmarks, and other vestiges of behavior—and how through these remarkable clues, we can explore and intuit the rich and complicated lives of dinosaurs. With a unique, detective-like approach, interpreting the forensic clues of these long-extinct animals that leave a much richer legacy than bones, Martin brings the wild world of the Mesozoic to life for the twenty-first-century reader. Past Praise for Anthony J. Martin: “Martin shows how ancient trace fossils directly relate to modern traces and tracemakers, among them insects, crabs, shorebirds, alligators, and sea turtles. The result is an aesthetically appealing and scientifically accurate book.” — Birdbooker Report “The pedagogy is excellent, and the explanations of technical material are accessible.” —Raymond Freeman-Lynde, University of Georgia “Full of valuable and useful information.” — Geological Magazine Anthony J. Martin is a professor at Emory University, a paleontologist, geologist, and one of the world’s most accomplished ichnologists. He is the co-discoverer of the first known burrowing dinosaur, found the oldest dinosaur burrows in the geologic record, and documented the best assemblage of polar-dinosaur tracks in the Southern Hemisphere. He is the author of two textbooks on dinosaurs and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Dinosaurs Without Bones – Anthony J. Martin

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Big business is diving into the fight over the Dakota Access pipeline.

In interviews with members of four indigenous communities in Alaska’s Yukon River Basin, U.S. Geological Service researchers found differences in how older and younger generations experienced climatic change. Younger generations noticed change in their landscape, but viewed the warm winters, little snow, and other seasonal shifts as normal, “likely because that is all they have ever known,” according to the study.

Understandings of environmental change can be passed through generations. But community interviews showed a difference in how young and older generations perceived climate change. While over 50 percent of elder interviewees described statements from their parents and grandparents about the environment changing, none of the youngest interviewees brought up the environmental observations of elders.

“[T]hose younger than us, they don’t hear these stories anymore,” said one Chevak resident, from the 30-49 age group. “It’s like a fairy tale, they might know it’s real, but it doesn’t hit them as the way it got to us.”

Climate change is not an abstract future in Alaska. Physical and cultural impacts like erosion, ice melt, fish availability, and uprooted communities have already left scars. The state has seen twice the warming of the rest of the country. As one anonymous elder in Kotlik put it: “The world is getting thin.”

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Big business is diving into the fight over the Dakota Access pipeline.

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Fracking operations might’ve caused one of Oklahoma’s biggest earthquakes yet.

The state’s last record-setting earthquake was in 2011, when it topped 5.6 magnitude. A new one on Saturday matched that record.

As fracking has boomed in the U.S., the number of earthquakes across the nation tripled from 2009 to 2015.

At 3.0 magnitude, you probably wouldn’t even notice a tremor. Approaching 6.0, you can definitely feel it — and the risk for injury starts getting more serious.

But frequency is more troubling than strength. For naturally occurring seismic activity, geologists link recurring smaller quakes to bigger, more destructive quakes to come. Oklahoma’s tremors, however are not normal: The majority are linked to wastewater injection from oil and gas operations.

The U.S. Geological Survey hasn’t determined yet whether that’s what caused Saturday’s jitters, but said: “We do know that many earthquakes in Oklahoma have been triggered by wastewater fluid injection.”

Last month, the Washington Post reported that Oklahoma and Kansas showed progress in strengthening regulations of wastewater injection. Oklahoma, which has been slower to adopt the new rules, experienced slightly fewer minor quakes in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year.

Oklahoma regulators were concerned enough to immediately order 37 wastewater disposal wells to shut down on Saturday.

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The Alberta wildfire is dumping mercury into the atmosphere

The Alberta wildfire is dumping mercury into the atmosphere

By on May 19, 2016Share

Alberta’s massive wildfire is sending more than just smoke into the air.

The Fort McMurray fire, which merged with another smaller wildfire last week, has displaced residents and cleared nearly everything in its path, including swaths of the region’s dense boreal forests. The combined blaze has already released the equivalent of 5 percent of Canada’s annual carbon dioxide emissions and is expected to continue to burn for the next few months. The fires have also filled Fort McMurray’s air with dangerous contaminants, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide, pushing its air pollution to off-the-charts levels. Along with all that carbon, the fires are releasing mercury into the atmosphere.

When a huge fire rages through a boreal forest, it is probably going to hit some peatlands, 80 percent of which are located in high latitudes. Peat contains more mercury than other soils, accumulated in layers that can build up over thousands of years. Peatlands are largely stable sinks for mercury — until a wildfire comes along.

“All of a sudden, you have this big release in a fire,” said Christine Wiedinmyer, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Modeling Lab. “The mercury that before was staying in one place is now in the atmosphere, and can be transported downwind, adding more mercury in places where we don’t necessarily want it.”

And mercury may be able to travel far away from its source. By some estimates, mercury in the atmosphere can travel around the Earth for about a year before being deposited on land or water.

“The mercury level in rain is not only from us — the sources are also global, like when it gets released Europe and Asia and deposited down,” said Yanxu Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University who studies mercury and other pollutants. “It has the capability for long-range transport, which makes it harder to control and combat.”

Mercury exposure can cause insidious effects even at low levels, worsening health problems that already exist. It depends on the dose and the type of mercury, and there are three types: elemental, which can cause neurological damage; salts, industrial pollution causing kidney problems; and organic, the type that gets into the food chain and causes birth defects and is why pregnant women are advised against eating fish.

“In a lot of cases, mercury has a lasting impact — but the degree to which that resonates is something we don’t understand yet,” said Dave Krabbenhoft, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey who’s been studying mercury contamination for 28 years.

The 2012 U.S. mercury and air toxics rule, meant to clean up the industrial kind of mercury pollution from power plants, is expected to prevent some 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks every year, saving up to $70 billion in healthcare costs annually.

Boreal fires could roll back some of those numbers. Since these fires take place in less-populated areas, they are often left to burn longer, releasing more mercury. This problem will only be exacerbated by the increasing intensity and frequency of boreal fires due to climate change.

We don’t yet know exactly how much mercury Alberta’s fires are releasing — and we might not know for years, until scientists can complete a post-mortem review. But one thing’s for sure: Those plumes of smoke aren’t healthy for you.

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The Alberta wildfire is dumping mercury into the atmosphere

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Check the climate forecast in your county

Check the climate forecast in your county

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The average maximum temperature in L.A. is forecast to increase to between 77 and 83 degrees by the end of this century, up from 73 degrees in the 1980s. Summertime average maximums in Boulder, Colo., have already increased to 75 degrees, up from the low 70s in the 1960s. Residents of Vermont can look forward to temperature rises of as much as 10 degrees this century.

That’s according to a new U.S. Geological Survey tool that lets you focus in on climate trends and forecasts for counties throughout the U.S.

The online tool draws on data being produced through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s efforts to produce its fifth assessment report. “The maps and summaries at the county level condense a huge volume of data,” said Matthew Larsen of the USGS Climate and Land Use Program.

To find out what the weather is going to be like in your home county, visit this USGS website.

As an example, here is how the temperature is forecast to change in Miami, Fla. Note that 35 degrees Celsius is hot — the same as 95 Fahrenheit:

USGSTemperature forecasts for Miami-Dade County in Florida.


Source
NEX-DCP30 Home, USGS

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Superstorm Sandy washed away half of Fire Island’s sand

Superstorm Sandy washed away half of Fire Island’s sand

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Cleaning up Fire Island after Hurricane Sandy.

It was obvious to locals that Fire Island, N.Y. — Long Island’s longest barrier island — lost a lot of sand during Superstorm Sandy. And now federal scientists have quantified the staggering loss: 54.4 percent.

The researchers warn that the disappearance of more than half of the island’s sand dunes and beachfront sand has left the tourist mecca more vulnerable to further storms and floods.

During winter storms that followed Sandy, the shoreline on the exposed island was sucked back a further 200 feet in one place, though most of the sand lost during those smaller storms washed back into place by April. Much of the sand lost during the superstorm, by contrast, is still missing.

From the U.S. Geological Survey report [PDF]:

Hurricane Sandy profoundly impacted the morphology of Fire Island and resulted in an extremely low elevation, low relief configuration that has left the barrier island vulnerable to future storms. The coastal system subsequently began to show signs of recovery, and although the beach is likely to experience continued recovery in the form of volume gains, the dunes will take years to rebuild. Events such as Sandy result in a coastal environment that is more vulnerable to future storm impacts, but they are an important natural process of barrier islands that allow these systems to evolve in response to sea-level rise.

The vast majority of the sand that Sandy purloined from Fire Island was washed offshore, where it is currently of little use to East Coasters eager for protection from future storm surges. The researchers calculated that just 14 percent drifted inland toward other area shorelines.

Randy Levine

Fire Island in July

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Superstorm Sandy washed away half of Fire Island’s sand

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