There's always a lot of news to catch up on at one of the world's largest geological conferences:the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America . This year's conference was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, from November 4-7. Kennislink was there to score the best news. Here are a few short messages about the most striking news.
Flooding
Very striking was the poster about past floods in the US state of New Jersey, where Hurricane Sandy hit hard at the end of last month and caused flooding in several states in the northwest of the US.
The scientists looked at soil layers from two lakes in northern New Jersey. And indeed, the scientists find evidence of some flooding. An example of perfect, yet unconscious timing when it comes to presenting the research.
Trade in fossils
Another notable novelty was also featured as a poster. Some fossil traders argue that fossils are a good investment because they would become increasingly scarce. Simon Condliffe (West Chester University in Pennsylvania) and Scott Hippensteel (University of North Carolina ) came to a very different conclusion:some well-known fossils such as shark teeth, trilobites and fossil fish lost an average of 7% of their value over the past twenty years, probably because the supply has increased due to, among other things, the internet. So it is not recommended to buy those fossils with the aim of selling them for more expensive; buy them because they are beautiful and tell a special story.
Prehistoric paleontologists
When you think of paleontologists, you think of people who collect fossils that are millions of years old and use them for research. The field of paleontology itself is still quite young. Certainly not something you would expect in prehistoric times. In the Mimbres Valley in the US state of New Mexico, they thought otherwise somewhere between the years 550-1000 AD. There, scientists found 300-400 million-year-old fossils such as corals, limbs and sea lilies in an archaeological context; the fossils probably had symbolic value for the inhabitants. For example, a fossil of a moss animal with a man-made hole in it was probably used as a pendant.
Anthropocene
Last year Kennislink devoted an article to the Anthropocene, a geological period named after humans that has yet to be officially approved. Last year the conference title was 'Archean to Anthropocene', this year an entire session was devoted to the Anthropocene on the influence of humans on the Earth's surface. This showed, among other things, that the coastline changes faster with a higher population density.
Meteorite impact?
Sometimes you have scientific titles that seem too good to be true. This time there was also one in the conference program:'A possible meteorite impact initiation of the Cambrian ’. The summary says that the Cambrian explosion of life, in which many of today's living groups of marine organisms developed, would have been strangely caused by the impact of a meteorite in Australia. Once we arrived at the place where the poster should hang, it turned out not to be there at all. The story turned out to be withdrawn due to the dubious content of the summary. Indeed, there is censorship by the Geological Society of America.
Giant Kite
Sometimes of the pterosaur Quetzalcoatlas heard? How this approximately 70 kilograms kite with a wingspan of 10.4 meters could fly from the end of the Cretaceous in North America is not well known. Simply jumping two to three meters in the air does not help, because the huge wings then smash to the ground. The presentation itself shows that these huge pterosaurs need a ramp to get going. How exactly that works with the legs and wings can be seen in the video.
Acid primeval ocean
This year it turned out that it is currently difficult to determine the acidity of the ocean from the past. At a presentation on Nov. 6, scientists suggested using a combination of clues to determine whether the ocean was acidifying over a period of time:a) a cause or 'trigger' must be present, b) the sediment from that time must be low in calcium. (lime, after all, dissolves in acid) and c) especially acid-sensitive organisms die out. The end-Triassic mass extinction fulfills all these conditions.
In the coming days, Kennislink will publish at least one more extensive news item as a result of the conference.
See further:
- The Anthropocene, a new geological time period? (background)
- Ocean acidification:unraveling secrets from the past (news)
- More deaths from floods:climate blame? (background)
- Homemade Superstorm (Science24)