Have they found any frozen Sleestaks?
Posted on 08/15/2005 1:01:20 PM PDT by TerP26
Two teams of researchers, working separately thousands of miles from each other but both defeating incredible odds, have made stunning finds in frozen Antarctica -- so stunning that the National Science Foundation calls their discoveries evidence of a lost world.
The researchers found what they believe to be the fossilized remains of two species of dinosaurs previously unknown to science. One is a 70-million-year old quick-moving meat-eater found on the bottom of an Antarctic sea, while and the other is a 200-million-year-old giant plant-eater that was found on the top of a mountain, reports Reuters.
The lost world in which these two dinosaurs lived was very different from the Antarctica we know now. Their Antarctica was not frigid and frozen. Their Antarctica was warm and wet.
The 70-million-year-old carnivore was small for a dinosaur at just 6 to 8 feet tall. Scientists believe it is an entirely new species of carnivorous dinosaur that is related to the enormous meat-eating tyrannosaurs and the equally voracious, but smaller and swifter, velociraptors. Think "Jurassic Park." Now scream in terror! Found on James Ross Island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula by a team led by Judd Case from St. Mary's College of California, it likely floated out to sea after it died and then sank to the bottom of the Weddell Sea. Reuters explains that its bones and teeth show that it was a two-legged animal that survived in the Antarctic long after other predators took over elsewhere on the globe. "One of the surprising things is that animals with these more primitive characteristics generally haven't survived as long elsewhere as they have in Antarctica," Case told Reuters.
The 200-million-year-old herbivore, a primitive sauropod that had a long neck and four legs, was found by a team led by William Hummer from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois on the 13,000-foot high Mt. Kirkpatrick near the Beardmore Glacier. When this dino lived, the area was a soft riverbed. The team found dinosaur bones, specifically part of a huge pelvis and ilium. "This site is so far removed geographically from any site near its age, it's clearly a new dinosaur to Antarctica," Hammer told Reuters. This dinosaur was probably about 30 feet long, but was part of a lineage that went on to produce animals as large as 100 feet long.
Both excavations were supported by the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
Of interest to you, perhaps.
So, life was flourishing at a time when the climate was much warmer than it is now?
tectonic plate shifting? possible evidence of the one continent theory?
The Democrats have been around for a long, long time.
ping
Best thing about global warming is all the liberals houses on the coast will be under water and they will lose their investmant.
And/or Antarctica was in a much different location...
Its Alien vs Predator coming to life...
If I remember correctly, 200 million years ago, the land mass that is now Antartica wasn't near the South Pole, so it's hardly surprising that it wasn't freezing.
Perhaps Pole shift.
ping
Okay, I was going to cover myself with continental drift, but why invalidate a jab at the other side by bringing in facts? The libs don't have a problem with it.
I hope not. That movie sucked!
More evidence of Global Warming. Or Global Cooling.
Or that we live on a globe!
Here's a FR tread from March 2004.
I hope not. That movie sucked!
I am with you.
I hate it when mindless escapism turns out to be too freaking mindless to bear.
A pointless stupid lump of crap, that movie was. And I had high hopes.
Have they found any frozen Sleestaks?
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