Posted on 07/30/2011 7:44:38 AM PDT by Daffynition
A 200 million year old reptilian fossil was discovered by Alaskan scientists along the shores of Tongass National Forest. It was the low tide that made the discovery possible as a rare marine creature called Thalattosaurs was submerged in water and rocks. The last Thalattosaurs to survive was after the Triassic period, roughly 200 million years ago.
An almost complete skeleton was recovered along with an outline of the body embedded onto surrounding rocks. The creature is usually between 3 to 10 feet long with padded limbs and flat tails. The snout turns downward and contains both pointy teeth for catching fish and flat ones for breaking shells.
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Hell, there’s a family of thalattosaurs living in the pond behind our house. No big deal!
An oddity of Alaska is that it was one of the last dinosaur enclaves in the world, as the world got colder and drier.
The article says to click on “START” to see more rare photos of fossils, but there is not a click-able “START”.
Click on the image ...a direction arrow appears. ->
This is a local find:
ECHINOID FAUNA FROM THE ANAHUAC (LATE OLIGOCENE) REEF AT DAMON MOUND, BRAZORIA COUNTY, TEXAS
ZACHOS, Louis G., Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C-1140, Austin, TX 78712, zachos@mail.utexas.edu and MOLINEUX, Ann, Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas at Austin, 2400 Trinity, Austin, TX 78712
Damon Mound is the name of a large (about 35 km2) topographic high rising 25 meters above the flat coastal plain in northwestern Brazoria County, Texas, about 50 kilometers southwest of Houston. The mound is the surface expression of a piercement salt dome, and the remnants of an Anahuac (Late Oligocene) coral reef are preserved in a fault-delineated block embedded in the caprock of the salt dome and exposed by caprock quarrying operations.
Salt dome tectonics has resulted in the uplift of the reef limestone on the order of 2000 meters above the equivalent zone in the subsurface. A relatively small section of reef, covering slightly less than a hectare in area, is exposed. Echinoid remains are present, and although whole-body fossils are rare the amount of diversity (at least eight species) represented by this small sample size is significant.
The reef can be divided into four zones, each with characteristic echinoid species. The reef drape, composed primarily of tests of the foraminifer Heterostegina texana, represents the deepest water environment, and includes Clypeaster marinanus, Agassizia mossomi, and Lovenia alabamensis. The overlying zone consists of interbedded calcilutites and Porites coral thickets, and includes the species Echinometra prisca, Clypeaster marinanus, Clypeaster sp. cf. oxybaphon, Brissus exiguus, and Schizobrissus dubius. The reef core of massive corals includes Prionocidaris cojimarensis and Echinometra prisca.
The shallow-water back reef deposits include only Clypeaster marinanus. The Damon Mound fauna is more closely related to tropical Late Oligocene and Early Miocene faunas of Mexico and the Antilles than to Gulf and Atlantic Coast faunas of the United States at the same latitude. During the Oligo-Miocene Damon Mound and similar salt dome reef buildups in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico may have been havens for tropical species that could not have otherwise survived at that latitude.
Comparisons can be made with the modern-day coral reefs on the Flower Garden Banks in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico.
I really find these “finds” as being “no big deal”.
Some fossils are worth big bucks making them a very big F’n deal. LOL
Only one?
The Leftists Democrats sent hordes of their Dinosaur Media “reporters” to Alaska trying to scrape up or lie about info that would hurt Sarah Palin. Since there was no there there many perished in the conifers and tundra forever discrediting their own resumes as well as their media masters’.
They should have more obsolete and extinct bodies buried in Alaska than are buried at Pico and Sepulveda in SoCal.
Thalattosaurs from the Triassic, found in the Tongass National Forest.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Daffynition. |
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Famous Amos? or was that Sunset and Formosa?
“I really find these “finds” as being “no big deal”.”
Actually, you post is very relevant, if only to remind us mankind is but one generation removed from an ignorant, prehistoric ape, feeding on offal..
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