Gigantic dinosaur-eating plane-size reptile discovered in Mongolia

FoxNews: Science ^ | Nov 2, 2017

[ETL]

A monstrous, meat-eating flying reptile that had a wingspan of a small airplane, could walk on all fours and stalked its prey on land has been found in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.

Fortunately for us humans, who would have made for a delightful midday snack, this pterosaur is dead. Long dead. Seventy million years dead.

With an approximately 36-foot wingspan, “It might have been this quite robust, formidable predator,” Mark Witton, an expert on pterosaurs at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., told National Geographic. “They seem to be feeding on things on the ground and are generalist in their ability to grab basically whatever they can fit in their beaks.”

Thankfully, that didn’t include humans, who weren’t around at the time. Scientists think this pterosaur had to settle for a diet of little dinosaurs. ..."

[Slyfox]

It is one of my favs. My version is small too but I bump the width up to 600.

[Axenolith]

I’ve never looked at a lahar deposit and though “gee, this took millions of years”. Maybe a sequence of them...

[ETL]

No where on earth does a complete stratigraphic column like that exist.

Of course not. It's a greatly simplified graphic of the geologic time scale.

[ETL]

Interesting issue regarding blood flow to the brain in a giraffe due to its very long neck.
This dinosaur would have similar issues, I would think.
Here is an example article:
https://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/for-giraffes-blood-circulation-is-a-tall-order/

There's been a similar discussion and debate regarding the sauropod ("Brontosaur"-type) dinosaurs for years, having to do with the high level of blood pressure that would be required for the blood to reach the animal's brain when it (if it) actually did rear up on its hind legs to eat from the tops of trees. Dino expert Bob Bakker argues it could have been possible as these creatures had very tiny brains and so wouldn't have needed much blood going to their brain. The problem with the high amount of blood pressure is that once the animal came back down again the enormous blood pressure would nearly blow its head off. In other words, he believes it was beneficial for these particular dinos to have small brains. He calls them "Darwinian morons".

[bitt]

p

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p?

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ping

:)

[Vendome]

[Molon Labbie]

This is why the quad .50 was made...

[PIF]

“... this stuff still makes my head hurt.”

---

That’s why they make tinfoil ....

[BroJoeK]

Fungi: "No where on earth does a complete stratigraphic column like that exist."

nevermorelenore: "Mount St Helen’s is a great demonstration of geological features produced in hours and days, contrary to what was previously thought to take millions or years..."

I'd think Grand Canyon stratigraphy could serve as a reasonable approximation.
As for Mount St. Helens, such features in no way resemble those formed over many millions of years.
Any geologist could tell the difference.

Of course, anti-scientists can always figure out ways to confuse one for the other, right?

[Bryan24]

I’m deducing that during the intervening 70000000 years that the laws of physics that effect aerodynamics, lift and air density have changed significantly, too.

[ETL]

Yes, the Grand Canyon is an excellent example, despite a few gaps. At the base are rocks over 2 billion years old (that's still less than half the age of the Earth, approximated at 4.6 billion). And at the top, at least in the area depicted in your graphic, are rocks of Mesozoic age (~250 million years ago to about 66 million years ago. ie, the time of the dinosaurs). Don't know if there are any younger deposits than that at the GC, but I'm sure there are.

Because it is impossible to have a continuous, non-interrupted series of sedimentary (or igneous) rock layers. Earth just doesn't work that way. Sedimentary layers are the result of sedimentary particles washed off of mountains or some other form of highlands, and once the elevated regions are erosionally reduced to a flat surface, sedimentary deposition, for the most, ends, and the sedimentary beds themselves begin to undergo the slow process of erosion.

It's a similar situation with igneous or ancient lava flows. Once the source is depleted, that's it. No more deposition.

[null and void]

Name him, ping him...

[null and void]

I’m deducing that during the intervening 70000000 years that the laws of physics that effect aerodynamics, lift and air density have changed significantly, too.

I'm guessing that the shallow ocean Chixulube strike created a magma powered rocket engine 120 miles across that blasted a significant fraction of the Cretaceous atmosphere into space.

The only things that survived were burrow dwellers that we accustomed to oxygen depleted tunnels.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

That dino is not even a snack for "The Giant Claw"

[ETL]

I’m deducing that during the intervening 70,000,000 years that the laws of physics that effect aerodynamics, lift and air density have changed significantly, too.

I seriously doubt that any of the laws of physics changed at all, especially since a relatively recent time as 70 million years ago. Perhaps on the grand scale there could conceivably have been some, at least minor, changes in the value of the physical constants, such as the gravitational constant, or Hubble 'Constant', which is the rate the universe is believed to be expanding.

In fact, that rate definitely appears to have changed (dramatically) over the course of the life of the universe, from the Big Bang to modern times.

According to the Inflationary Big Bang theory, the most accepted today, the rate was insanely high at the start, many times faster than light. Then, for some reason, the rate slowed tremendously, then started speeding up again!

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Lol! Yes, that was most rude of me!

Sorry, sauropod!

[ETL]

Al Sharpton (the meat-eater, leaf-eater, free-buffet eater)

Lol! Just now caught that last bit: Sharpton: 'free-buffet eater'

Al could benefit from a few more free buffets these days... Looks worse now than he did then.

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