Posted on 10/20/2020 9:33:20 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A team of geologists at the University of Houston College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics believes they have found the lost plate in northern Canada by using existing mantle tomography images—similar to a CT scan of the earth's interior. The findings, published in Geological Society of America Bulletin, could help geologists better predict volcanic hazards as well as mineral and hydrocarbon deposits.
"Volcanoes form at plate boundaries, and the more plates you have, the more volcanoes you have," said Jonny Wu, assistant professor of geology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "Volcanoes also affect climate change. So, when you are trying to model the earth and understand how climate has changed since time, you really want to know how many volcanoes there have been on earth."
Wu and Spencer Fuston, a third-year geology doctoral student, applied a technique developed by the UH Center for Tectonics and Tomography called slab unfolding to reconstruct what tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean looked like during the early Cenozoic Era. The rigid outermost shell of Earth, or lithosphere, is broken into tectonic plates and geologists have always known there were two plates in the Pacific Ocean at that time called Kula and Farallon. But there has been discussion about a potential third plate, Resurrection, having formed a special type of volcanic belt along Alaska and Washington State.
Using 3-D mapping technology, Fuston applied the slab unfolding technique to the mantle tomography images to pull out the subducted plates before unfolding and stretching them to their original shapes.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Have some more kittens.
Nobody’s astir here except cats and me. I’ll probably find Shannon hating me on the front doorstep if I look.
I have music stuff to do this morning. The dates have really piled on here.
I went to bed before 8:00 last night, along with Frank and Kathleen. Life is just knocking me out these days!
I like that quilt! Have been looking for a new project. Of course, I love the kittens, too.
I have a similar one that my grandmother and her neighbors made in the 1930s. Don’t have a little of fluffy kittens, though!
11:33h GMT
One second!
3,025 posted on 8 February 2021 at 11:33:01 GMT
Oh, hai! Iz Mondayz? Happy Mondayz!
Lucky you!
I don’t know how far Würzburg Germany is from the Prime Meridian, but I know it was a lot farther north than I was used to! We transferred from Yuma, Arizona to Würzburg, in the summer and the climate change was horrendous!
Thanks! Like needs more fluffy kittehs!
If I were a quilter, I’d like to make one like that, but I only do quilt blocks, and then only if there is a pressing need. I had a red, white and blue quilt when I lived in Del Rio, but I got tired of it. And I don’t know why. Musta been a mood thing.
Shannon is wandering around calling us names and demanding more meat. What a grouch!
Today’s special animal friend is the Big Hairy Armadillo, Chaetophractus villosus, which is a real thing, not a rock band. In the late 1980s/early ‘90s, my late father was on a bowling team called The Thundering Herd, and they had t-shirts featuring charging armadillos. Good memories ...
The Big Hairy Armadillo is one of 21 extant species of armadillos, a group of New World placental mammal which are the only members of the order Cingulata. They are most closely related to sloths and anteaters. Big Hairy is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and a few adjacent areas over national borders in South America. “Big” is relative: it can grow more than 13 inches long, with a tail about another 6 inches, making it more than twice the size of the Lesser Hairy Armadillo. Adult weight averages 4.5 to 5 lbs.
Like all armadillos, Big Hairy’s head and back are covered with armored plates. On the back, the plates are separated by flexible bands that allow the animal to bend “forward,” as it were. Its underside is covered with dense hair, and long, coarse hairs project between its armor plates. It is one of the hairiest of hairy armadillos. The author of the Wikipedia article took quite an interest in this armadillo’s penis; read it if you care to.
Big Hairy Armadillos live mainly in low-altitude habitats such as the Argentinian pampas. They use their long, strong claws to excavate burrows in hillsides while hunting for insects and worms. They are active mainly at night but can be seen in daytime if they are still hungry. Their habitation burrows can be deep and complex, with multiple entrances and exits oriented with the prevailing winds in the area. They also dig numerous, smaller “escape burrows” in which they can quickly hide from predators. They can run much faster than you would think.
They mate in late winter or spring, and the female gives birth to one or two young, which she nurses for two to three months. The young reach adulthood in less than a year. Sources did not list a lifespan in the wild, but the oldest known specimen in captivity lived 23 years. Predators include dogs and wild canids and large birds of prey. In some areas, they are hunted for their carapaces, which are used in making a traditional, Andean, stringed instrument called a “charango.” They are also killed as an agricultural pest (the digging!) and by vehicles.
The Big Hairy Armadillo is the most common armadillo species in its range (non-coastal, southern South America) and is considered a species of least concern by conservationists. However, this species benefits from sharing its habitat with the protected range of other species which are threatened or endangered. They are well adapted for a variety of climate conditions and are expanding their range to the south and east.
It seems that those with a fascination of sexual organs would also be those who spend too much time alone, with no stimulus but their own minds.
I'll pass on the Wikipedia article, thanks. I actually prefer your truncated version, including amusing anecdotes.
;o]
Thanks!
I hope you’re feeling better today. I hate when both of us have the Punys.
A spoonful of sugar helps the wildlife biology go down.
There are many different species of armadillos in two main suborders and several genera. I was going to do the “Pink Fairy Armadillo” today, but the boys all wanted the Big Hairy.
We have sun today, so that’s an improvement, and Asuncion texted to say she’ll pick another version of the psalm for next Sunday instead of the nightmarishly difficult one she’d previously chosen.
Ah, there’s the battle horn of the Haradrim. Maybe that’s the easier selection arriving!
I’d never heard of a Big Hairy Armadillo, much less a Pink Fairy one.
I always enjoy reading about or watching documentaries on wildlife, probably a holdover from my childhood. My dad made sure we had plenty of books around that taught about it. We never had a set of encyclopedias, but my dad made sure we had books that stimulated our curiosity. Enough so that we were granted “Adult” library cards when we were just barely out of grade school. Or maybe still in it... ;o]
I don’t have any alert sounds on my laptop, probably because with no other stimuli than the TV on very low for background noise, the alerts startle me. I don’t like that feeling.
Normally mine is turned off.
I’m going to Walmart. We’re out of bananas.
Humor from my days in Houston.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To show the armadillo that it was actually possible.
I should tell that one to my Favorite Son! There are a lot of road kill armadillos in AR!
Happy Monday, ArGee!
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