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Posted on 08/13/2003 9:02:05 PM PDT by nwrep
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2 hours, 55 minutes ago
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By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer
BOMBAY, India - U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country.
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The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.
The dinosaurs were between 25-30 feet long, had a horn above their skulls, were relatively heavy and walked on two legs, scientists said. They preyed on long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous Period at the end of the dinosaur age, 65 million years ago.
"It's fabulous to be able to see this dinosaur which lived as the age of dinosaurs came to a close," said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was a significant predator that was related to species on continental Africa, Madagascar and South America."
Working with Indian scientists, Sereno and paleontologist Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan reconstructed the dinosaur skull in a project funded partly by the National Geographic (news - web sites) Society.
A model of the assembled skull was presented Wednesday by the American scientists to their counterparts from Punjab University in northern India and the Geological Survey of India during a Bombay news conference.
Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents — how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.
The dinosaur bones were discovered during the past 18 years by Indian scientists Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India and Ashok Sahni, a paleontologist at Punjab University.
When the bones were examined, "we realized we had a partial skeleton of an undiscovered species," Sereno said.
The scientists said they believe the Rajasaurus roamed the Southern Hemisphere land masses of present-day Madagascar, Africa and South America.
"People don't realize dinosaurs are the only large-bodied animal that lived, evolved and died at a time when all continents were united," Sereno said.
The cause of the dinosaurs' extinction is still debated by scientists. The Rajasaurus discovery may provide crucial clues, Sereno said.
India has seen quite a few paleontological discoveries recently.
In 1997, villagers discovered about 300 fossilized dinosaur eggs in Pisdura, 440 miles northeast of Bombay, that Indian scientists said were laid by four-legged, long-necked vegetarian creatures.
Indian scientists said the dinosaur embryos in the eggs may have suffocated during volcanic eruptions.
Alamo-girl is that a threat?
Seems odd behavior for someone who willingly left, as Aric2000 relates.
And who has said that?
"One Who Knows"?
Yes, and that is the danger of faulty logic. I noted a trend. Trends are sequences or correlations of data points. The observation of the trend does not attribute a cause until that is made. You are the one that tied the two together. I merely noted that creationists in my view have been banned as a trend. ALS, goodseedhomeschool, medved, joyfullpraise, many others. They may all be one person. It was you that made the serious charge.
I made what I thought was a reasonable presumption from your statement:
So does this mean that creationists are less civil?
Could there be a rotten apple in the barrel of creationist posters?
I don't know - but if you believe there is a trend and it's not Jim Robinson or the Admin Mods - then IMHO, the next place to look is in the creationist camp.
Since he's sleeping, I believe the exchange to which he refers is this one.
Amen! LOL!
And they say believing in God is difficult!
There are many here like yourself, so you can relax, you're among conservative friends. For those interested in religious discussion, this website has a religion forum full of various threads devoted entirely to the subject. The science threads are not about religion, and certinly not about hating God; rather, they're for discussing scientific topics. Sometimes we get misguided people dropping in to claim that all of science (and evolution in particular) is atheistic, communistic, etc., and we naturally resent these untrue and genuinely insulting accusations. When we try to correct such persons (and yes, when we express our impatience at encountering the same old false accusations yet another time), too often the reaction is that we are then "Christian bashing." It's a disruptive, unproductive, and very annoying cycle that repeats itself endlessly. The "agreement" is an attempt to calm things down.
The Grand Canyon sequence is one of the most closely studied in the world, the reason being is that it's an obvious thing to study! It's sort of 'in your face' in terms of geology, isn't it? ;-)
The problem with interpreting the GC sequence as beeing laid down in a single, catastrophic flood event lasting 40 days is that there is ample evidence of subaerial (ie above water) facies and processes within the sequence. Ichneumon has already posted a great assessment of the Cocconino sandstone, so I won't revisit it, but another example that springs to mind is the Redwall Limestone, the top of which displays classic Karstic topography and also paleosols in places. Karstic features are formed when acidic rain dissolves limestone, so the rock must have been exposed to the elements for a considerable period.
Now, if the Flood Theory for the GC sequence is to hold water (ho ho), then it must be able to demonstrate how the Redwall Limestone was deposited, consolidated, uplifted above water level and eroded, all during a 40-day innundation.
Regards
Mike
Perhaps I can speak to this. I received some truly foul and abusive freepmails some time ago, and my preferred response at the time was simply to post the freepmails in public, allowing folks to see what sort of person this poster actually was when he/she thought nobody else was looking. But before I did, I popped off a freepmail of my own to the admin moderator, asking about the appropriateness of posting private mails in public - the response I got was that while there was an informal, unwritten rule about that sort of thing, violations were considered essentially bad form, rather than as serious offenses deserving some sort of official sanction. However, in a case like the one I described, the moderator was doubtful that anyone would find my posting of the mails to be inappropriate, and that I should therefore let my own conscience guide me as to whether or not these private mails should be posted in public.
Consider this freepmail.
;^)
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