70 years ago in 1953, The US #Atomic#Energy Commission published Energy in the Future where they argued that burning #fossil#fuel releases CO₂, which affects #climate & #sea#level.
They pointed out that temperature had been increasing, #glaciers were retreating, and sea level was rising, and speculated that it was due to rising atmospheric CO₂ from land use change and fossil fuel burning!
Update:
Some very interesting replies to this question
Kid asked very good question this morning: why is this fossil ammonite in a round concretion? As in how was it preserved? (I explained that in some locations you find roundish stones that when broken in half reveal a fossil ammonite or other fossil inside). But why do they form in these roundish shapes? What is the preservation method.
I no longer remember where this came from but I think, Whitby?
Today I explore one of my coral stones. The fossilized skeletal ruins of a community, a city of tiny clones building ribbons of walls that now gleam like bones bleached in the sun.
In the late 19th century, Nebraska’s settlers came across bizarre, giant “stone screws” vertically embedded in the ground. The big ones could be 2 meters long in a near-perfect spiral. Flummoxed as to what could cause such structures, the locals named them the “devil’s corkscrews”. Paleontologists would argue for over nearly a century about what they really were.
https://sharonahill.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Daemonelix_burrows_Agate_Fossil_Beds.jpgThe classic photo of a Daemonelix or Devil’s Corkscrew. The structures could spiral left or right and were found packed closely together in late 19th century Nebraska.Several “mystery” themed sources state that the devil’s corkscrews were thought to have a supernatural origin because people couldn’t imagine the process by which they were produced. Their location around the badlands (of Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota) added to their spooky reputation. The badlands have plenty of other weird geological features making the landscape look like an otherworldly city of sculpted rock. I can’t find any documentation that people actually thought these spirals were the literal work of the devil, however, the average farmer didn’t know too much about geology so colorful tales were surely told.
Some non-scientific sources appear to exaggerate the mystery of these objects. The first scientists who came to examine them were likely amused by the magical descriptions but figured out in short order that they were trace fossils. It took about 90 more years to finally forge a consensus around their origin.
Erwin Hinckley Barbour named the trace fossil structure “Daemonelix” meaning the “devil’s helix” in Science of 19 February 1892. The spiral, or “fossil twister”, was made of cemented sand and silt that was distinct from the surrounding material. This made for stunning excavations. The fossil corkscrews were readily apparent and sometimes thickly crowded into an area of a few hundred square miles. [Lugn]. Other fossil hunters were also combing the area at this time. Famous collector E.D. Cope, along with colleague T. Fuchs, also studied the objects and in 1893 proposed they were fossilized animal burrows since worm burrows were commonly preserved in sediments. Was Daemonelix a giant worm?
In 1897, Barbour published his research on Daemonelix located in Eagle Crag, Nebraska, about 2.5 miles north of Harrison in Miocene-aged bedrock. His work appeared in the University of Nebraska journal University Studies, Volume 2. In this, Barbour described their shapes as being either an irregular spiral form or a tight, perfect helix – with or without a center column. Often, there were offshoots or a larger area at the bottom. After considering that they might be sea sponges, he rejected ideas that they were related to groundwater springs, geysers, or burrowing animals. Barbour concluded that Daemonelix was a plant root fossil made up of small to large filaments tangled together that spread via rhizomes. He expanded his idea of Daemonelix as a fossilized organism through the description of different forms he noticed in the strata. For the collection of Daemonelix fibers, “cakes”, “balls”, “cigars”, and “layers”, he proposed the evolutionary idea of the Damonelicidae (a group of related organisms).
Scientists working in the area continued to disagree about Daemonelix through the early 1900s, usually either taking Barbour’s side that they were remains of a vine with spreading rhizomes or that they were an infilled animal burrow. In 1909, E.S. Riggs put forward that these were open holes that had infilled with later sediment possibly meaning that whatever filled the hole had decayed. Because animal and plant traces were found in Daemonelix, others concluded that the corkscrew was used as a burrow after the original vegetal remains had rotted. [Lugn, 1941].
Found at the bottom and along the sides of the structure were the remains of rodents and rodent teeth marks. Notably, the remains of the extinct beaver Paleocaster were frequently found within the structure, along with other non-rodent animals. No known modern rodents produced such large spiral-shaped burrows. Though the shape was unique at the time, the structure generally resembled other infilled rodent burrows.
The paleoenvironment here had been dry land, not wet as previously thought. The spiral-shaped burrow may have aided in reducing airflow, which stabilized the temperature and humidity of the internal environment far better than straight-line holes. The extensive, dense rodent colonies in the semi-arid landscape of the time may have resembled prairie dog colonies of today. Plant roots invaded the burrows, as did other animals who preyed on the beavers. Barbour’s other “forms” of Daemonelix were likely fossilized dung or mud.
The small dicynodont Diictodon also produced spiral burrows similar to Daemonelix. But the awesome name is still retained in reference to the trace fossil, if not the fanciful organism that made it.
So goes the lesson of the Devil’s Corkscrew, where observers of all walks of life view the same object very differently. As time progresses and new information is gathered, we can count on getting to a better explanation that doesn’t usually require invoking speculative life forms or supernatural forces.
Sometimes, Wikipedia comes up trumps - thanks to Slate Weasel for putting together this comparison of some of the largest chelicerates (chelicerates = archnids and their kin) to have lived.
These little (massive) dudes and dudettes are sea scorpions, or eurypterids - probably not closely related to living scorpions, but some of them looked alike. They were marine animals, and went extinct a little over 250 million years ago
🇨🇦 Canadian cops are attacking, arresting, and intimidating indigenous peoples at the behest of #fossil fuel companies so that they can build Yet Another Pipeline through BC. It's a war that needs fighting and the Wet'suwet'en are fighting it. The least we can do is have their backs: https://chuffed.org/project/yintahlegal
Found a puzzling object while out on a walk. At first I thought it was a piece of driftwood but it’s very heavy rock. We get fossilised wood in this area but we also get slag from old smeltworks, so I’m used to finding both. I did wonder if it’s a knotty bit of fossilised wood but maybe it’s a weird bit of slag? The pattern on the lumpy bits is absolutely beautiful #fossil#rocks#geology#slag
Found a nice pebble on shore. Fossilized sea urchin maybe? Anyone on here with #fossils knowledge to help out? North Sea coast. #FossilFriday#seaside#fossil
Today is #FossilFriday & I got a reminder that last year this day my humans made #trilobite#cookies. It was for a colleague's #Phd defence pawty in the #geophysics department. The cookies were a huge success 😻😹
Greta Thunberg is ARRESTED at London protest: Activist is hauled into police van after urging eco-warriors to 'reclaim the power' in speech against energy giants and 'spineless' politicians
For World Turtle Day, please enjoy this 54-million-year-old fossil of a baby sea turtle, which was found in Denmark and includes preserved soft tissue.
In fact, it's so well-preserved that scientists discovered molecules of a pigment that would have darkened the turtle's shell, perhaps to protect it against sun damage.
So far, although we had #genetic and #oxygen#data supporting early photosynthesis, it was difficult to find clear fossil #evidence directly. Now, we have!
update on #fossil: last night i pushed changes to make algorithms pluggable. it uses #python entry points for discovery, so you can develop your own plugin without cloning fossil. it gives you a few hooks:
train: e.g. if you need to train an ML model, or just calculate aggregate statistics
render: format toots into an object that’s passed to a jinja template. you can make the jinja template or just use one that already exists
i’m noticing that using #htmx is leading to a surprisingly pluggable design. tbh i haven’t wrapped my head around why, it still seems counterintuitive that true APIs would be harder to compose than HTML endpoints. maybe it’s just the dramatic simplicity is inherently easier to grapple with, idk #fossil