karoo-kid

[karoo-kid]

I’m slaying this PhD thang!

I got hot sauce in my bag, swag. 👑🔥

[karoo-kid]

This Karoo Kid is finally on her way to getting her PhD!!! Exciting! Can’t wait to be Dr Dino Rocks! :D :D :D

[karoo-kid]

A) Why do you love dinosaurs?

I love dinosaurs so much I became a paleontologist! I love dinosaurs, and the many other extinct creatures that once walked this planet because they can take you to another world and time that is almost fantastical - and yet true! It never ever gets old finding a fossil in the field, it gives me this huge adrenaline rush knowing this animal has lain there for millions of years, and yet I was the one who found it! They also remind me of the long and amazing evolutionary journey life has taken on this planet and how lucky we are to be here ourselves - we are brief candles in the dark that are able to look back on this journey and maybe try and figure out why we are all here. 

B) As a female dinosaur lover, did you feel undeserved by dinosaur products and marketing? If so, how?

As a child I remember my twin sister and I receiving the same lumo pink, green, and yellow plushie dinosaur - and we both loved them!! But most of the time my parents just bought us toys from the boys section.

Although I did not think much about it then it is a terrible crime, especially for young children, that the disparity in toys or clothes between boys and girls is still so bad! I am personally very against the gendering of clothes and toys for children at such a young age, and this is probably where the problem truly lies in the marketing of dinosaur toys. Boys are supposed to play with things that spark adventure and violence, like guns, action figures, and dinosaurs. Girls are groomed for nurturing, home making, and self image by being marketed dolls, homeware toys, and princess dresses or makeup kits - all of which are in garish pink or purple and dunked in glitter for good measure!

Toys and clothing for young children should be gender neutral. And once marketers make this step into the 21st century then we will see the rest of the changes follow.

Girls like dinosaurs too—your thoughts needed:

Hi all! I’m developing ideas for a product line for all dinosaur lovers, and I’ve noticed in the past that dinosaur products tend to ignore girls. If you are a girl and love dinosaurs, I need your help—both input to help me make my products more inclusive, and thoughts to persuade manufacturers of your interest. If you would like to help, please reblog your answer to the two following questions, and spread the word to your dino-loving friends: A) Why do you love dinosaurs? B) As a female dinosaur lover, did you feel underserved by dinosaur products and marketing? If so, how?

*PS—Please do not describe a specific idea you have for a product, as I do not want to steal your ideas [and will not be held liable for any similarity].  I’m looking more for general thoughts about what’s missing in commercial dino products/marketing and how girls can be served better.

[karoo-kid]

Neil deGrasse Tyson slams rapper B.o.B for his flat-Earth theory. Watch the mic drop heard ’round the world.

[karoo-kid]

Yes! :D

Do you love the Eras of the Earth?

Which One?

[karoo-kid]

My PhD may not be perfect, but it is my PhD :D

[karoo-kid]

The colored Dimorphodon animation.

[karoo-kid]

Whenever someone tries to claim that evolution is a lie, I send them a picture of platybelodon.

1. It’s an excellent example of transitional evolution.

2. It’s a mess who would intentionally do this and why

3. It makes them piss themselves a little.

“Evolution is just a theory-”

[karoo-kid]

[karoo-kid]

Struthiocephalus whaitsi, a dinocephalian synapsid from the Late Permian of South Africa, living around 265 million years ago. About 3m long (9′10″), it’s known from a fairly large number of fossils that represent different ages and sexes – with what seem to be the males possessing thick bony protrusions between their eyes that may have been used for flank-butting.

It’s been interpreted as semi-aquatic, with a long wide duck-shaped skull that might have been adapted for feeding on soft marshy vegetation. The bone texture around the nostrils also seems to show support for a fleshy valve-like nose that could close off underwater.

Like many synapsids, most of the reconstructions out there of this animal are… well, hideously shrink-wrapped. Once it’s actually fleshed out a bit, however, it starts to look quite hippo-ish, which is rather fitting.

[karoo-kid]

DINOSAURS! documentary series 1992 . gifset Tyranosaurus vs Triceratops

http://jpnostalgia.tumblr.com/

[karoo-kid]

This is what happens when you take a rock, thin it down to a fraction of a millimeter thickness, then put it under a microscope and turn the stage. The light coming into the sample passes through a polarizer to make sure all the light is polarized in the same direction - the light then interacts with the minerals it passes through. It then passes through one more polarizer - if the angle of the upper polarizer is correct it can fully block out the light, causing a grain to go “extinct”. As you spin a microscope stage, different minerals go extinct at different points.

[karoo-kid]

[karoo-kid]

Tiny time capsules - Zircons!

Zircons form in a variety of igneous rocks, are very resistant to weathering, and nearly immune to contamination (which can be easily corrected for using the two U-Pb decay schemes). This makes zircons perfect for absolute dating of rocks. In fact was a very old zircon grain that helped us estimate the age of the Earth. 

Their attractive appearance also makes squinting at the nano-meter scale images of these grains worthwhile. The above pictures are a few examples of the grains I’ve had to pick through for my PhD (the colours are not real though...I cheated there! )

[karoo-kid]

Pulanesaura eocollum

South Africa, Early Jurassic

The newly-described basal sauropod Pulanesaura eocollum is known from incomplete remains, but enough material was found for paleontologists to infer that it had some significant anatomical differences from other related species sharing its ecosystem; a quadrupedal stance and browsing low vegetation may have helped conserve energy and were key adaptations that led to evolution of super-sized sauropods later in the Mesozoic.

I made this illustration for Earth Archives, and you can read more about Pulanesaura eocollum there, as well as follow Earth Archives here on Tumblr! Also check out the original paper in Scientific Reports, and paleontologist Dr. Matthew F. Bonnan’s blog entry on the discovery.

[Please don’t use or reproduce without permission, and thanks for viewing!]

[karoo-kid]

The write up begins...

The field pack has been put away for now....

Maybe you've been wondering why you have not heard anymore stories about my adventures into the Karoo (or maybe you haven't :P) - but at the moment all the hard work is being written up finally. But thanks to you all for showing your interest and I hope this page will become something a little more higher impact one day when I have time again... It has certainly been an exciting last couple years, but it's also been trying and I really have been pushed to my absolute limits in some instances. This PhD has probably been the most challenging and humbling thing I have ever attempted. But looking back and seeing how far I have come shows me how much I can overcome. So here's to one last push, and signing out from my office without a view - time to get this PhD DONE!

[karoo-kid]

More great research thanks to the Karoo’s amazing fossils!