#Alabama fossils

[guccilavalamp]

Love finding these guys

[mindblowingscience]

A team of scientists has discovered a new fossil shark species from Alabama. The shark is a new species of Palaeohypotodus, which means "ancient small-eared tooth," in reference to the small needle-like fangs present on the sides of the teeth. It has been named Palaeohypotodus bizzocoi, for the late Dr. Bruce Bizzoco (1949–2022) of Birmingham, Alabama. Bizzoco served as a Dean at Shelton State Community College, archaeologist, and was a longtime volunteer at McWane Science Center. The naming of this species honors Dr. Bizzoco's lifelong commitment to education and the preservation of Alabama's history.

Continue Reading.

[laur-kay]

alabama items

[reddpenn]

Now that I'm back from the gem and mineral show, here are all the Cool Rocks I came home with!

A cute little coral fossil! He looks like a cauliflower.

A Keokuk geode! These geode beds aren't far from where I live, and it's always fun to have local specimens.

Phosphosiderite! This purple stone comes from Chile. It's so soft that it has to be stabilized with resin before it's cut. This one is a cross section of a botryoidial formation!

Speaking of botryoidial, this Hematite! Botryoidial means it has a bubbly shape kind of like a bunch of grapes. The faces of the bubbles on this pieces are super shiny and metallic.

Dendritic chalcedony, from Turkey! It's a white chalcedony full of dendrites - branching formations of manganese that look kind of like trees!

A cabochon for my cab collection! This one is made from a material sometimes called "ajooba jasper." The pattern is actually a cross section of a bunch of colorfully jasperized bivalve fossils!

Speaking of jasper, this one is Blue Mountain jasper, from Oregon! The circles in this stone are what’s known as an “egg pattern,” and jaspers which have them (Blue Mountain, Imperial jasper, and a few others) are collectively known as “fine jaspers,” the most valuable jaspers in the world.

Hyalite opal! This stuff forms water-clear spheres that look like jelly.

It fluoresces bright green under UV light!

Now to show off this year's haul of awesome agates!

Dryhead agate, from the Bighorn Mountains in Montana! This agate is named after the many bison skulls found in the area. A weird shaped guy with awesome red and orange bands.

Bou Lili agate, from Morocco! I like the name of this one. Soft banding and very subtle, muted colors. I've heard that this locale can produce peachy colors too.

Bear Canyon agate, from the Pryor Mountains in Montana! Agates from this locale have very stark black and white banding.

Red Fox agate, from Argentina! Sometimes this material is also called "crater agate" because the area it comes from is near the crater of an ancient volcano.

A Blue Sky thunderegg, from New Mexico! Thundereggs from this locale often have this two pointed, saucer-like shape.

It fluoresces really brightly!

Dulcote agate, from England! The bands of this agate are full of calcite, which gives them a strange, distinct texture.

Malawi agate, from Malawi! See all the cracks in it? Almost all Malawi agates have them. Frequent earthquakes due to the East African Rift cause these agates to crack and fracture.

Paint Rock agate, from Paint Rock Valley in Alabama! This agate is very rarely banded, and usually just contains swirls of red and yellow color.

A big, unpolished slab of Montana agate! This agate is known for its clear banding and black lines and spots, which are caused by manganese dendrites.

It's best viewed with some light behind it!

A smaller piece with really amazing dendrites!

Here it is backlit!

Fighting Blood agate, from Hebei Provence in China! This locale is known for its super saturated reds and yellows. This piece has purple amethyst crystals growing inside! They didn't photograph well; they are much more purple in person.

A really weird Fighting Blood agate! This one lacks the bright colors typical of this locale, but makes up for it with that super cool spiderweb pattern!

And finally, as is tradition, I came home with some Ethiopian opals! Here are the five I got this year.

And that's everything I got at the show!

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

Today's fish of the day is the lake sturgeon!

The lake sturgeon, also called the rock sturgeon, and known by scientific name Acipenser fulvescens is one of the best known North American sturgeon species! Found in and around the great lakes, and then across the Mississippi river and Erie canal. Found in 5 differing Canadian provinces and across 24 states stretching from Alabama to Michigan, and as far East as New York. These fish are benthic, spending their time along the bottom of the lake bed, but during spawning these fish will migrate thousands of miles to go back to the stream they were born in.

Like all sturgeon, they are considered living fossils, as sturgeon first appeared in the fossil record upwards of 150 million years ago, with the fish now appearing nearly identical to these ancestors. These fish can get 7 feet or longer, with most being only 4 to 6 feet in length, making them some of the largest sturgeon in North America. Their diet is made up of various invertebrates such as: larvae, small crustaceans, and worms, which they can find along the benthic lake and river beds. The 4 barbels found on these fish have taste buds, which are used to determine what is under their mouth, before they use their prehensile lips to suck up food. When food becomes scarce, these fish are known for migrating for better feeding, which happens semi frequently around the year.

The life cycle of the lake sturgeon is similar to that of most other sturgeons. They begin life as eggs laid in the location their parents were born, in fast paced river streams with lots of flat rocks. The eggs themselves are a bright yellow color, although as the eggs matures this will turn an olive and eventually brown over the course of about 2 weeks. Then they live as larvae only 10mm long, living in and around the dark underside of rocks. After this, as juveniles they will swim to lake environments, where they will spend the majority of their life cycle. These fish can live 55 years long in males and around 150 years for females, with sexual maturity being achieved at an age of around 10 years in males and 30 years in females. Breeding and spawning only happens intermittently every handful of years, and go through around 10 spawning seasons throughout their lifecycle.

For a fun fact to end on for these fish because I'm particularly fond of them, when they reach the stream they will spawn in, these fish are known to porpoise, jumping several feet into the air to end their long journey. That's the lake sturgeon everybody! Have a wonderful day!

[makairodonx]

Dinovember 2024 Day 5: Hadrosaurus foulkii

This species, which measured 7-8 meters long, weighed about 2-4 tons, and lived about 80.5-78.5 million years ago on a coastal floodplain in what is now the Woodbury Formation of New Jersey, was in 1858 the first dinosaur ever to be described in the United States and North America from good fossil remains. Ten years later the only known specimen of Hadrosaurus foulkii became the first skeleton of a dinosaur ever to be mounted and put on display at a public institution-the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences-by the renowned English naturalist-sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, who is also famous for designing the sculptures of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals on the grounds of London’s Crystal Palace.

Hadrosaurus lends its name to the Hadrosauridae, the large, battery-toothed, herd-dwelling and hoof-toed ornithopods that dominated Laurasia and even Patagonia throughout the Late Cretaceous, and it was also part of a fauna of unique hadrosaurids that lived on the eastern Island continent of Appalachia. These included the 3-meter-long Claosaurus from the Niobrara Formation of Kansas, the basal Eotrachodon and the 4.5-meter-long Lophorothon atopus from the Moorevile Chalk Formation of Alabama, and the truly gigantic 10 to 17-meter-long Hypsibelma.

[floridafreak]

fossilized shark teeth i found today in alabama

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Heated:

Energy experts warned only a few years ago that the world had to stop building new fossil fuel projects to preserve a livable climate.

Now, artificial intelligence is driving a rapid expansion of methane gas infrastructure—pipelines and power plants—that experts say could have devastating climate consequences if fully realized.

As large language models like ChatGPT become more sophisticated, experts predict that the nation’s energy demands will grow by a “shocking” 16 percent in the next five years. Tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet have increasingly turned to nuclear power plants��or large renewable energy projects to power data centers that use as much energy as a small town.

But those cleaner energy sources will not be enough to meet the voracious energy demands of AI, analysts say. To bridge the gap, tech giants and fossil fuel companies are planning to build new gas power plants and pipelines that directly supply data centers. And they increasingly propose keeping those projects separate from the grid, fast tracking gas infrastructure at a speed that can’t be matched by renewables or nuclear.

The growth of AI has been called the “savior” of the gas industry. In Virginia alone, the data center capital of the world, a new state report found that AI demand could add a new 1.5 gigawatt gas plant every two years for 15 consecutive years.

And now, as energy demand for AI rises, oil corporations are planning to build gas plants that specifically serve data centers. Last week, Exxon announced that it is building a large gas plant that will directly supply power to data centers within the next five years. The company claims the gas plant will use technology that captures polluting emissions—despite the fact that the technology has never been used at a commercial scale before.

Chevron also announced that the company is preparing to sell gas to an undisclosed number of data centers. “We're doing some work right now with a number of different people that's not quite ready for prime time, looking at possible solutions to build large-scale power generation,” said CEO Mike Wirth at an Atlantic Council event. The opportunity to sell power to data centers is so promising that even private equity firms are investing billions in building energy infrastructure.

But the companies that will benefit the most from an AI gas boom, according to S&P Global, are pipeline companies. This year, several major U.S. pipeline companies told investors that they were already in talks to connect their sprawling pipeline networks directly to on-site gas power plants at data centers.

“We, frankly, are kind of overwhelmed with the number of requests that we’re dealing with, ” Williams CEO Alan Armstrong said on a call with analysts. The pipeline company, which owns the 10,000 mile Transco system, is expanding its existing pipeline network from Virginia to Alabama partly to “provide reliable power where data center growth is expected,” according to Williams.

[evelyns-art-emporium]

The first design in a series I'm making: Fossil Flowers!

These are Alabama's state fossil and flower (Basilosaurus Whale and Camellia respectively)

[warringwarrioridiot]

"They was asking for it"

YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU'RE ASKING FOR?? A BIG FAT BASEBALL BAT TO THE BACK OF THE SKULL AT FULL SPEED MAX ISTG

Mfs like this need to take a long walk off of a short cliff cus if I EVER catch them I'm gonna commit some good old fashion homicide.

If you say things like "You should've enjoyed it" or "at least you got some" I'm tracking your IP and shoving ten cacti in your anal hole and/or vagina.

"game is game 🤪"

You need to shut your ketchup stain, Junkrat main, micro brain, aluminium chain, ankle sprain, CHOCOLATE RAIIIIN, with your runny nose dirty toes lick hobos cOwAbUnGa BrOs, Dude, I want you to look at your entire life. All your life choices. And tell me when you had an original idea in your brain. Your ass got kicked out and disowned and you started aggressively tapping the home button on your IPhone "Oh, help. Why is it not working?". YOUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE IS LIKE A NARUTO FILLER EPISODE, MY BOY! YOUR PRANKS ARE AS REPETITIVE AS THE AD "Whopper, Whopper, Whopper, Whopper" YOUR BRAIN IS JUST AS REAL AS THE LOVE YOUR PARENTS HAVE FOR YOU! YOUR GRANDMA GAVE BLING BLING BOY A LAP DANCE FOR PAY DAY. Wait hold on! *Punch punch punch* GIVE ME THE MONEY YOUR GRANDMA! I JUST ROBBED YOUR GRANDMA! I JUST HIT A LICK ON YOUR GRANDMA, HOW DOES THAT FEEL?! SHE POOR AS HELL NOW! YOU PUT A BALLOON ON YOUR HEAD AND THOUGHT IT WAS A DURAG! YOU LIKE RONALD MCDONALD FROM OHIO! "HEYA KID! YOU WANT A BIG MAC?!" WHEN YOU WALK DOWNSTAIRS YOUR WHOLE HOUSE STARTS RUMBLING! YOU BRING THE POWER OF EREN YEAGER AND 37 COLOSSAL TITANS DOWN YOUR STAIRCASE! AFTER YOU EAT DINNER YOU EAT THE PLATE AND THEN YOU EAT THE TABLE AS WELL! CHOMP CHOMP! YOU RENT OUT THE GAP BETWEEN YOU TEETH AS A PARKING SPACE FOR ANTS! YOU LOOK EMO ASF "CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES! THIS IS MY LAST RESORT! SUFFOCATION! NO BREATHING!" LOOK AT YOUR NOSE YOU HAVE TWO MARIO PIPES COMING OUT OF YOUR HEAD! YAHOO! LET'S A GO! THEY MADE A SEQUEL TO FINDING NEMO BASED OFF YOUR ASS CALLED "LOCATING CHROMOSOMES! IN THEATRES THIS JULY!" YOUR BEST FRIEND IS A RAT LIVING UNDER YOUR BED IN A PRINGLES CAN! YOU POSTED AN INSTAGRAM STORY ABOUT A JAMAICAN CRICKET GIVING YOU A LAP DANCE IN THE BACK OF TOYS R US! YOU TORTURED AN ANT BY TYING HIM TO YOUR BUTTHOLE AND FARTING ON HIM! I HAVE MORE ROASTS YOU KNOW! YOUR GRANDMA IS A DARK SOULS BOSS CALLED "THE WRINKLE!

EW NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO THERE IS NO WAY! THAT THIS... OLD ASS FART WRINKLE IS TALKING TO ME IN SUCH A DISRESPECTFUL MANNER. YOU KNOW IT'S ACTUALLY KINDA SAD YOU'RE OLD ENOUGH TO BE A GRANDPA NOW BUT INSTEAD OF ADVANCING YOUR BIOLOGICAL CHAIN YOU'VE INSTEAD SPENT YOUR DAYS ALONE IN YOUR ROOM READING HITLER MANIFESTOS AND COSPLAYING AS A FUCKIN' NEO NAZI. SO MANY YEARS AND SUCH LITTLE ADVANCEMENT. No seriously! Seriously I find it amusing THAT YOUR PENCIL PENIS DONKEY KONG BARREL BUILT LOOKIN' ASS WOULD ASSUME THAT I EVEN REMOTELY CARE ABOUT A SINGLE ONE. NO NO NO FUCK THAT. A SINGLE SYLLABLE OF THE VERBAL DIARRHEA GARGLE THAT'S COMING OUT OF THE DUSTY SARLAC PIT YOU CONSIDER TO BE YOUR FUCKING MOUTH! YOU WANT ME TO SHOW YOU MY FACE?? YOU WANNA SEE MY FUCKIN' FACE??? BITCH SHOW ME YOUR FUCKIN' HAIRLINE CAUSE I KNOW THERE'S NO WAY YOU'RE SPEAKING TO ME RIGHT NOW DRESSED UP AS A GOD DAMN DIABOLICAL BOY SCOUT. NAH LOOK AT THEM TEETH. BOY YOUR TEETH IN CREATIVE MODE. HELL NAH BOY STOP PLAYING YOU TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT. BRO THEY GOT FOSSIL RECORDS FOR EACH ONE OF YOUR FAT ROLLS. NAH STOP PLAYING WITH ME BOY I CAN'T TAKE YO ASS SERIOUSLY WHEN YOU DRESS UP LIKE A GODDAMN MEDIEVAL TERRORIST. BRO IS ABOUT TO SHOOT UP HIS OLD FOLKS HOME WITH A CROSSBOW AND A FUCKING TREBUCHET. YA YEET DOM DOM DOM DOM DOM DOM! SHUT YO UGLY ASS UP. WHAT THE FUCK? A HE AHHH EEEEE SHUT UP BITCH. YOU WANT ME TO TURN ON MY CAMERA? YO DICK BUILT LIKE A INVERTED BANANA. YO FOREHEAD CRACKED UP LIKE THE AFRICAN SAVANNAH. I CAUGHT YOU AND YO SISTER BUTT NAKED LAST NIGHT. SWEET HOME ALABAMA. FUCK YOU THINK THIS IS? WHAT IS YOU WEARING WITH YO GODDAMN HONEY WHERE IS MY SUPER SUIT? NAH BOY LOOK AT YO ROOM, YO HOUSE DIRTY AS HELL. YOU GOT FOUR SEWER RATS IN YO BATH TUB RIGHT NOW FLOATING ON TOP OF A PIZZA BOX SINGING. "YO HO THIEVES AND BEGGARS". LIKE SHIT, BOY I CAUGHT YOU HAVING AN EMOTIONAL CONVERSATION WITH YO TOE NAIL LAST NIGHT. WE COULD'VE BEEN SUPER STARS REMEMBER WHEN WE AS JACKING CARS. YOU AND YO TOE NAIL WAS GOING TO BE THE DYNAMIC DUO. BITCH YOU WAS GONNA BE IN AMERICA'S GOT TALENT SWINGING THAT SHIT AROUND LIKE A FUCKING BOOMERANG. SHUT YO STUPID ASS UP. BRUH I CAUGHT YOU JACK SPARROW RUNNING AROUND YOUR HOUSE WHILE YOUR DAD WAS TRYING TO BEAT YOU WITH A TOILET PLUNGER LAST NIGHT. COME HERE BOY! SHUT YO ASS UP. BITCH EVERYTIME YOU TAKE A SHIT THE GAME OF THRONES THEME SONG STARTS PLAMMERING IN YO HOUSE.BUM BUA BUM BUDUM BUM. SHUT YO UGLY ASS UP BRUH.

Are you getting mad?

Are you getting mad?

DAMN You getting mad now! Cuz yo Legal name is Ledenhouser Strogenberg. Nah don't be Smiling now boy You ain't slick Boy! I caught you in the locker room after gym class Frantically wiping yo armpits down With a kleenex While tryna smell good For the girls In the hallway. OI ZOINKS! I GOTTA- I GOTTA HURRY UP. SHUT YO ASS UP YOU LIKE A DIABETIC TOASTER STRUDEL. YOU UGLY AHH AS HELL. YOU GOT THEM BIG ASS HUMPTY DUMPTY PANTS ON BRUH. YOU USE A FRUIT ROLL UP AS A BELT TO HOLD UP YO BUNG DU BUNGLA. Shut yo ugly Ass up You got Mineral deposits In your Belly button. You dumb As hell You thought Google drive Was a brand new Taxi service. Bitch yo Grandma Threw a Rage spell On the kitchen floor And started Smacking you with A weiner schnitzel. Shut yo ass up You a Diabolical Special needs Student. Boy you was In the back of a Short bus Maniacally Planning How you was gonna Take over Your school.HMMMMM YEAHHHHHHHHHH It will be MINE! Shut yo Ass up, Boy I caught you Butt Naked Playing gorilla tag With a mouse in your Kitchen. Yo ass Be sliding around The counters Like a paraplegic Frozone. Gotta Catch 'em ALL! Shut yo ass up With yo "I got a feeling Ooooooooo!" Everytime yo Grandpa Tickles yo Butthole. Shut yo Stupid ass up You thought the One chip challenge Was sticking a Hot cheeto Up your buttcrack. Ok! Here we go Everybody! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Shut yo Dirty ass up Get yo ass on bruh.

It's actually so fucking sad these people still exist in 2024.

Istg misogynists and forced birth extremists and rapists are the most atrociously ugliest love-lacking idiots.

Image ref:

I rest my fucking case, your honor. Kill every single one of these people before I do it myself.

[stele3]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-tanks-edge-rafahs-mawasi-refuge-zone-residents-say-2024-06-23/

[guccilavalamp]

My beautiful and sparkly coral baby ✨

[mindblowingscience]

Most animals and plants never fossilize. For those that do, it's usually only hard parts such as bones and shells that preserve. However, in some exceptional cases, soft tissues such as muscles and gills survive the fossilization process and can present a wealth of information about the biology and ecology of ancient organisms. In a paper recently published in Palaeontologia Electronica, Dr. Adiel Klompmaker, University of Alabama Museums' curator of paleontology, and colleagues reported on a remarkable crab with multiple mineralized soft tissues preserved. This crab lived 75 million years ago during the Cretaceous in the area of present-day South Dakota in an ancient sea known as the Western Interior Seaway.

Continue Reading.

[mesozoicmarket]

A fossilized fish tooth of a Xiphactinus vetus or X-fish from the Blufftown Formation in Barbour County, Alabama, United States. The species of X-fish was originally misidentified as a mosasaur under the species, Polygonodon vetus. Xiphactinus vetus can be distinguished from Xiphactinus audax from the prominent carinae and cross-section shape.

[captain-lovelace]

Hey I saw your rb, I really want to get into paleontology, specifically working in a paleontology lab doing fossil prep and such. I have no idea how to go about this, I was home schooled and worried I'd not even be accepted, I also do not know what steps to take to get on the path to studying this. I also am mid 20s and worried it is too late. So many people are discouraging to paleontology related fields, saying it is worthless to even bother bc "They're not needed and you won't ever get paid enough to live" etc

Any advice? Thanks!

So also based on your other ask it seems like this is a three part question: first, is studying paleontology worth it; second, how’s the money; and third, how would someone with your background start studying paleontology professionally.

With regards to the first question, I’ve wanted to be a paleontologist all my life and I’ve heard the same things you have about it not being worth it, about paleontology being a useless career/unnecessary, etc. To be blunt, the people who say these things overwhelmingly have no clue what they’re fucking talking about. Paleontology is the foundation upon which our understanding of modern evolutionary biology is built, paleontology is the source of a huge chunk of our understanding of mass extinctions, fossil data is necessary for understanding the relationships between modern species, etc. We absolutely do need people studying paleontology, and it is possible to have a career in it!

With that said, the pay is on par with grad student salaries in general— aka, pretty bad. Academia is kind of unique (derogatory) in terms of structure; usually you’re a grad student for 4-8 years depending on how long your PhD takes + if you do a master’s, then after you get your PhD you have a postdoc position for a varying number of years, then you move on to start your own lab as an assistant professor. After that, you can get tenure and move on to being an associate professor, and then in some cases eventually a full professor. (This isn’t the only path, obviously, but it’s the one I know the most about.) Your pay as a grad student and as a postdoc is likely not going to be great! In my master’s program I was paid around $32,000 a year, and in my upcoming PhD program my estimated pay is around $45,000; I did not have to pay tuition in either program. The livability of a grad student wage is going to also depend on location. Living on a salary like mine would be different in California versus in Alabama, for example. Also, like I said in my tags, I highly recommend going to a grad school where the academic student employees are unionized! Finally, this is US-based— I don’t know how it is outside the country.

About the last part of your question: I am not well-versed in non traditional education, and my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. With that said, if you have no college education, your first step might be getting an undergraduate degree, and I highly recommend looking for people who have gone through the process of getting an undergraduate degree in their late 20s and asking them about the process! Other than that, I advise looking at the geology departments of universities in your area to see if anyone is studying paleontology in them, just to get an idea of where and with whom you might like to study eventually. Usually there will be at least a couple of people with a paleontological focus.

The last thing I want to say is that even though my advice has been geared towards academia, there’s a lot of different ways to get involved in paleontological work. One thing that I really recommend doing is looking up volunteer opportunities at natural history museums in your area! That’s where I got my first experience in paleontological work, and it was really helpful for getting to where I am today. Also, read papers you find interesting! Even if you decide you don’t want to do paleontology as a career, that doesn’t mean it can’t be a part of your life.

[newlabdakos]

Pteranodon

(temporal range: 86-84.5 mio. years ago)

[text from the Wikipedia article, see also link above]

Pteranodon (/tɪˈrænədɒn/); from Ancient Greek πτερόν (pteron 'wing') and ἀνόδων (anodon 'toothless') is a genus of pterosaur that included some of the largest known flying reptiles, with P. longiceps having a wingspan of over 6 m (20 ft). They lived during the late Cretaceous geological period of North America in present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota and Alabama.[1] More fossil specimens of Pteranodon have been found than any other pterosaur, with about 1,200 specimens known to science, many of them well preserved with nearly complete skulls and articulated skeletons. It was an important part of the animal community in the Western Interior Seaway.[2]

Pteranodon was not a dinosaur. By definition, all dinosaurs belong to the group Dinosauria; Pteranodon belongs to the group Pterosauria. Nonetheless, Pteranodon is the most famous pterosaur, frequently featured in dinosaur media and strongly associated with dinosaurs by the general public.[3] While not dinosaurs, pterosaurs such as Pteranodon form a clade closely related to dinosaurs as both fall within the clade Avemetatarsalia.