#shale formations

[whitedogblog]

Newfoundland

The many layered shale cliffs, Small Point-Adams Cove. July, 2023.

[saritapaleo]

Archovember 2024 Day 25 - Pteranodon longiceps

As one of the main species to make up the mythical “Pterodactyl” conglomerate, Pteranodon longiceps is possibly the most familiar pterosaur to the public. However, most people don’t know much about the real animal behind the pop culture monster. Living in the Late Cretaceous USA, Pteranodon is also the most well-known pterosaur to science, as over 1,200 specimens have been found! It was the first pterosaur found outside of Europe, the first toothless pterosaur found, and, before the discovery of the giant azhdarchids, was also the largest pterosaur known. Pteranodon is also one of the few prehistoric animals with confirmed sexual dimorphism, and it’s a bit extreme to boot! The larger male Pteranodons had huge pointed crests and an average wingspan of 5.6 m (18 ft), while the smaller female Pteranodons had small, rounded crests, wider pelvic canals, and an average wingspan of 3.8 m (12 ft).

Pteranodon lived around the Western Interior Seaway, a massive sea that split North America in two during the Late Cretaceous into the Early Paleocene. With wings shaped like modern day albatrosses, Pteranodons were likely gliders who relied on thermals, but did seem to be more capable of sustained flapping. As one would expect, their diet was made up mostly of fish, though they may have eaten invertebrates as well. With their more heavy build, they could probably dive into the water like modern day gannets, folding up their wings and plunging beneath the waves, snatching up fish with their pointed, birdlike beaks. Pteranodon crests were most likely for display, as there was variation between not only males and females, but also individual males. As females were twice as common as males, they were probably polygynous, with males competing for the mating rights in rookeries of females. Competition was likely not physical, and instead would depend on females determining the age and fitness of males based on the size of their crest.

Pteranodon has been found in both the Niobrara Formation and the younger Pierre Shale Formation. Some possible fragments from the Mooreville Formation and Merchantville Formation also exist. While Pteranodon was much more common, it would have lived alongside, and possibly competed with, the fork-crested pterosaur Nyctosaurus and the toothed seabird Ichthyornis. It is probable that Pteranodon lived in offshore rookeries, raising their flaplings far from land-based predators, as most fossils are found far from what would have been the Interior Seaway’s coastline. Under the waves, Pteranodon would have hunted a variety of fish, ammonites, and squid. It would have come across sea turtles such as Toxochelys, plesiosaurs such as Styxosaurus, and flightless birds like Parahesperornis. It would have had to look out for mosasaurs like Tylosaurus and sharks like Cretoxyrhina. Aside from birds, most Pteranodons would rarely come across dinosaurs. Their main exposure to dinosaurs would be corpses, like that of the hadrosaur Claosaurus, being swept out to sea.

This art may be used for educational purposes, with credit, but please contact me first for permission before using my art. I would like to know where and how it is being used. If you don’t have something to add that was not already addressed in this caption, please do not repost this art. Thank you!

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Monday Musings: In Conclusion

This month has been dedicated to the Cambrian Period. Something most people are not aware of is that Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods are broken down into epochs and stages...just like the Cenozoic.

Just for fun I wanted to use this column of the Cambrian Period to show where all the major deposits and animals we've talked about (and a few we haven't) occurred.

Like our favorite trilobites!

Trilobites appeared in the fossil record at about 521 Ma, right at the end of Stage 2 of the Terreneuvian Epoch. Not long after that, the Chengjiang and Sirius Passet lagerstatten were deposited. This was towards the end of Stage 3 of Series 2. This is when the animal Haikouella lived.

Next is Emu Bay Shale. We haven't talked about that one yet. As you can imagine, Emu Bay is in Australia on Kangaroo Island.

It is one of two sites containing Redlichiidan trilobites.

The Burgess Shale was deposited at the beginning of the Drumian Age during the Mialingian Epoch. This is when Hallucigenia and Marella lived.

This is followed by the Wheeler Shale, Marjum and Weeks Formation sequence in the Guzhangian Age.

The final lagerstatten is the Orsten Fauna of Sweden. The fossils are just a little bit younger than the Utah ones and much smaller. This site preserved larval stages and the first fossil tardigrades.

By the end of the Cambrian there was a major faunal turnover into the Ordovician Period. Many brachiopods and conodonts died but the group that was hit the hardest was the trilobites. Those that lived on the outer edges of the shelfs and slope environments were hardly affected but those that lived in the shallow seas on the shelf were wiped out.

The Cambrian Period was important and I hope you enjoyed learning about it this month. Next month we will switch from geochronology to paleontology with comparative anatomy! There will be a video on the basics posted to youtube on October 19th but if you want to see it sooner then join my new Patreon! The video will be posted two weeks earlier.

There will also be interviews with my fellow paleontologists as well as lesson videos and access to the Minerals Rocks and Fossil Talks discord server. Thanks for all the support and fossilize you later!

[thorsenmark]

I’m Letting the Bisti Memories Start Here by Mark Stevens

[good-night-space-kid]

I’ve been offered the internship I really wanted <3

I moved to North Dakota kind of on a whim with the dream of being a paleontologist, but this position puts me actually in the paleontology collections (literally my dream job long term) so like. Damn. I guess I’m doing this. I might be able to actually become a paleontologist for real.

[sabistarphotos]

January 2nd, 2023

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Result from the Pierre Shale formation #Paleostream.

We covered here mostly the Sharon Springs member which is, these days, it's own formation within the Pierre Shale group.

With this piece we finally have a classic bait ball piece in this series, although the bait ball animal, Stratodus, is certainly not a classic.

As you can see from the size chart, we left quite a few famous taxa out because we think these might be better suited for another WIS formation stream when it comes to it.

[tizeline]

Tizeline - She/Her - Digital Artist

tizeline on Bluesky

Mostly fanart with some original art sprinkled in here and there

Pr*ship & Tc*st go awayyy

Tag navigation, FAQ and AU info under cut 👇

Tags

#tizel art - Art tag

#tizel talk - Me rambling about random stuff

#Tiz Sep AU - My dumb RotTMNT AU

FAQ

Can I repost your art? No! Please don't!

Can I use your art as a profile picture / header? Yes, I am fine with that! Preferably with credit

Can I draw fanart of your AU? YES god yes no need to ask just make sure to tag me so I can see it :D!!

Can I dub your comics? No, I'd rather you not

What do you use to create art? I mostly draw in Procreate on an iPad

What brushes do you use? This is something that changes as I like to switch things up sometimes, but lately I've mostly been using the Shale Brush in Procreate

What canvas sizes do you usually work with? Depends on the drawing, but usually either A4 format (2480 x 3508 pixels) or a square canvas (ca 2000x2000 pixels). As a rule of thumb, I rarely go lower than 1000 pixels on either side. I always use 300 dpi.

What's Tiz Sep AU?

A seperated RotTMNT AU where Raph, Leo and Mikey were raised by Draxum and Donnie were raised by Splinter, check out the tag for more info!

Some highlights of the Tiz Sep AU

(there's more to find under the hashtag, but if you don't wanna scroll through it all, here are some of the more important/interesting posts)

(ALSO! These are not in chronological order, they're in the order that I posted them, so they jump back and forth in the story quite a bit)

First Post (original concept)

Turtle Hands

Powerhouse Mikey

Donnie's complicated relationship to his brothers

Leo Fanboy Moment

Everyone sucks at names (including me)

Shelldon!

Leo-Brooding-In-A-Pizzeria Arc

- Run of the Mill encounters

- Jealousy

- Leo AND Donnie Fanboy moment

Overprotective Big Bro

Unusual Team Up

Raph + Casey Friendship Moment

Leo is a Poor Winner

Raph + Casey Friendship Moment PART 2!

Cell Talk - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Little Bro...?

Separation anxiety and it's consequences - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Gearing Up (Follow up to Cell Talk) - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

The Beginning - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9

Family Secrets - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

[afc-agitprop]

@pixeljade what a lovely explanation!! We got some sandstone formations and boulders out here because the San Andreas fault likes to mix rock layers up, but never stuff like these. I'll keep an eye out for any cool sandstone formation when I go hiking next month!

new irrational phobia: naturally-occurring sandstone concretions found in France known as "gogottes"

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

if you aren't familiar with a given ecosystem, they're all talked about in depth on Wikipedia by the name I use to refer to them.

pick wisely, this is the start of an Adventure

[makairodonx]

A color-pencil impression of the giant rhamphorhynchine pterosaur Dearc sgiathanach, which hails from the Bathonian-aged Lealt Shale Formation of Scotland, for St. Andrew’s Day. It had a 3-meter-long wingspan and was probably the single largest pterosaur of the Middle Jurassic, around 168-165 million years ago.

[breezybeej]

DOXXING MYSELF WITH ROCKS

Okay so I took this photo while I was biking:

And I thought, "I wonder what kind of rock I'm looking at?" so I started poking around. I learned a lot! Apparently rock formations are tracked kind of the same way lakes and such are. Geologists have charts with the shapes of large "pockets" (misleading, they are massive) of various types of minerals Wikipedia led me to specific formation names and I tracked down the geographic area I was in and looked at the rock layers.

This is a very precise description of the location. I then looked up the Cathey rock layer. Check the description:

"A complex mixture of shaley limestone units. Typically it is thin bedded, blue gray nodular limestone, interbedded with thin partings of shale and siltstone. Weathers to thin silty soil usually 3 to 4 feet thick. Outcrops extensively in Central Basin."

Here is a charting of the layers in the Catheys Formation

I think this is what I'm lookin at.

Isn't this so cool? I had no idea they just had like. Maps that show you where rocks are in this level of detail

[thorsenmark]

Heading off to Explore the Bisti Badlands by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A setting looking to the northeast while taking in views to the badlands area where I’d be hiking and exploring in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area.

[alex-fictus]

The Paleo Party Guest of the day is Cladoselache! This is commonly called the first shark, though it’s slightly adjacent to the family of modern lamniformes that includes modern sharks.

Age: 371-359 million years ago

Formation: Cleveland Shale

Location: Ohio, USA

[mindblowingscience]

A University of Kansas paleontologist exploring an area known for its fossils recently uncovered a never-before-discovered ancient sea worm – and showed off her “nerdy” side while naming it. When Rhiannon LaVine found the 500-million-year-old fossil, the research associate with the university’s Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum was carrying out fieldwork with a team working on the geologic formation called the Spence Shale. “One of the last times we were out there, I split open one of these pieces of rock and instantly knew it was something that wasn’t typical,” LaVine said in a statement. “The first thing we see are these radial blades that look like stars or flowers.” She said she quickly showed it to Julian Kimmig, the lead author on the study exploring the annelids. In a career first, LaVine had the honor of naming the fossil worm as the person who discovered it and as a co-author of the paper focused on it, according to the University of Kansas. “I’ve been involved in describing species before, but this is the first one I’ve named,” LaVine said in a statement. “Actually, I was able to name its genus, so I can put that feather in my cap.” Inspired by the indigenous name for the worms featured in Frank Herbert’s “Dune” novels – Shai-Hulud – the paleontologist gave the discovery the scientific name of Shaihuludia shurikeni.

Continue Reading

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Throwback Thursday: The Wheeler Shale

Did you think we were done talking about Charles Walcott?

Not only did Walcott discover the Burgess Shale but 6 years prior he had gone out to western Utah and discovered yet another Cambrian lagerstatten, the Wheeler Shale.

Together with the Marjum and Weeks Formations, the Wheeler Shale is the most fossiliferous and best exposed sequences of Middle Cambrian rocks in North America. That is up to 2,000ft of rock exposure. Take that Burgess Shale. It is most famous for its prolific agnostid (tiny trilobites, like fingernail-sized)

and Elrathia kingii fossils.

Detailed work shows there are at least 10 lagerstatte sequences that were deposited by turbidites and mudslides during high water stands in a deep sea environment.

It also contains many other animals found in the Burgess Shale such as Hallucigenia,

Wiwaxia,

Choia,

and Sidneyia.

Fossilize you later!