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An armored dinosaur has been found in Alberta, so well-preserved that it looks like a statue. The specimen was preserved in 3D, perfectly hardening into sandstone, from its snout its hips. Paleontologists were able to determine, just by looking at it, that this discovery is also a new species.

So what did this new dinosaur look like? Well, according to the researchers, it is the “dinosaur equivalent of a tank.” It was 5.5 meters long (about 18 feet) and weighing more than 1,300 kilograms (or 2,800 pounds). There is ornamentation around its eyes, six-sides plates on the sides of its skull, and distinct alternating lines of spikes and scales along its back. The prickly skin even contains molecular clues suggesting it was reddish on its backside, and lighter on its underside! That’s a lot of detail about a species, all from one specimen.

Plates of Planktonic (top) and Benthic (bottom) foraminifera (micro organisms that make carbonaceous skeletons) I drew to include with my project. I did a study on the forams of the North West Shelf of Australia (modern) to correlate the percentages of each found at certain depths, so that my supervisor had a modern analogue for paleodepths in his research.  Planktonic forams are so fragile, but look mostly the same. The benthic ones are so varied and pretty! 

Here is the poster I made; showing just because I like to visualise data and so I made a pretty cross section. As you can see, the percentage plankton data flips with the depth values at the 200m mark: 200m is the end of the “photic” zone, and so benthic forams don’t live further down than that (meaning the percentage of plankton, which fall to the ocean floor as they die, increases). 

Spessartine | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral

Locality: Navegadora claim, Conselheiro Pena, Doce valley, Minas Gerais, Brazil Size: 8 x 5 x 3.2 cm

Photo Copyright © Saphira Minerals

Kämmererite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral

Locality: Kop Krom Mine, Kop Daglari, Eastern Anatolia, Turkey

Size: 2.9 × 1.8 × 2 cm Largest Crystal: 0.70cm

Photo Copyright © Norbert Stoetzel /e-rocks.com

Dark Purple Fluorite on Siderite partly Epimorph after Fluorite

Size: 3.3 × 2.7 × 1.8 cm

Cerro de los Siete Colores “The Hill of Seven Colors” | #Geology #GeologyPage #Argentina

Cerro de los Siete Colores (The Hill of Seven Colors) is one of the hills bordering the Quebrada de Purmamarca which is in turn is a western branch of the Quebrada de Humahuaca up to Cuesta del Lipán, in Jujuy Province, Argentina.

Cuprite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral

Locality: Hilarion Mines, Lavrion, Attica, Greece

Photo Copyright © Vasilis Stergiou Losanda /e-rocks.com