Lenin Honoured by Marine Reptile

A team of Russian scientists have honoured the leader of the Bolshevik 1917 revolution which led to the establishment of the Soviet Union by naming a new genus of marine reptile after Lenin.  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who died in 1924, now has a genus of ichthyosaur named in his honour.  This prehistoric creature, a marine reptile that superficially resembled a modern-day, extant dolphin lived approximately 125 million years ago (Barremian faunal stage of the Cretaceous).  The scientific name for this new marine reptile is Leninia stellans.  The name means “starry or brilliant Lenin”.

New Genus of Ichthyosaur

Having an organism new to science named after you is an honour, although Lenin is not the first political leader to have his name immortalised in the fossil record.  For example,  a team of researchers studied a number of Late Cretaceous lizard and snake fossils (Squamata), in the southern part of Americas and in the course of their research they named a new genus of toothy lizard after the current president of the United States.  The prehistoric lizard was named Obamadon gracilis.  The name translates to mean “Obama’s graceful tooth”.

Speaking about the new marine reptile fossil, Gleb Uspensky, the Head of the Natural History Museum at Ulyanovsk State University, where the specimen is currently being stored commented:

“The name Leninia stellans was agreed collegially.  There is nothing strange about the name, many new discoveries are named after famous people.”

Ichthyosaurs (Typical Ichthyosaurs Illustrated)

An illustration of a typical ichthyosaur. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Marine Reptiles

Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles and not members of the Dinosauria Order.  Ichthyosaurs are a separate Order, the majority of ichthyosaurs were nektonic, fast-swimming predators.  The first ichthyosaurs evolved in the Early Triassic and persisted into the Cretaceous geological period, before finally becoming extinct approximately eighty million years ago.

Palaeontologists excavated elements of the skull a few years ago, on the outskirts of the city of Ulyanovsk on the banks of the Volga river.  The actual fossil material was discovered near the small village of Kriushi in the Sengileevsk region of this part of the former Soviet Union.  The skull material provided the scientists with an estimate of the size of the entire head and jaws of the animal, it measures over one metre in length and indicates an entire body length in excess of four metres.

It is likely that this marine reptile fed on fish and cephalopods such as squid, octopi and ammonites.  Recently, other elements of the ichthyosaur fossil have been excavated from this area.  Palaeontologists have assigned this new genus to a sub-family of ichthyosaurs known as the Ophthalmosaurinae.  Phylogenetically related to the Jurassic Ophthalmosaurus-type ichthyosaurs, the scientists hope to be able to learn more about the evolution and radiation of the ichthyosaurs during the Early Cretaceous geological period.

A Model of an Ichthyosaur with an Ammonite (Cephalopod) that it Has Caught

An Icththyosaurus with an ammonite that it has caught.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

It is appropriate that this type of marine reptile should be named after the Founder of the Soviet Union (Lenin), for Lenin was born in this part of the Russian Empire, (as was), in fact the city of Ulyanovsk was renamed in 1924 (previously known as Simbirsk), to honour the Communist leader.

To view replicas and models of marine reptiles and other prehistoric creatures: Dinosaur Models, Pterosaurs and Marine Reptiles (PNSO).

Intense Heat in Earth’s Atmosphere Led to Global Forest Fires

There has been much discussion in recent weeks regarding the extraterrestrial impact that occurred approximately 66 million years ago, a probable causal factor in the demise of the dinosaurs, their ultimate extinction and the loss of something like seventy-five percent of all land based organisms.  A new study by a team of scientists based at Colorado University – Boulder has concluded that one of the immediate consequences of the impact of an object from outer space on planet Earth, was a global fire-storm.

Chicxulub Impact

Fires would have devastated all the terrestrial vegetation, the smoke and ash from such an immense conflagration would have contributed to a contamination of the Earth’s atmosphere and probably blocked out the sun’s light for a very long period.  Any plants that were not burnt to a crisp, or any seeds that germinated after the initial fires would have had very little light with which to photosynthesis.   The collapse of the land-based food chains would have followed, once there were no plants, the plant-eaters including herbivorous dinosaurs were doomed.

After a brief period of bounty where the surviving predators could feast on the carcasses of the dead, the meat-eaters too would all be ultimately doomed.

Extinction of the Dinosaurs

Such an apocalyptic picture is presented by researchers from the Co-operative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) who used sophisticated computer modelling techniques to synthesise the amount of debris that would have been ejected into the atmosphere after the extraterrestrial impact.  Scientists remain uncertain as to what exactly collided with the Earth and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

In a recent paper, published by a team of researchers from New Hampshire (United States), it was suggested that the actual object that smacked into the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico was a comet and not an asteroid/meteor at all.

To read more about the “Dinosaur Comet Theory”: American Researchers Suggest the Chicxulub Impact Caused by Comet.

Douglas Robertson (CIRES), and his co-authors propose that the ejected material that would have been blown up into and almost beyond the atmosphere by the impact blast would have been heated in the upper atmosphere as it re-entered.  The skies would have glowed red for many hours after the impact at temperatures possibly exceeding 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit – cooking any organism that was not able to seek shelter underground.  Vegetation would have spontaneously combusted and a global fire-storm resulted.

One of the drawbacks proposed previously for the extensive forest fires theory was the lack of charcoal to be found at the famous K-T boundary, the geological feature that marks the end of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Palaeogene.  If there had been such a fiery inferno created, the vegetation consumed by the flames would have left extensive geological deposits of ash and charcoal.  The Colorado University team corrected their data to take into account changing sedimentation rates and when the charcoal data from the K-T boundary was adjusted to take into account these same changing sedimentation rates, the figures showed an excess of charcoal not a deficiency.

A “Smoking Gun”

In essence, this new assessment of the charcoal evidence, sometimes referred to as the “smoking gun” in relation to forest fires, supports the theory of a global fire-storm rather than detracting from it.

Speaking about the scientific paper, which has just been published in the American academic journal the “Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences”, Douglas Robertson stated:

“Our data show the conditions back then are consistent with widespread fires across the planet.  Those conditions resulted in 100 percent extinction rates for about 80 percent of all life on Earth.”

Studies of the 170 kilometre wide Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico have led the majority of scientists to believe that this global catastrophe had an enormous impact on the fauna and flora around at the time.  Along with the dinosaurs, marine reptiles, flying reptiles, ammonites, as well as many types of marine plankton, brachiopods, bivalves and sea-urchins became extinct.  In terms of plant life, the angiosperms (flowering plants) as a group suffered also but most of the species affected and ultimately caused to become extinct were associated with land masses to be found in the northern hemisphere.

Recently, an analysis of the geophysical evidence at the Yucatan site enabled scientists to come up with the most accurate date yet for the extraterrestrial impact.  A team of international researchers, including scientists from Holland, the United States and Great Britain established the date of the impact event to be around 66,038,000 years ago, plus or minus 11,000 years for a margin of error.

Immediately following the impact, the explosion would have sent up millions of tonnes of vaporised rock.  This would then have condensed into sand-grain-sized spheres as they rose up into the upper atmosphere.  As the ejected material began to fall back down to Earth under the influence of gravity, enough heat energy was retained in the atmosphere to create an infrared “heat pulse”, so hot that the sky would have glowed red for many hours, not that there was much alive bigger than a small dog on the land to see it.

Radiated Heat Energy

Part of the radiated heat energy would have been blocked, firstly by the falling material in the atmosphere and secondly from the ash and smoke that would have been ascending from the fires.  Even with some of the “heat pulse” effectively being blocked out and not reaching the surface of the Earth, there was enough heat energy getting to ground level to cause dry materials such as leaves and pine needles to explode into flames.

To read more about the latest impact dating research: Most Accurate Date for Extraterrestrial Impact.

The American team then set out to calculate  just how much energy would have been generated by the infrared radiation.  They calculate that the total amount of infrared heat was equal to a one megaton hydrogen bomb exploding every four miles over the entire surface of the planet.  A one megaton hydrogen bomb has the explosive power of about eighty Hiroshima-type nuclear devices.  The scientists postulated that the extraterrestrial impact generated about one hundred million megatons of energy.

The layer of soot, which can be found at the K-T boundary (the geological feature that marks the end of the Cretaceous), is thought by some scientists, to be evidence of the actual impact.  However, this new research paper suggests that the sooty layer is too deep to have been created solely by the impact event.  The thickness of the sooty layer, according to the researchers, is consistent with great fires that would have engulfed much of the Earth in the aftermath of the collision.

For models and figures of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs, take a look at the models section of Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Dinosaur, Pterosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.

Keen-eyed Pupil Spots Tiny Dinosaur Bone

A Japanese schoolboy on an outing with his family to a mining museum has discovered the toe-bone of a dinosaur, most likely a member of the theropod group of dinosaurs and the bone may represent a species that is new to science.  The tiny fossil, it measures just three centimetres in length, was found by Takato Sasaki, who was on a visit to the Kuji Amber Museum in Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, the north-eastern part of Honshu island (Japan).

Kuji Amber Museum

The Kuji Amber Museum is the only museum of its kind in Japan, amber can be collected in this area, the fossilised tree resin dates from approximately fifty million years ago (Palaeogene geological period) to as old as approximately one hundred million years ago (Cretaceous geological period).  The fossil, although very small and representing just a single toe bone has been tentatively dated to around eighty-five million years ago (Santonian faunal stage of the Late Cretaceous).  The fossil was found last May, it has been identified as a pedal phalange, a toe bone from a bipedal, fast-running dinosaur that may have been between one and two metres tall.  The height of the dinosaur can be estimated by comparing the size of this toe bone with the pedal phalanges of more complete specimens of bipedal dinosaur where more of the skeleton has been excavated.

Dinosaur Toe Bone

Researchers such as Professor Ren Hirayama (Waseda University), have stated that the bone came from the left hind foot of a member of the Coelurosauria dinosaur family.  The Coelurosauria clade of dinosaurs is an exceptionally diverse group of theropod dinosaurs. It includes the ornithomimids, the tyrannosaurs, Compsognathidae and the raptors such as the dromaeosaurs.  Dinosaur fossils are extremely rare in Japan.  Those that are found tend to be very fragmentary, for example, a distinctive, tooth root found earlier this year suggests evidence of horned dinosaurs living on the land mass that we now know as Japan in the Late Cretaceous.

To read more about the fossil evidence suggesting horned dinosaurs once lived on the land we now know as Japan: Japan’s First Horned Dinosaur.

A couple of years ago, Japanese scientists found a huge thigh bone (femur) of a dinosaur.  This suggests that there may have been dinosaurs very similar to titanosaurs living in this part of the world back in the latter stages of the Mesozoic.

To read an article on the discovery of the huge femur: Huge Femur Fossil Found in Japan.

Professor Ren Hirahama commented:

“It is uncommon that a toe bone, which is easily worn away, was found in such good condition.”

The bone is not much bigger than the schoolboy’s little finger, it measures just three centimetres in length and just about one centimetre in diameter at its widest part.  Given that the scientists have only a single bone to study, they can’t say much more about this dinosaur, it is not possible to identify the genus, but it does show that there were fleet-footed relatives of Tyrannosaurus rex living in Japan during the Late Cretaceous.

Eroded Out of Older Sediments

The bone may have been re-deposited having been eroded out of older sediments and become mixed up with the amber bearing strata, although if it had been transported a significant distance, the palaeontologists would have expected the tiny fossil bone to show more signs of erosion than it actually does.

High school student Takato Saski, is said to be very excited about his discovery, the tiny specimen was found at an amber mine site on the museum’s premises.  Describing the moment when he first saw the object, Takato stated:

“At first I thought it was just a small branch, but it was more amazing than that”.

Young people have two major advantages when it comes to finding fossils.  Firstly, they tend to be shorter than adults, this means that they are closer to ground and since fossils tend to be found on the ground, they are closer to where the action is – from a palaeontological perspective.  In addition, their young eyes generally tend to be more acute and a better sense of vision can help young people spot small objects, even tiny dinosaur toe bones.

For further information about fossil hunting and dinosaurs: Contact Everything Dinosaur.

Scientists are hopeful that news about this rare find will encourage more sharp-eyed visitors to the museum.  Perhaps more fossilised fragments will come to light and these fossils can help palaeontologists to understand the diversity of the Dinosauria in this part of the world towards the end of the Cretaceous.