|
Tristan Hotspot
The Tristan hotspot is a volcanic hotspot which is responsible for the volcanic activity which forms the volcanoes in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is thought to have formed the island of Tristan da Cunha and the Walvis Ridge on the African Plate. Geology It is also believed to be closely connected with the Paraná and Etendeka flood basalt provinces, which formed over the hotspot during the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. The Tristan and Gough hotspots are widely spaced end-members of the volcanic system that generated the Walvis Ridge on the African plate and the Rio Grande Rise on the South American plate beginning at when the Paraná and Etendeka traps formed. Whether or not Tristan and Gough represent two distinct volcanic centers is still debated. argued that the Walvis Ridge is not the product of a deep mantle plume or the Tristan hotspot, but that changes in the internal stress in the spreading African and South American plates trigger changes in the magm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hotspots
Hotspot, Hot Spot or Hot spot may refer to: Places * Hot Spot, Kentucky, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Hot Spot (comics), a name for the DC Comics character Isaiah Crockett * Hot Spot (Transformers), any of several characters Films * ''Hot Spot'' (1941 film), later retitled ''I Wake Up Screaming'' * ''Hot Spot'' (1945 film), a Private Snafu film * '' The Hot Spot'', a 1990 neo-noir film Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media * ''Hot Spot'' (board game), a 1979 board game published by Metagaming Concepts * "Hot Spot" (''Burn Notice''), a television episode * ''Hot Spot'' (musical), 1963 * "Hot Spot" (song), by Foxy Brown * ''Hotspot'' (album), a 2020 album by Pet Shop Boys * ''The Hot Spot'' (Podcast), a GameSpot podcast Computing * Hot spot (computer programming), a compute-intensive region of a program * Hot spot, an area which is customizable by users in software frameworks * Wi-Fi hotspot, a wireless ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kimberlite
Kimberlite is an igneous rock and a rare variant of peridotite. It is most commonly known as the main host matrix for diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley, Northern Cape, Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an 83.5-Carat (mass), carat (16.70 g) diamond called the Star of South Africa (diamond), Star of South Africa in 1869 spawned a diamond rush and led to the excavation of the open-pit mine called the Big Hole. Previously, the term kimberlite has been applied to olivine lamproites as Kimberlite II, however this has been in error. Kimberlite occurs in the Earth's Crust (geology), crust in vertical structures known as Volcanic pipe, kimberlite pipes, as well as igneous Dike (geology), dykes and can also occur as horizontal Sill (geology), sills. Kimberlite pipes are the most important source of mined diamonds today. The consensus on kimberlites is that they are formed deep within Earth's mantle. Formation occurs at depths between 150 and 450 kilometres ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geography Of Tristan Da Cunha
Tristan da Cunha is an archipelago of five islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean, the largest of which is the island of Tristan da Cunha itself and the second-largest, the remote bird haven, Gough Island. It forms part of a wider territory called Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which includes Saint Helena and Ascension Island. Location and description This archipelago, 1500 miles (2500 km) from the continents of Africa and South America, is one of the most remote inhabited places on earth. It consists of the following islands: * the main island Tristan da Cunha and its surrounding islands ** Tristan da Cunha, the main island and largest () area: ** Inaccessible Island area: ** Nightingale Islands area: *** Nightingale Island area: *** Middle Island, Tristan da Cunha, Middle Island area: *** Stoltenhoff Island area: * Gough Island (''Diego Alvarez'') area: important as the largest undisturbed cool-temperate island habitat in the South Atlantic Ocean. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', 'Eos, Dawn') and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch.See: *Letter from William Whewell to Charles Lyell dated 31 January 1831 in: * From p. 55: "The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene, from ήως, aurora, and χαινος, recens, because the extremely small proportion of living species contained in these strata, indicates what may be considered the first commencement, or ''dawn'', of the existing state of the animate creation." The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isoto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phorusrhacidae
Phorusrhacids, colloquially known as terror birds, are an extinct family of large carnivorous, mostly flightless birds that were among the largest apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era. Their definitive fossil records range from the Middle Eocene to the Late Pleistocene around , though some specimens suggest that they were present since the Early Eocene. They ranged in height from . One of the largest specimens from the Early Pleistocene of Uruguay, possibly belonging to '' Devincenzia'', would have weighed up to . Their closest modern-day relatives are believed to be the seriemas. '' Titanis walleri'', one of the larger species, is known from Texas and Florida in North America. This makes the phorusrhacids the only known large South American predator to migrate north in the Great American Interchange that followed the formation of the Isthmus of Panama land bridge (the main pulse of the interchange began about 2.6 Ma ago; ''Titanis'' at 5 Ma was an early northwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lavocatavis
''Lavocatavis'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric bird from the Eocene of Algeria. A fossilized femur was described from the Glib Zegdou Formation in 2011 and is the only known specimen of ''Lavocatavis''. The species was designated ''L. africana''. Discovery and naming The holotype of ''Lavocatavis'', UM HGL 51-55, consists of an almost complete right femur. It is reasonably well preserved in the middle, but fragmentary at both ends. It originates from layer HGL 51 of the Glib Zegdou Formation of Algeria. The generic epithet (meaning "Lavocat's bird") was named in honor of René Lavocat, the person who first reported the earth layer of the holotype. Paleobiogeography The oldest phorusrhacids are from South America and Antarctica, so if this genus were indeed a phorusrhacid, the ancestors of ''Lavocatavis'' might have migrated into Africa from the west. During the Eocene, the Atlantic Ocean separated South America from Africa by at least , ruling out a land migration. For a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rafting Event
Oceanic dispersal is a type of biological dispersal that occurs when terrestrial organisms transfer from one land mass to another by way of a sea crossing. Island hopping is the crossing of an ocean by a series of shorter journeys between islands, as opposed to a single journey directly to the destination. Often this occurs via large rafts of floating vegetation such as are sometimes seen floating down major rivers in the tropics and washing out to sea, occasionally with animals trapped on them. Dispersal via such a raft is sometimes referred to as a rafting event. Colonization of land masses by plants can also occur via long-distance oceanic dispersal of floating seeds. History Rafting has played an important role in the colonization of isolated land masses by mammals. Prominent examples include Madagascar, which has been isolated for ~120 million years ( Ma), and South America, which was isolated for much of the Cenozoic. Both land masses, for example, appear to have received ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaeocene
The Paleocene ( ), or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''palaiós'' meaning "old" and the Eocene Epoch (which succeeds the Paleocene), translating to "the old part of the Eocene". The epoch is bracketed by two major events in Earth's history. The K–Pg extinction event, brought on by an asteroid impact (Chicxulub impact) and possibly volcanism ( Deccan Traps), marked the beginning of the Paleocene and killed off 75% of species, most famously the non-avian dinosaurs. The end of the epoch was marked by the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which was a major climatic event wherein about 2,500–4,500 gigatons of carbon were released into the atmosphere and ocean systems, causing a spike in global temperatures and ocean acidification. In the Paleocene, the continents of the Northern Hemispher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maastrichtian
The Maastrichtian ( ) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) geologic timescale, the latest age (geology), age (uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stage) of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or Upper Cretaceous series (stratigraphy), Series, the Cretaceous geologic period, Period or system (stratigraphy), System, and of the Mesozoic geologic era, Era or Erathem. It spanned the interval from . The Maastrichtian was preceded by the Campanian and succeeded by the Danian (part of the Paleogene and Paleocene). It is named after the city of Maastricht, the capital and largest city of the Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg province in the Netherlands. The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (formerly known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary period, Tertiary extinction event) occurred at the end of this age. In this extinction event, mass extinction, many commonly recognized groups such as non-avian dinosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, as well as many other lesser-kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catarrhini
The parvorder Catarrhini (known commonly as catarrhine monkeys, Old World anthropoids, or Old World monkeys) consists of the Cercopithecoidea and apes (Hominoidea). In 1812, Geoffroy grouped those two groups together and established the name Catarrhini, "Old World monkeys", ("''singes de l'Ancien Monde''" in French). Its sister in the infraorder Simiiformes is the parvorder Platyrrhini (New World monkeys). There has been some resistance to directly designate apes (and thus humans) as monkeys despite the scientific evidence, so "Old World monkey" may be taken to mean the Cercopithecoidea or the Catarrhini. That apes are monkeys was already realized by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in the 18th century. Linnaeus placed this group in 1758 together with what we now recognise as the tarsiers and the New World monkeys, in a single genus "'' Simia''" (sans ''Homo''). The Catarrhini are all native to Africa and Asia. Members of this parvorder are called catarrhines. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chimpanzee–human Last Common Ancestor
The chimpanzee–human last common ancestor (CHLCA) is the last common ancestor shared by the extant ''Homo'' (human) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzee and bonobo) genera of Hominini. Estimates of the divergence date vary widely from thirteen to five million years ago. In human genetic studies, the CHLCA is useful as an anchor point for calculating single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rates in human populations where chimpanzees are used as an outgroup, that is, as the extant species most genetically similar to ''Homo sapiens''. Despite extensive research, no direct fossil evidence of the CHLCA has been discovered. Fossil candidates like ''Sahelanthropus tchadensis,'' ''Orrorin tugenensis'', and ''Ardipithecus ramidus'' have been debated as either being early hominins or close to the CHLCA. However, their classification remains uncertain due to incomplete evidence Taxonomy The taxon tribe ''Hominini'' was proposed to separate humans (genus ''Homo'') from chimpanzees ('' Pan'') and g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
