Latoplatecarpus
''Latoplatecarpus'' is an extinct genus of plioplatecarpine mosasaur known from the Late Cretaceous (early middle Campanian stage) of the northern Gulf of Mexico and the Western Interior Basin of North America. Discovery ''Latoplatecarpus'' was named by Takuya Konishi and Michael W. Caldwell in 2011 and the type species is ''Latoplatecarpus willistoni''. ''L. willistoni'' is known from the holotype TMP 84.162.01, a nearly complete skull, including the mandible and dentary, and a partial postcranial skeleton. The holotype was collected in the Pembina Mountain, in southern Manitoba, from the Pembina Member of the Pierre Shale, dating to the early middle Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, about 80.5 million years ago. Three specimens are also referred to this species, including DMNH 8769 (a very well preserved cranial and postcranial skeleton), SDSMT 30139 and AMNH 2182. Konishi and Caldwell reassigned a second species, ''L. nichollsae'', ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Latoplatecarpus Royal Tyrrell
''Latoplatecarpus'' is an extinct genus of plioplatecarpine mosasaur known from the Late Cretaceous (early middle Campanian stage) of the northern Gulf of Mexico and the Western Interior Basin of North America. Discovery ''Latoplatecarpus'' was named by Takuya Konishi and Michael W. Caldwell in 2011 and the type species is ''Latoplatecarpus willistoni''. ''L. willistoni'' is known from the holotype TMP 84.162.01, a nearly complete skull, including the mandible and dentary, and a partial postcranial skeleton. The holotype was collected in the Pembina Mountain, in southern Manitoba, from the Pembina Member of the Pierre Shale, dating to the early middle Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, about 80.5 million years ago. Three specimens are also referred to this species, including DMNH 8769 (a very well preserved cranial and postcranial skeleton), SDSMT 30139 and AMNH 2182. Konishi and Caldwell reassigned a second species, ''L. nichollsae ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pierre Shale
The Pierre Shale is a geologic formation or series in the Upper Cretaceous which occurs east of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains, from Pembina Valley in Canada to New Mexico. The Pierre Shale was described by Meek and Hayden in 1862 in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences (Philadelphia). They described it as a dark-gray shale, fossiliferous, with veins and seams of gypsum, and concretions of iron oxide. The Pierre Shale is about 700 feet (210m) thick at the type locality. It overlies the Niobrara division and underlies the Fox Hills beds. It was named for an occurrence near Fort Pierre on the Missouri River in South Dakota. The Pierre Shale is of marine origin and was deposited in the Western Interior Seaway. It is correlative with other marine shales that occur farther west, such as the Bearpaw Shale, Mancos Shale and the Lewis Shale. It correlates with the Lea Park Formation in central Alberta. The Pierre is overlain by marginal marine deposits of the F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plioplatecarpinae
Plioplatecarpinae is a subfamily of mosasaurs, a diverse group of Late Cretaceous marine squamates. Members of the subfamily are informally and collectively known as "plioplatecarpines" and have been recovered from all continents, though the occurrences in Australia remain questionable. The subfamily includes the genera '' Latoplatecarpus'', ''Platecarpus'', '' Plioplatecarpus'' and ''Plesioplatecarpus''. Plioplatecarpines were small to medium-sized mosasaurs that were comparatively fast and agile compared to mosasaurs of other subfamilies. The first plioplatecarpines appear in the Turonian and are among the oldest of mosasaurs, and the clade persists throughout the Maastrichtian, a period of approximately 24 million years. The subfamily was seemingly heavily affected during a poorly understood middle-Campanian mosasaur extinction event and its genera appear to have faced competition from mosasaurine mosasaurs during the Maastrichtian, leading to a decline in numbers and in diver ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2011 In Paleontology
Protozoa New taxa Plants Ferns and fern allies Gymnosperms Gymnosperm research *An amplified whole plant reconstruction of the Ypresian Princeton chert pine ''Pinus arnoldii'', expanding the diagnosis to include ''P. similkameenensis'' (Miller, 1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: ...) foliage and wood plus unnamed pollens cones found in attachment to the ''P. arnoldii'' ovulate cones is published by Klymiuk, Stockey, & Rothwell. Angiosperms Nematoda Lobopods Vetulicolians Molluscs Arthropods Fishes Amphibians Newly named lepospondyls Newly named temnospondyls Newly named lissamphibians Basal reptiles Newly named captorhinids Newly named basal diapsids Newly named ichthyosaurs Lepidosauromorphs Newly named saurosphargids Newly ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mosasaur
Mosasaurs (from Latin ''Mosa'' meaning the 'Meuse', and Ancient Greek, Greek ' meaning 'lizard') comprise a group of extinct, large marine reptiles from the Late Cretaceous. Their first fossil remains were discovered in a limestone quarry at Maastricht on the Meuse in 1764. They belong to the order Squamata, which includes lizards and snakes. Mosasaurs probably evolved from an extinct group of aquatic lizards known as Aigialosauridae, aigialosaurs in the Late Cretaceous, Earliest Late Cretaceous with 42 described genera. During the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous period (Turonian–Maastrichtian ages), with the extinction of the ichthyosaurs and Pliosauridae, pliosaurs, mosasaurs became the dominant marine predators. They themselves became extinct as a result of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, K-Pg event at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago. Description Mosasaurs breathed air, were powerful swimmers, and were well-adapted to livi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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SDSMT
The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (South Dakota Mines, SD Mines, or SDSM&T) is a public university in Rapid City, South Dakota. It is governed by the South Dakota Board of Regents and was founded in 1885. South Dakota Mines offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. History The cornerstone of the first School of Mines (then known as the Dakota School of Mines) building was dedicated on August 19, 1885, with the first classes being held February 21, 1887. John W. Hancher received the first bachelor of science degree at the first commencement on May 31, 1888. The school became known as the South Dakota School of Mines in 1889 after admission of South Dakota as a state to the United States. The School of Mines presented exhibits during the 1904 World's Fair and the first licensed radio station in the state of South Dakota was established on campus in December 1911, a full decade before WCAT (the precursor the current campus station KTEQ-FM). The first "M-Da ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cranium
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, these two parts are the neurocranium and the viscerocranium (facial skeleton) that includes the mandible as its largest bone. The skull forms the anterior-most portion of the skeleton and is a product of cephalisation—housing the brain, and several sensory structures such as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. In humans these sensory structures are part of the facial skeleton. Functions of the skull include protection of the brain, fixing the distance between the eyes to allow stereoscopic vision, and fixing the position of the ears to enable sound localisation of the direction and distance of sounds. In some animals, such as horned ungulates (mammals with hooves), the skull also has a defensive function by providing the mount (on the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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AMNH
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain over 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than . AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually. The AMNH is a private 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission statement is: "To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Skeleton
A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body, and the hydroskeleton, a flexible internal skeleton supported by fluid pressure. Vertebrates are animals with a vertebral column, and their skeletons are typically composed of bone and cartilage. Invertebrates are animals that lack a vertebral column. The skeletons of invertebrates vary, including hard exoskeleton shells, plated endoskeletons, or spicules. Cartilage is a rigid connective tissue that is found in the skeletal systems of vertebrates and invertebrates. Etymology The term ''skeleton'' comes . ''Sceleton'' is an archaic form of the word. Classification Skeletons can be defined by several attributes. Solid skeletons consist of hard substances, such as bone, cartilage, or cuticle. These can be further divided by locat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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DMNH
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help museum visitors learn about the natural history of Colorado, Earth, and the universe. The building houses more than one million objects in its collections including natural history and anthropological materials, as well as archival and library resources. The museum is an independent, nonprofit institution with approximately 350 full-time and part-time staff, more than 1,800 volunteers, and a 25-member board of trustees. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate. Education programs The museum provides programming in six main areas. The exhibitions, IMAX films, lectures, classes, and programs pertain to one or more of the following core competencies: anthropology, geology, health scien ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Million Years Ago
The abbreviation Myr, "million years", is a unit of a quantity of (i.e. ) years, or 31.556926 teraseconds. Usage Myr (million years) is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used with Mya (million years ago). Together they make a reference system, one to a quantity, the other to a particular place in a year numbering system that is ''time before the present''. Myr is deprecated in geology, but in astronomy ''Myr'' is standard. Where "myr" ''is'' seen in geology it is usually "Myr" (a unit of mega-years). In astronomy it is usually "Myr" (Million years). Debate In geology a debate remains open concerning the use of ''Myr'' (duration) plus ''Ma'' (million years ago) versus using only the term ''Ma''. In either case the term '' Ma'' is used in geology literature conforming to ISO 31-1 (now ISO 80000-3) and NIST 811 recommended practices. Traditional style geology literature is written The "ago" is implied, so that any such year number "X M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Geological Timescale
The geologic time scale, or geological time scale, (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochronology (scientific branch of geology that aims to determine the age of rocks). It is used primarily by Earth scientists (including geologists, paleontologists, geophysicists, geochemists, and paleoclimatologists) to describe the timing and relationships of events in geologic history. The time scale has been developed through the study of rock layers and the observation of their relationships and identifying features such as lithologies, paleomagnetic properties, and fossils. The definition of standardized international units of geologic time is the responsibility of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a constituent body of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), whose primary objective is to precisely define ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |