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The Earth Story

@earthstory / earthstory.tumblr.com

This is the blog homepage of the Facebook group "The Earth Story" (Click here to visit our Facebook group). “The Earth Story” are group of volunteers with backgrounds throughout the Earth Sciences. We cover all Earth sciences - oceanography, climatology, geology, geophysics and much, much more. Our articles combine the latest research, stunning photography, and basic knowledge of geosciences, and are written for everyone!
We hope you find us to be a unique home for learning about the Earth sciences, and we hope you enjoy!
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Two mosasaur specimens from the exhibit “Sea Monsters Unearthed: Life in Angola’s Ancient Seas” at the National Museum of Natural History. The first is the skull of “Platecarpus” ptychodon, a fish eating mosasaur that has been dated to 72 million years ago; the second is Angolasaurus bocagei, the oldest known mosasaur from the Southern Hemisphere, dated to 88 million years ago. Mosasaurs were large marine reptiles from the same order as modern snakes, lizards, and amphisbaenians. They’re common in late Cretaceous fossil deposits and has several adaptations for their marine environment, including a streamlined body and crescent-shaped tail flukes in later species. They became extinct during the K-Pg event 66 million years ago.

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Tylosaurus

 This fossil hanging in the Academy of Natural Sciences Museum, Drexel University, is a type of Mosasaur called a Tylosaurus proriger. This species, first discovered in quarries in the 18th century, is the largest known species of mosasaur, with some specimens more than 15 meters long (this one is about 13 meters). Mosasaurs existed during the cretaceous for about 20 million years and overlapped with dinosaurs, but they were not dinosaurs – in fact they are reptiles more closely related to lizards. Much like snakes, their lower jaws are able to expand, allowing them to consume extremely large prey. Some mosasaurs have been found with bones of huge prey in their stomachs, even plesiosaurs! Like plesiosaurs and dinosaurs, mosasaurs died out during the end-Cretaceous Mass Extinction.

-JBB

Image credit: Paul Cooper

*You may note this one appears slightly smaller than the mosasaur in “Jurassic World”. Genetic engineering, I presume.

References:

http://bit.ly/2iNzUhK

Source: facebook.com
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Jurassic World: A Park of Inaccuracies

Now, before I get into this, I do want to say that I love the Jurassic Park movies, and I am in no way trying to degrade them or anything. It's obviously just a movie, inaccuracies are guaranteed. I simply find these little facts amusing, and I imagine you will too.

National geographic summarized it best: the Jurassic Park franchise is based on what we knew about dinosaurs in the 1980's. Unfortunately, 2015 has proven that the movies have not stood the test of time, and the dinosaurs should look completely different. The producers of Jurassic World have decided to stick with the "classic" dinosaur look, which has lead to debates between either preserving a classic film and its original look, or updating it to current knowledge, but ditching its iconic image.

What are some the inaccuracies of the Jurassic World dinosaurs?

1) No feathers. In the past 10 years or so, researchers confirmed that most dinosaurs were sporting a full set of feathers.

2) Dinosaurs with thumbs. Since dinosaurs are prehistoric reptiles (and since we have the skeletons), we already know that dinosaurs didn't have thumbs.

3) They are HUGE. Too huge! A video explains the major flaw using the scene with the mosasaur eating the great white shark (see link below). An average mosasaur is ~59ft long. By comparing the size of the great white shark to the visible head/neck of the mosasaur in the trailer, just the head/neck alone is about 73.5ft long.

4) Wrong era. Let's not forget the biggest error in Jurassic Park: it should really be called "Cretaceous Park." The dinosaurs seem to be mixed across a couple different eras, but for the most part, they're Cretaceous, not Jurassic.

Unrelated to dinosaur physiology, but still apparently incorrect, is the insect shown in the amber. Entomologists have pointed out that it's not a mosquito, it is a crane fly.

Fans have, of course, defended the movie to the death, pointing out that the very first movie states that the dinosaurs DNA was incomplete, so they filled it using modern reptiles/amphibians. This could explain the lack of feathers. They also defend the opposable thumbs by pointing out that the dinosaur with thumbs is a hybrid of some sort. Though, even if it is a hybrid, it was likely crossed with another dinosaur, so the thumbs still seem like a stretch.

Either way, I can't wait for the movie, and I enjoy the classic dino look. What's your opinion?

~Rosie

This article is a part of our "Mesozoic Park" series that is leading up to the release of Jurassic World. For more information, please see our introductory post at: http://on.fb.me/1ELwHW5

"Jurassic World's 667.15ft Mistake": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R60ElTKJCC4 (the author states in the video that there were a few errors and also that Jurassic World has stated that the mosasaur is apparently not that large in the movie) Jurassic World movie trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFinNxS5KN4

Image: http://bit.ly/1Ik9c9d

References: http://bit.ly/1baPoI1 http://wapo.st/1zkN24V http://bit.ly/1HUPUrX

Source: facebook.com
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