The Earth Story

Titanoboa

Be glad these don’t exist today.

Between 58 and 60 million years ago this titanic boa (species: titanoboa cerrejonensis) slithered across South America. They existed during the Paleocene epoch for about 10 million years.

In 2009, the fossils of the monster were discovered at an open coal mine in Colombia called Cerrejón.

Researchers estimate that the larger Titanoboas had a length of just below 13 meters (42.6 ft) and weighed in the region of 1100 Kg (2425.085 lb). This monstrous creature could swallow an entire crocodile without showing a bulge. Up until the discovery of the titanoboa, the gigantophis*, measuring up to 10 meters, was thought to be the largest snake that existed.

Dr Carlos Jaramillo from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and a member of the squad that made the discovery, said that the biggest snake today is half the size of the Titanoboa. Despite the size, an analysis of the skull revealed that it’s a closer relative to the boa constrictor than the anaconda.

This snake was not venomous. Instead, it crushes its prey with an incredible force.

Many say that the discovery of the Titanoboa is the most important find since the T-Rex in 1902.

The Carbonemys, a giant snapping turtle, is believed to have roamed the same lands as the Titanoboas. Scientists also believe that these two may have often faced off in epic duels.

Today, you can find a life-sized replica (pictured below) at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, USA.

*The Gigantophis existed about 40 million years ago in an area that is now Algeria and Egypt. Their diet consisted mostly of basal proboscideans (ancestors of elephants which were small in size). Scientists hailed it as the King of all Snakes.

-Renesh T

Image credit:

Ryan Quick from Greenbelt, MD, USA

http://bit.ly/1FJmFlQ

Sources/Further reading:

http://bbc.in/1JKAa8J

http://abt.cm/1JKAe8q

http://bit.ly/1awlaii

http://bit.ly/1E2qRCp

The stone of Peñol This giant monolith is found in the nation of Colombia, in the town of Guatapé. It rises 200 meters above the surrounding terrain and has been carved smooth by the plants and rainfall in the area. It was first climbed in the 1950s when a pair of local climbers wedged boards into the single crack in the side of the rock. Today 649 steps carry tourists to the top of this rock, where a 3-story observation tower is found. The rock itself is igneous, a rounded piece of a granitic-like rock, dominated by quartz and feldspars and weathered round like many granitic monoliths. -JBB Image credit: https://flic.kr/p/afxP7g Read more: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/el-penon-de-guatape

Cano Cristales river in Colombia’s Serrania de la Macarena national park, turned red by the plant  Macarenia clavigera.

The Gachala emerald

Most large gem quality crystals end up being cut into faceted gems for jewellery, so it is rare for such a beauty as this to be rescued for the delectation of the public. One of the treasures of the Smithsonian was spared the usual fate for such wonders of nature, and donated to the museum by the jeweller Harry Winston (who also donated the Hope diamond). Originally mined in Colombia in 1967, it is named after the mining area whence it came. Unlike the more traditional mining areas such as Muzo or Chivor, Gachala was not exploited by the traditional peoples of the area before the conquest, but was only discovered in the mid 1950's. The crystal is reputed to be one of the finest on display in the world. The colour is a lovely deep summer grass green, and it weighs in at a whopping 172 grams (858 carats) for a size of 5x5cm. Emeralds from this area some 100km east of Bogota are often a lighter green, but they tend to contain smaller 'gardens' of inclusions within.

Loz

Image credit: Andrew Bossi

http://geogallery.si.edu/index.php/en/1059691/gachala-emerald http://www.internetstones.com/gachala-emerald-858-carat-vegas-de-san-juan-mine-colombia.html[_

_](https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/photos/a.352867368107647/810491205678592/?type=1&theater#)

Smaragdine starbursts I love the old Roman name for emerald, and unusual crystals, so what better combination than these 4x3x3 cm intergrown green fireworks on black schist from one of the mines in Colombia. The crystals have grown out from a common seed nucleus, probably a tiny early formed beryl. As they grew by adding on layers of ordered sequenced atoms, each one started reaching out into the mother ichor that gave them birth, struggling for elemental nutrition, in this case beryllium, silica, and aluminium, with a touch of chromium for the colour. The mineral mush gradually cooled and froze as the metamorphic event that spawned it passed into geological history. Loz Image credit: Marin Minerals

Original caption:

Impact

This is a complicated figure from a recently published paper featuring a really neat geologic site. This is an outcrop of the debris from the asteroid impact at the end of South America after the impact.

Start with the map in the upper right. The map shows the modern day locations of the Chicxulub impact crater on the Yucatan Peninsula and the tiny island of Gorgonilla off the coast of Colombia, where this outcrop was found.

The vertical column at the far left shows the sedimentary sequence. These rocks are off the coast of South America, near the Andes Mountains today. 65 million years ago, there were volcanoes nearby just like we find along this coastline today. This sequence of rocks therefore includes a basaltic lava flow and tuffs that have mixed with sediments. Tuffs are ash that exploded out of volcanoes, so volcanoes were feeding this site and the type of sediment deposited was alternating between sandy and muddy.

Then, right in the middle of this sequence, a whole bunch of spheres of glass appear. These are debris from the impact itself and they’re shown at the top in the figure labeled A. When the asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula, it vaporized and melted some of the target rocks. That molten rock splashed out of the crater like water bursting from a balloon and it rained down around the entire surrounding area. It cooled off rapidly as it flew through the air, creating spheres of hot glass that pelted the landscape. That spherule layer is the direct debris of the impact.

The final 2 frames show what has happened to the other sedimentary layers. The spherule layer is colored green in the center image – note that it’s a little bit bent. The zoomed in image below it shows that the once simple sedimentary beds have been bent and disturbed. When the impact took place, it caused geologic disruption throughout the entire region. It is thought that earthquakes continued shaking the land for tens of minutes after the impact, long enough for blast debris to rain down and still be disrupted. These bent sedimentary layers were shaken up by the energy released after the initial blast.

The scientists at this site characterized pollen samples in the sediments before and after the impact to analyze the types of plants living in these areas. They found that the plant populations shifted dramatically after the impact and one group of ferns that has been thought to occupy areas that are hit with disasters shows up just after the impact layer.

-JBB

Image credit and original paper: https://bit.ly/2rGLjqn