#jurassic-coast

#jurassic-coast

The Long Man may be Anglo-Saxon in origin; the shape is similar to the design on a buckle discovered in Kent in 1964 by the archaeologist Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, which probably represents the god Odin (or Woden).

Four protrusions appear to be arranged in pairs, each consisting of two connected branches surrounding a central depression. We really don't understand what any of these features represent anatomically.

The Spinosaurus is a sail-backed, crocodile-snouted dinosaur that Hollywood depicted as a giant terrestrial predator capable of taking down a T. rex in Jurassic Park 3. Then they changed their mind and made it a fully aquatic diver in Jurassic World Rebirth—a rendering that was more in line with the latest paleontological knowledge. But now, deep in the Sahara Desert, a team of researchers led by Paul C. Sereno discovered new Spinosaurus fossils suggesting both scientists and filmmakers might have got it all wrong again.

Marine fossils have been discovered on mountain ranges around the world, including the Himalayas, Andes and Rocky Mountains, which scientists say were once covered by ancient seas before being pushed upward as continents collided and mountains formed.

Paleontology is built on specimens as data points. Trey is one among many of these that help us better understand this extinct group of horned dinosaurs. The fossil spent three decades on continuous loan and public exhibition at a museum, playing a role in advancing scientific study.

Although there are many amber stones containing a single creature, there are fewer that include two or more, as is the case with a pair of mosquitoes trapped in amber 130 million years ago which tell us that, back then, males also sucked blood. Even more extraordinary is when several organisms can be seen interacting, either eating the other, acting as a parasite, or cooperating.

A massive landslip has dramatically reshaped a section of the Jurassic Coast, weeks after a significant 300ft crack emerged in the cliff face. Thousands of tonnes of rock and mud have collapsed onto Charmouth beach in Dorset, obliterating a chunk of the popular South West Coastal Path England's most-visited National Trail. A 30ft wide section of the 450ft tall cliff has detached from the mainland, now resting approximately 20ft lower than its original position.

From the beginning, we knew these bones were exceptional because of their minute size. It is equally impressive how the study of this animal overturns global ideas on ornithopod dinosaur evolution,

Archaeologists have fought the tides to save a 17th-century shipwreck from a popular nudist beach in Dorset. The remains are believed to be part of the Swash Channel Wreck, a Dutch merchant ship called The Fame of Hoorn that ran aground while approaching Poole Harbour in 1631. The wreck was found on Dorset's Studland Beach at the end of January when Storm Chandra washed away the sand that had kept it hidden for almost 400 years.

Dinosaur fever gripped the Western world during the early 1900s, fueled by the discovery of new, ever larger and more spectacular dinosaurs in Europe and especially in North America. Interest in these fossils was not merely driven by academic curiosity. Dinosaur skeletons and research had become a status symbol for museums and their financiers, whether government or private, and colonial powers turned to their areas of influence to find new remains.

At first glance, it looked like Wooller and his colleagues might have found evidence that mammoths lived in central Alaska just 2,000 years ago. But ancient DNA revealed that two "mammoth" bones actually belonged to a North Pacific right whale and a minke whale-which raised a whole new set of questions. The team's hunt for Alaska's last mammoth had turned into an epic case of mistaken identity, starring two whale species and a mid-century fossil hunter.