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The Hunt For Red New Papers
Hi All! -
Still playing catch-up post-SVP, but here's a few things (thanks to Lee
for pointing me to some of them!):
Stilwell, J.D. 2007. The lost world of Rekohu: unlocking ancient secrets of
the Chatham Islands. New Zealand Geographic 87:8-9, 12.
Not a technical paper, of course, but this is particularly interesting
in that they figure and report some articulated but fragmentary avian
hindlimb material from the Late Cretaceous from the islands...oddly
penguin-like! I'm _very_ interested in hearing more about this stuff...
Ensom, P.C. 2007. The Purbeck Limestone Group of Dorset, southern England.
Geology Today 23(5):178-185. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2451.2007.00630.x.
ABSTRACT: The late Jurassic to early Cretaceous Purbeck Limestone Group of
Dorset has been a focus for media and academic attention for the last 150
years. For example, The Illustrated London News in 1857 carried an article
by the Revd Charles Kingsley, (of The Water Babies fame), titled .Geological
Discoveries at Swanage., describing fossil-hunting endeavours of Samuel
Husband Beckles (1814-1890; Fig. 1). Beckles had been encouraged by Richard
Owen (1804-1892) to go in search of the tiny fossilized mammalian remains in
these strata. Beckles rose to the challenge and at his own expense employed
a team of workmen to carry out the excavations; in the process they
uncovered a thin layer containing the numerous remains of diminutive mammals
along with the remains of other vertebrates, including turtles, crocodiles
and ornithischian dinosaurs. Since then, dinosaur tracks and related
discoveries from these same strata have often caught the imagination of the
press, inspiring sensational headlines such as "Builder digs up giant lizard
fight" and "Dinosaur graveyard in Swanage Bay"!
Weinbaum, J.C., and Hungerbühler, A. 2007. A revision of Poposaurus gracilis
(Archosauria: Suchia) based on two new specimens from the Late Triassic of
the southwestern U.S.A. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 81(2):131-145.
ABSTRACT: Two associated partial skeletons, one from the McCarty ranch
(MOTTU site 0690) near Kalgary, Texas, Tecovas Formation, and the other from
the Petrified Forest Member of the Chinle Formation, outside the Petrified
Forest, Arizona, represent the most complete specimens of Poposaurus
gracilis found to date, and increase our understanding of the osteology of
this rare pseudosuchian archosaur. The cervical centrum of TTUP-10419
possesses an accessory dorsal parapophyseal rib facet, as in "Lythrosuchus".
The ilia of these new fossils are the first of Poposaurus to preserve the
complete preacetabular blade, which is long and "blade-like" rather than
"paddle-shaped" as previously thought. These specimens also confirm that
isolated elements previously referred to Poposaurus (fused sacral vertebrae,
the pubes and the ischia), but not present in the holotype indeed belong to
that taxon. The morphology of the cervical centrum and the preacetabular
blade of the ilium are identical to the much larger type of "Lythrosuchus"
langstoni , suggesting that "Lythrosuchus" is a junior synonym of
Poposaurus. However, we retain the species Poposaurus langstoni nov. comb.
on the basis of larger size, absence of a distinct ridge on the lateral
surface of the ilium, and the lack of a pit on the proximal end of the
ischium. A phylogenetic analysis suggests a monophyletic Poposauroidea and a
paraphyletic "Rauisuchia".
In the same volume as the latter is a paper with new info on
_Coelurosauravus_, but I don't have it yet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry D. Harris
Director of Paleontology
Dixie State College
Science Building
225 South 700 East
St. George, UT 84770 USA
Phone: (435) 652-7758
Fax: (435) 656-4022
E-mail: jharris@dixie.edu
and dinogami@gmail.com
http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/
STORIES IN SIX WORDS OR LESS:
"Machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented
a time"
-- Alan Moore
"Easy. Just touch the match to"
-- Ursula K. Le Guin
"Batman Sues Batsignal: Demands
Trademark Royalties."
-- Cory Doctorow