AQt http://phys.org/print339753649.html … fossils from the Early Cretaceous period can be found in some parts of the Isle of Wight – the age of the dinosaur. Brook Bay is one such location – but there are many collections out there in private hands and fossil collecting is a largely amateur pursuit. Academics, it would seem, largely ignore the private collections – as in some way tainted. Museums of course, are overloaded with rocks and fossils – they can only hold so many.
Over at http://phys.org/print339751392.html … we have another article about Easter Island that once again debunks Jared Diamond's 'environmentalist' slur. Several studies have been published now and none support the idea that Polynesians fould their own nest by over population or poor agricultural practises. This is a myth projected by Diamond in order to show the world what would happen if they continued to use up oil and gas reserves and the various resources provided by Mother Earth. The whole idea was bonzo from the beginning but it somehow struck a nerve with the Green Blob – and almost became a piece of sacred writ amongst the doomsayers, regurgitated over and over again (in spite of constantly being disproved by empirical evidence). Will the latest findings ease the hype – not on your life. Doomsaying has a life of its own and they'll be tub thumping Jared Daimond for years to come (no matter how many times it is debunked).
Returning to Earth, and the dinosaurs that lived in the Cretaceous, there is an interesting story at www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2899894/the-mystery-dinosaur-dea… … where we have another story of geological rapid deposition – described as a dinosaur death trap. The story was sent in by member Gary Gilligan and comes with some nice pictures. Well worth a read. A 9 ton block of sandstone found on a Utah mountain side holds a treasure trove – the remains of six dinosaurs known as utahraptors. They look very similar to the Jurassic Park stars, the dinosaur Velociraptor. It took ten years to excavate the remains. The bones of the young are lightly built and of turkey size but the adults were heavily muscled. A family group appear to have died together. In the surrounding area, the size of an American football field, there are more than 200 tracks from ten different animals that all lived in the Early Cretaceous. They appear to have been running away although the interpretation is that the footprints were made in a shallow lake or watery marsh that was filled with sediment within a few days.At some stage they became rock – sand stone.