170-million-year-old Jurassic pterosaur fossil found on Isle of Skye

  • Thread starter Thread starter Astronuc
  • Start date Start date
AI Thread Summary
A significant paleontological discovery has been made on the Isle of Skye, where a 170-million-year-old Jurassic pterosaur fossil has been found. The fossil, which includes a sharp-toothed jaw, was identified by PhD student Amelia Penny in ancient limestone. Researchers from the Hunterian Museum and the Staffin Museum undertook a challenging extraction of the rock slab containing the fossil, racing against the tide to secure it for further study at the University of Edinburgh. Complete pterosaur fossils are extremely rare, making this find particularly valuable for understanding prehistoric life.
Astronuc
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
Messages
22,358
Reaction score
7,187
The world's largest Jurassic pterosaur - a 170-million-year-old winged reptile - has been found protruding from the rocks of the Isle of Skye.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60407928

PhD student Amelia Penny spotted a sharp-toothed fossilized jaw of a 170-million-year-old Jurassic pterosaur in a layer of ancient limestone on Skye's coast.

Researchers from the Hunterian Museum, in Glasgow, and the Staffin Museum, on Skye, had to extract the rock slab entombing the fossil - a painstaking process and noisy process racing the incoming tide - and bring it to the University of Edinburgh.

. . .

"Pterosaur fossils as complete as this are very rare.

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-superbly-pterosaur-fossil-unearthed-scotland.html
 
  • Like
Likes Klystron, DrClaude, BillTre and 3 others
Thread 'The Secrets of Prof. Verschure's Rosetta Stones'
(Edit: since the thread title was changed, this first sentence is too cryptic: the original title referred to a Tool song....) Besides being a favorite song by a favorite band, the thread title is a straightforward play on words. This summer, as a present to myself for being promoted, I purchased a collection of thin sections that I believe comprise the research materials of Prof. Rob Verschure, who at the time was faculty in the Geological Institute in Amsterdam. What changed this...
These last days, there is a seemingly endless cluster of rather powerful earthquakes close to the islands of Santorini, Amorgos, Anafi, and Ios. Remember, this is a highly volcanically active region, Santorini especially being famous for the supervolcanic eruption which is conjectured to have led to the decline of the Minoan civilization: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_eruption To grasp the scale of what is happening, between the 26th of January and the 9th of February, 12000...
Back
Top