Goronyosaurus nigeriensis Mosasaur Fossil

Here is a picture of a reconstructed skull of a Goronyosaurus nigeriensis (Swinton et al., 1930) fossil at Museo di Geologia e Paleontologia Florence Italy (Università degli Studi di Firenze) in August 2024.  The creature lived during the Upper Cretaceous Period. It might have been found in Sokoto District, Nigeria Africa.

Precambrian Stromatolite Fossil

These images are of a 900 million year old stromatolite fossil from Atar rock formation of Mauritania, Africa. This fossil is from the low oxygen atmosphere Precambrian Period. Stromatolites are mats of aerobic cyanobacteria and anaerobic bacteria that grew under shallow water. It is thought that since an ozone layer had yet to form around the Earth at this time in history that water protected life from intense ultraviolet light but allowed energy from other wavelengths allowing growth.

The mats of bacteria formed colonies that stacked overtime to form columns with grey carbonate mud in between branches. The specimen was cross cut and polished to allow better viewing of layers. Second picture is of the outer surface of specimen.

Fossil on display at American Museum of Natural History, New York City, USA as of July 2018.

Stromatolite from Mauritania

This fossil stromatolite was found at Atar Mauritania. Fossil dates to the pre-Cambrian Period.

It was on display at the Musée de Mineralogie (Mineralogy Museum) located at the MINES ParisTech, 60 Boulevard Saint-Michel 75006 Paris France (August 2016).

Vascoceras Ammonite Fossil

This image is of a Vascoceras (Paravascoceras) cauvini Chudeau ammonite fossil.  Animal existed in Cretaceous Period. The fossil was found in Damergou Niger Africa.

Displayed at Muséum National D'Historie Naturelle Jardin Des Plantes Paléontologie et Anatomie Comparée in Paris, France (August 2016).

Virtual Fossil Hunting? Possible Tool for Advancing Paleotological Discoveries?

Earlier in the week, I saw a BBC News story entitled "Online fossil hunters to help comb Kenyan desert" by science reporter Jonathan Webb (8 September 2015). It talks about a British research web site fossilfinder.org to get the Internet's public to help find possible fossils in the Turkana Basin of northern Kenya. Fossils there date back about 6 million years.

I tried it out and did not make any great discoveries for them. You are first presented with an image with a field of view of 34 cm. You answer the question about the usability of the image. Next you are asked about its composition, percentage of rubble visible in image. If there are a lot of rocks/minerals you are asked to try to mark them with a crosshair and try to classify them. The last screen is the mark items of interest with different color crosshairs: fossil bone/tooth, fossil shell/snails, root-cast/Rhizolith, Stromatolite, stone tool, or may be something. There is a nice help section for each screen to help you by showing examples of the different classifications.

My time on the website consisted of looking at four images. In the image at the top of this blog post, I identified a white spiral gastropod near the top left side edge of the picture. In another image, I think it had at least 3 root casts present. I found using the magnifier tool built into Windows to be helpful when examining the images. One can also try using the Ctrl and plus keys to magnify the browser window. Use Ctrl and zero keys to restore it normal size. A user could also clip or screen print the image and paste it into Photoshop to enhance it better.

Below is the web site with the top part of the screen being used by the Microsoft Magnifier tool found in the Accessories section of Windows. I found this to be a great help when trying for find items in the ground pictures.

This project seems like a good idea. Hopefully, I will be able to spend some more time trying to help them out even though my brain is more keyed to finding invertebrate marine fossils in the 300-450 million year old range.

Learn more:

Fossil Finder Site: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/adrianevans/fossil-finder/

Fossil Finder Project Blog: http://blog.fossilfinder.org/

Zooniverse Internet Projects: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/

BBC News Story: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34179594

Cast of Sarcosuchus imperator Fossil

This picture shows the cast of a Sarcosuchus imperator crocodyliform aka SuperCroc. This distant relative of the crocodile lived during the Creteaceous Period. Their fossils are found in South America and Africa. The cast is based off a fossil found sub-Saharan Niger Africa by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno.

Fossil cast was on display at Children's Museum of Indianapolis Dinosphere exhibit as of July 2015. Gift of Richard and Donna Deer.

The museum was founded in 1925 and consists of an approximate 44,000 square meter facility on a 29 acre area site. Their natural science collection contains more than 10,000 items. Some of the items in the collection are the dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia, fossil of teenage T.rex, Christensen Mastodon, 3.5-4 billion year old Acasta Gneiss, and the Geisler geological collection. Learn more at this link.

Learn more about the Sarcosuchus crocodyliform on Wikipedia.

National Geographic site: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/events/01/supercroc/

Nigersaurus taqueti Skull Fossil Cast

Here is the cast of a dinosaur skull fossil called Nigersaurus tauqueti. It is a cast of specimen MNN GAD512 at the Musée National du Niger, Niamey, Niger, Africa. This cast is from the holotype specimen found in "niveau des innocents" of the Gadoufaoua region of Republique du Niger. The species is named for French paleontologist Phillippe Taquet who explored the area from 1965-1972.

The head of this dinosaur with its neat rows of teeth reminds me of a wire crimping pliers tool.

Learn more about this type of dinosaur in this research article at PLOS One called Structural Extremes in a Cretaceous Dinosaur.

Dinosaur was named in the journal SCIENCE published 12 November 1999 in article entitled: Cretaceous Sauropods from the Sahara and the Uneven Rate of Skeletal Evolution Among Dinosaurs.

This cast was part of the Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana exhibit at the Museum of Natural History and Science in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was photographed in August 2013. The dinosaur exhibit was created by the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto Canada.

The exhibit was supported by Associate Exhibit Sponsor Frisch's restaurant and Promotional Partners Cincinnati Reds baseball, newspaper The Enquirer and TV channel Local 12 WKRO Cincinnati.

African Archean Fossil

This specimen is thought to be over 2.5 billion years old. Bacteria and algae appeared at this time in the water.  Volcanic activity produced increased atmospheric pressure and temperature.  The higher temperature caused serpentization of the sediments thus the green color. In between the layers the micro stromatolites (like algal mats).

This fossil was found in southern Africa's Greenstone Belt.  Its green color definitely matches the formation name.  Unique about the fossil material is it is called butterstone dated to the geologic eon Archean.
See more on eBay: CLICK HERE
 

In addition, here are pictures of oolitic agate formed on a Wyoming seafloor during the Eocene. Check it out on eBay: CLICK HERE

Archean Polished Butterstone

This rock was found in southern Africa's Greenstone Belt.  The color of the rock definitely matches the formation name.  What is special about this rock called butterstone dated to the geologic eon Archean.  Thus the material is thought to be over 2.5 billion years old.

Bacteria and algae appeared at this time in the water.  Volcanic activity produced increased atmospheric pressure and temperature.  The higher temperature caused serpentization of the sediments thus the green color. In between the layers the micro stromatolites (like algal mats).

This fossil is for sale on eBay: CLICK HERE and another is for sale (ending October 11, 2011): CLICK HERE

Archean Butterstone

Here is a fossil that is sold in the United States described as an Archean butterstone from the Greenstone Belt of South Africa. The rock is over 2.5 billion years old and may contain blue-green algae stromatolites.