Pliosaur Fossil to Be CT Scanned

Skull fragments of a 10-16 m pliosaur marine reptile found in 2009 (Dorset, England) will be CT scanned at the University of Southhampton in the UK according to a December 22, 2010, BBC story.

This link leads to the story by Rebecca Morelle entitled, "Colossal pliosaur fossil secrets revealed by CT scanner". Learn more at that video link provided.

 Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni at British Natural History Museum 2005

photo by Niki Odolphie (Frome, England) 

Posted on Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attributions 2.0

The marine reptile known as the Pliosaur existed in the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods (learn more at this Wikipedia link).

Merry Fossil Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas to one and all!  May you get lots of geological goodies this holiday season.  Hope the new year brings good health and safe travels.

For the curious, this years image contains fossils from four time periods.  The star, red and blue ornaments are Ordovician crinoid stem pieces of Madison, Indiana.  The trunk is an unidentified crinoid stem from the Silurian Waldron Shale of Clark County, Indiana.  The tree body is an unidentified horn coral from the Devonian Jeffersonville Limestone of Clark County, Indiana.  Last, the yellow ornaments are unidentified crinoid/blastoid stem pieces from the Mississippian Period limestones of Crawford County, Indiana.  All the fossils have had their colors modified to match a real Christmas tree.

See this April 2010 blog post on the Ordovician crinoid pieces for their identifications.

Cupularostrum tethys Brachiopod

Identified using Henry Nettelroth's Kentucky Fossils Shells book (1889) found at this site.  In the book, it was identified as Rhynchonella tethys (Billings, 1860).  Its modern name is Cupularostrum tethys (Billings). 

This small fossil was found in the Jeffersonville Limestone of Clark County, Indiana USA.  This layer would date it to the Middle Devonian Period.  It is a rare find for me making two found so far.