Paleontology - Blog Posts
The Most Hardcore Period in Earth’s History, or the Permian, was preceded by a complete ecosystem collapse, and featured three different major mass extinction events - including the largest in earth’s history, the Great Dying, which lead to nearly all life on earth dying out.
During the Permian, all the land on Earth was in one supercontinent, called Pangea; and all the water was in one ocean, called Panthalassa. This meant that life intermingled and expanded all over the world, more so than it was able to in other periods (besides the Triassic, which also featured a single continent and a single ocean).
Pangea, and the Permian, was characterized by extremes. The beginning of the Period featured the end of the Karoo Ice Age - the poles were filled with ice caps, the center of the continent was dry, and temperature extremes were found throughout the land and ocean. The end featured multiple mass extinctions and a rapid warming of the continent, reaching the extreme heat of the Triassic period.
By @franzanth
The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse was primarily caused by an intensification of that ice age - leading to the start of the Permian featuring dry, harsh, extreme climates. This time period featured the rapid diversification and specialization of some of the earliest animals adapted for a dry existence - prior to now, life almost entirely existed in the oceans, or in the forested and swampy world of the Carboniferous. This was the first truly dry time for (at least some) life.
By @alphynix
Olson’s Extinction marked a change from that initial habitat in the Cisuralian epoch to the next, the Guadalupian. As the world began to rapidly warm after the Karoo Ice Age ended, this lead to a major extinction of plants and vertebrates especially. The vertebrates would not fully recover before the Triassic; however, it did lead to many new forms, especially among synapsids, appearing in the new vacant environmental roles.
(By @paleoart)
The Capitanian Extinction was caused by the explosion of a moderately sized laval flow system, the Emeishan Traps, which lead to immediate global cooling followed by rapid global warming. This greatly affected ocean chemistry, making it far more acidic than previously. Many reef animals were killed by this extinction, in addition to brachiopods; many vertebrates were also affected.
(By @paleoart)
So the Permian was a hard, broken world when the Siberian Traps - one of the largest lava flows in Earth’s History, and one of the largest volcanic events known - exploded, leading to even more dramatic climate change and extremely rapid global warming. This lead to acidification of the ocean’s and a dramatic drop in ocean oxygen. Almost every group of organisms was dramatically affected, and this extinction was the largest known in Earth’s History, with between 85-96% of life on Earth dying out (and some researchers thinking it may have even been higher), leading to this extinction being dubbed The Great Dying. Many groups utterly disappeared, despite having been features of the entire Paleozoic Eon (the eon that the Permian was at the end of) - trilobites, eurypterids, “spiny sharks”, tabulate and rugose corals, and blastoids complete disappeared, as did many other groups. Brachiopods, Gastropods, Ammonites, Radiolarians, Foraminiferans, Crinoids, and most Parareptiles also went extinct, as did many synapsids and amphibians. It was an utter catastrophe.
(By @paleoart)
The Permian was a time of extensive hardship, dramatic changes, and extinction event after extinction event. Life was truly on the brink - just as it was beginning to settle into terrestrial existence. So new animals, from insects to amniotes to conifers, spent their school years in a prehistoric hunger games - and only a few species managed to reach the weirdness kiln of the Triassic.
Welcome to the Permian.
The Most Hardcore Period of Earth’s History.
T rex designed by my friend evotulto on instagram!
Mary Anning
Mary Anning was born on 21 May in 1799, one of the most famous fossil finders of her day. This large skull was collected by Anning and is part of the skull and lower jaw of an ichthyosaur (Ichthyosaurus platyodon).
Mary Anning’s family had earned a living for years by gathering fossils on the shore at Lyme Regis in Dorset to sell to collectors. Mary learned about the fossils from her parents, Richard and Mary (‘Molly’) Anning. Despite the lack of a formal education, Mary Anning became an expert on the fossils she found, and the most eminent geologists of the day often sought her advice. In the 1820s she became the first person in Britain to find complete specimens of an ichthyosaur, a plesiosaur and a pterodactyl.
The specimens that Anning collected can still be found in museums throughout Britain. The British Museum purchased this example shortly after Anning discovered it.
On loan from the Natural History Museum.
shrike inspired deinonychus can stab someone in so many ways
If you have ever been tempted by a Paleozoic Pal, like a a stuffed trilobite or a full size eurypterid body pillow, now's the time to buy one, before they and a really lovely little museum are gone for good 😭😭😭
Museum SOS
I just saw the news that the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY is facing foreclosure after a group of donors failed to produce about $30 million USD that they had promised.
The museum is run by the Paleontological Research Institution, whose collection has about 7 million fossil specimens—one of the largest in the US—and is one of only a few natural history museums in upstate NY. PRI runs both the Museum and the Cayuga Nature Center, which is also dealing with the budget shortfall.
The organization is working on restructuring (namely downsizing) to improve their financial sustainability but they still need funds, and one thing they've said could help is if people shop at their store!
The foreclosure news broke like two days ago and their shop is already selling fast (testament to how many people want them to survive!) but there are a few items left in stock, including some prehistoric plushies. If you want to make a purchase to help maybe keep them afloat, their online gift shop is here and is honestly extremely reasonably priced.
so how about a FOOT LONG TULLY MONSTER
OR A DUNKLEOSTEUS
OR SOME
TRILOBITE SLIPPERS
They've also got some books, shirts, toys, etc. and I'm sure those sales numbers will help the authors/artists as well.
(Regular donations are also welcomed)
Coprolite collectors literally be going- “man this shit is crazy!!!”
Full story here. And here’s our rhyming round-up of other ancient, giant versions of modern mammals:
Image credit: Mauricio Antón/Journla of Systematic Palaeontology
In a monumental discovery for paleontology and the first of its kind "Mummy of a juvenile sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens from the Upper Pleistocene of Siberia"
Abstract The frozen mummy of the large felid cub was found in the Upper Pleistocene permafrost on the Badyarikha River (Indigirka River basin) in the northeast of Yakutia, Russia. The study of the specimen appearance showed its significant differences from a modern lion cub of similar age (three weeks) in the unusual shape of the muzzle with a large mouth opening and small ears, the very massive neck region, the elongated forelimbs, and the dark coat color. Tomographic analysis of the mummy skull revealed the features characteristic of Machairodontinae and of the genus Homotherium. For the first time in the history of paleontology, the appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in the modern fauna has been studied. For more read here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79546-1
It’s time for #TrilobiteTuesday! During their lengthy trek through time, trilobites existed in an almost dizzying array of sizes and shapes. Perhaps no other creature in the entire history of the earth has ever displayed the diversity of design shown by these singularly distinctive arthropods. But at their heart (and yes, trilobites apparently did possess primitive but effective cardio-respiratory systems), they were all remarkably similar. Named not, as is generally surmised, for their three main body segments – cephalon (head), thorax (body) and pygidium (tail) – but rather for the three lobes that longitudinally divided their dorsal exoskeleton. Whether they were Cambrian Olenellids – such as this Olenellus romensis from Alabama – or Devonian Phacopids, most trilobites presented a fundamentally analogous body design. Such characteristics as occipital lobes, anterior margins and facial sutures (which allowed early trilobites to shed their molting shell), were shared by the majority of trilobite species, as were such exotic-sounding features as axial rings, articulating facets and pleural spines.
It’s a tremendous Trilobite Tuesday!
When most of us think about trilobites, we imagine rather small creatures that inhabited the ancient seas. Indeed, most members of the more than 25,000 scientifically recognized trilobite species were less that three inches in length. Occasionally, however, paleontologists encounter a megafauna where, due to a variety of circumstances, the trilobite species were huge. One of these megafaunas can be found near the small Portuguese town of Arouca where the 450 million year-old Valongo formation produces prodigious numbers of exceptionally large Ordovician-age trilobites, such as this 41 cm Hungioides bohemicus. Other trilobite magafaunas appear sporadically around the globe, including Cambrian locations in Morocco and Devonian outcrops in Nevada.
Meet many more trilobites on the Museum website.
Paleontology my beloved