#index fossils

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Carl Albert Oppel

Albert Oppel was a German paleontologist in the late 19th century.

Although he only lived until he was 34 due to a bout of typhoid fever, he made huge leaps and bounds for geology and paleontology. While studying part of the German Alps, he discovered that palaeontologic and lithologic zones need not be identical or even mutually dependent. He is considered the founder of zone stratigraphy and the use of INDEX FOSSILS.

He specifically used Jurassic-age ammonites to date the rocks they were found in and it was quickly adopted by other stratigraphers.

[actual-haise]

So you know how paleontologists use different species of ammonites/trilobites/etc as index fossils to pinpoint geological time periods? You can now do that with people by asking them about a blue cartoon dog

[cheetahtrout]

worked on index fossils today for a little project. Please ignore the era-names , since they are not all relevant to the fossils depicted on the same page.

[cognitivejustice]

Leading the way in the global energy transition

The Energy Transition Index tracks progress and preparedness for an equitable, secure and sustainable energy future.

Advanced economies are generally the top performers in the Energy Transition Index (ETI), with Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Switzerland leading the rankings. France, meanwhile, has entered the top five performers due to its effective energy efficiency policies, resulting in a 12% reduction in energy intensity.

The top 10 countries collectively only represent 2% of the global population and contribute just 1% of energy-related CO2 emissions, but major emerging economies like China and Brazil have also made significant progress, according to the report. It highlights that China commissioned as much solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in 2023 as the entire world did in 2022. Meanwhile, Brazil’s long-term plan for hydropower and biofuels has been key in attracting investment.

Common characteristics of the top performers include: enhanced energy security through a diverse mix of sources, improved energy intensity, an increasing share of clean energy, a carbon pricing mechanism and a supportive regulatory environment.

source

[transgender-chiroptera]

Icaronycteris index (extinct), via batconservationtrust

[thisisthevoice]

reading the timeline of the far future is terrifying for some reason even though i won't be alive for any of it

[kerimcangoren]

The photograph necessarily shows what was in front of the camera; the painting only shows what was in front of the canvas optionally--and the option is the painter's.  Barthes makes this point by saying, "Painting can feign reality without having seen it"; Kendall Walton makes it by saying, "Photographs are counterfactually dependent on the photographed scene even if the beliefs (and other intentional attitudes) of the photographer are held fixed". His point is that paintings are "based on the beliefs" (again, or other intentional attitudes) "of their maker", photographs are not.

Walter Benn Michaels / Photographs and Fossils in Photography Theory edited by James Elkins, 2006 / p. 434

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

Meteorologist Jeff Berardelli @WeatherProf:

"Sea surface temperatures east of #Bermuda are so anomalously hot that #climatechange made them 800 times (or more) likely. Bascially that means, SST's like this were simply not possible in a pre-industrial climate. This tool is @ClimateCentral new Ocean Climate Shift Index."

[heatdeathnews]

All hail the Turtle Compaction Index

All hail the Turtle Compaction Index

[nerdytyrantphantom]

morning sex with joel | drabble (18+)

a sequel to cockwarming with joel. 18+ MINORS DNI

your body had memorized what time your alarm would sound. and so like clockwork, you’d awaken an hour early, the morning sunlight streaming through the curtains and illuminating the pixie dust that floated in the air. 

you’d wake up the same way you’d fallen asleep: on your side, with joel’s arms wrapped around you, the soft rise and fall of his chest undulating against your back, and his light sighs ghosting the crook of your neck. apart, neither of you slept, both tossing and turning throughout the night. but together, you two slept like rocks, encased in a blanket of safety and security knowing the other was there. if you had your way, you’d stay like this forever, fossilizing the moment in warm liquid amber. 

when you woke up, you genuinely tried your best not to wake joel. you’d only stroke the toned arm that held you, tracing the scars etched into his skin, counting each freckle that sprinkled the surface. but the longer that time passed, the more you found yourself stirring just a bit, involuntarily grinding your hips against him as your core grew wet with want.

right on cue, you’d feel joel rouse awake and exhale a deep yawn. with a lazy squeeze of your breast, like he was trying to make sure you were right where you left him, nothing had changed – and of course it hadn’t – joel would hum with content and nuzzle his face further into your neck. 

words weren’t needed. his hand would crawl up your chest towards the column of your neck, where his strong fingers would firmly grip. it wasn’t an aggressive or dominating move – rather a way for him to hold you in place as he guided his growing erection between your cheeks.

you’d smirk into the pillow as he gently bucked his hips, using your butt to warm himself up. your stomach somersaulted at the feeling of his cock hardening with each shallow thrust, the tip of him threatening to leak over your supple cheeks. “good morning, baby,” you’d purr, crossing your arms over his, refusing him from letting go of the hold he had on you. you’d arch your back into his touch, rolling your head back over his shoulder in surrender.

after his sleep, joel was full of energy. like a bear awakening from hibernation ready for its first meal, he would become full of carnal pangs, hungry and unsatiated – an appetite that needed to be fed. he’d testingly sink his teeth into your neck, softening his bite the second it became too sharp, and then tenderly lick the flesh that blossomed with a bruise, like he were delicately placing a band-aid. 

while his left hand remained wrapped around your shoulders, holding your neck in place, his right hand would slide between your thighs with lazy curiosity. his fingertips would glide up your lips, spooning up the wetness oozing from your core, before plunging his lubricated index finger into your heat. carefully, he’d massage your pussy, feeling your body buzz and clench around his digit. with a hum of satisfaction, his finger becoming soaked in your juices, he’d slip his middle finger in after it. 

for what felt like eternity most days, joel would do that. just hold your body flushed against him while he explored your insides, maintaining a leisurely pace finger-fucking you raw until droplets of perspiration collected on your forehead and pasted your hair to your face.

when you needed more, you’d tug his hand up to your lips, sucking his thumb into your mouth. “joel,” you’d whine, voice muffled by his finger. he’d continue to let you suck, pacifying your hushed pleas, while his fingers would teasingly move towards your clit. coated in your own juices, he’d wetten the small bundle of nerves with your own slick, drawing lazy circles over it until it was swelling like a flower in bloom. you’d cry out around his thumb, eyes prickling with tears at the pleasure. 

finally, he would speak. “come on, baby,” he’d encourage in a hushed whisper, nosing against your cheek. he’d kiss away the tears of ecstasy that streamed down your face. “tell me what you need, sweet girl.” 

eyes rolling into the back of your head, you’d release his thumb with a pop. “n-need you,” you’d whimper, mouth dry, as the blood rushed to your face. you got drunk off of joel – the sensation of his rough, calloused fingers toying with you like a plaything, the heat of his body radiating onto yours, the prodding of his cock still teasingly rubbing against your ass. “please, joel.”

he’d lower his hand from your lips and caress your jaw, delicately holding you like you were made of glass as he turned your face towards his. “shhh,” he’d coo, lips planting kisses all along your forehead, your cheeks, where your chin met your jaw. “‘gonna get you there, baby,” he’d promise, finally releasing his fingers from your clit and placing his hand on the inside of your thigh.

gently, he’d raise your leg before lining his cock with your entrance. at night, you were accustomed to him slowly working his way in, carefully easing himself inside with no rush or agenda. but now, when your pussy was dripping and begging to be filled, there was no need for patience. with one strong thrust, he’d push himself in until the thatch of hair above his cock pressed against your back.

you’d release a sharp cry followed by a sigh of relief. unable to restrain yourself, you’d shove back your hips, desperate for friction. “fuck,” you’d seethe, your hand reaching over your head to cling to joel’s hair. as your fingers threaded through his thick locks, you’d tug, a silent way of begging him for more.

joel knew what you needed and how to give it to you. he knew how to strike the perfect balance between gentle and rough, how hard he could push himself inside of you, and how to make you melt under a soft bouquet of kisses. and he knew when you were ready for him to guide you onto your stomach, making you parallel with the mattress, so that he could position himself as deep and close to you as possible.

flat on your stomach, you’d raise your hips for joel. what you two shared was a gift of reciprocity; you promised to give joel everything he wanted to take, and joel promised to deliver everything he had. with his arms caged around you, the comforting weight of his body pressed against your back, the wet squelch of joel stuffing you full was the only sound filling the air.

“fuck, baby,” joel would groan, his southern drawl and sleep-laced voice rocking further waves of arousal throughout your body. he’d lift himself up momentarily, watching the way his cock disappeared inside of you, while his palms would trace the contours of your back and shoulders. then he’d fall back down, burrowing his face back into your ear.

this was your favorite joel miller – the one who let you help him come undone and completely let go, living in the moment and allowing his body to be raptured in pleasure, unafraid to speak his mind. you’d listen to the unfiltered hymns spill from his mouth, savoring each word and phrase. “god,” he’d whimper, his body growing weak with pleasure. with his lips against your ear, his voice would travel throughout your body, straight to your heat, further clenching around him. 

as his own sweat dripped onto you, both of your faces framed in wet strands of hair that clung to your skin, he’d continue. “your pussy takes me so well,” he’d murmur, the speed of his words quickening as he neared his climax. “so warm and so wet.” he’d grunt as his hips pounded against you more sloppily, the wet smack of his thighs echoing in the sun-soaked room. “it’s all for me, isn’t it?” he’d ask – a rhetorical question – but one that drove him to the edge when you answered it. 

“yes, baby,” you’d plead, squeezing your pillow as joel hammered into you. the feeling of his body blanketing you was perfect, and despite the heat, you never wanted him to leave. “it’s all yours, joel,” you promised, grinding your hips up to meet his, close to your own orgasm. “always will be.”

a low groan fell from joel’s lips. he bucked his hips into you one, two, three times, before he was collapsing on top of you, your own shock of pleasure radiating throughout your body. as joel caught his breath, still buried against your ear, you closed your eyes and basked in the warmth of his cum filling you up and seeping from between your legs. you savored the moment for as long as it lasted, grateful to be joel miller’s escape.

“god, baby,” he’d pant, his sweat-soaked body still pressing against yours. “you’re so fucking perfect.” then he’d roll off of you, making you chest-to-chest, and pull you against him. with utmost tenderness, he’d swipe your hair out of your face, eyes taking in your tear-stricken ones, your rosy cheeks, swollen lips. 

his mouth would crack into a crooked smile as his fingers tucked your hair behind your ears. “you know that?” he’d ask, pecking the corner of your lips. resting his forehead against your own, he’d repeat it: “you’re perfect.”

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Fossil Friday! TRILOBITES

Trilobites are some of the most well-known invertebrates of the fossil record. They popped up during the Cambrian Explosion

and lasted all the way until The Great Dying of the Permian.

That's 469 million years!

Trilobites are a type of sea-faring arthropod. This phylum includes crustaceans, arachnids, millipedes and kin and insects. In other words, their bugs. Big, sea bugs.

The name trilobite means "three lobes" in reference to the vertical lobes their bodies are split into. They also happen to have three horizontal segments too.

The horizontal segments are split as follows: 1.) the cephalon (head), 2.) the thorax (abdomen) and 3.) the pygidium (butt). The vertical lobes are 4.) the right pleural lobe, 6.) the left pleural lobe and 5.) the central axial lobe.

Trilobites are found on all modern continents and occupied every paleo ocean. There are thousands of known species and because they appeared and disappeared quickly and left behind hundreds of molts they make excellent index fossils.

Representations of all the trilobite orders.

There are tons of immaculate specimens from various quarries around the world including the Cambrian-age Wheeler Shale of Utah where I got this specimen:

[cosmozoa-sys]

⋯ paleontology themed id pack !!

names ⁘

fossil ⋄ trilo ⋄ dino ⋄ cambria ⋄ amber ⋄ nuna ⋄ shale ⋄ marrella ⋄ archo ⋄ azhdarcho ⋄ strata ⋄ phyla ⋄ devon(ia) ⋄ mosa ⋄ darwin ⋄ finch ⋄ kimberella ⋄ pteraspi ⋄ stega ⋄ raptor ⋄ burgess ⋄ holocene ⋄ lichida ⋄ luca ⋄ zircon ⋄ ediacara

trilo: as in trilobite | cambria: the cambrian period | amber: where many insects are preserved | nuna: one of the oldest supercontinents | archo: as in archosaur | azhdarcho: as in a group of large pterosaurs | strata: as in stratigraphy | devonia: the devonian period | finch: darwin's finches | stega: as in stegosaur | burgess: the burgess shale, british columbia | lichida: a group of trilobites | luca: last universal common ancestor | zircon: a crystal that can help search for early microbial life | ediacara: the ediacaran period

pronouns ⁘

paleo/paleo ⋄ fossil/fossils ⋄ dig/digs ⋄ dino/saur ⋄ dino/dinos ⋄ geo/geology ⋄ phy/phylum ⋄ tri/trilobite ⋄ bone/bones ⋄ mammoth/mammoths ⋄ flora/fauna ⋄ zo/zoa ⋄ tetra/tetrapod ⋄ evo/evolve

titles ⁘

The Most Ancient ⋄ (prn) Who Swims with Ichthyosaurs ⋄ The Fossilized One ⋄ (prn) Who is Encased in Stone ⋄ The Ancestor of Life ⋄ The Driver of Evolution

system names ⁘

the burgess shale ⋄ the fossil dig ⋄ the cycling lands ⋄ prehistoric pack ⋄ mesozoic menagerie ⋄ the index ⋄ heart of ediacara

As a certified paleontology nerd with a tattoo of a cheirurus trilobite and an anomalocaris.... this was absolutely necessary. -Iris (she/her)

credit: 1, 2

[workersolidarity]

Look, I don't talk about Climate Change very often, A because plenty of other people better cover the issue than I ever could, and B because establishment of the Democratic Party along with the Liberal establishments of most European countries, are using Climate Change to push an agenda of artificial food scarcity to raise prices and I personally believe, to ensure the poorest among us are too busy fighting for scraps of food to fight the Capitalist Class.

They don't ask the US Military, the largest polluter on the planet to make cuts, they don't ask the Fossil Fuel companies to make cuts, they're not asking the elites flying in private jets to make cut backs, no they ask us, the workers to cut back, or they ask the farmers to make do with fewer animals at a time when small and medium farms are in crises, completely unable to compete with large Corporate factory farms who, for all intents and purposes own the regulators and literally write the regulatory laws themselves.

I won't play along with this kind of attack on the working class under the guise of Climate Change.

But all that being said, ITS FUCKING HOT OUT THERE. This shit just isn't normal.

Last week we had a day with a heat index pushing 130°F, yesterday's was about 120°F and today a bit more mild at only 115°F.

At Persian Gulf Airport in Iran reached a heat index of 152°F on July 16th.

And it seems it's not getting any better this week:

Stay safe everyone, hide in the shade and AC where you can, stay cool and drink plenty of water 🥤

[a-book-of-creatures]

The Deinotherium from Paris Avant les Hommes. Why does it look like a giant mole? Well, turns out this is reasoned out within the text, and since at least one person wanted to know it here it is (any translation errors are mine). @glarnboudin hope this answers all your questions!

...

"Since we are on the chapter of singular animals, I shall let you see another one from the quaternary epoch, whose history is no less strange. It shall serve as an introduction to antediluvian mammals, although it belongs, I believe, to the molasse which, according to Beudant, succeeded the Parisian chalk wherever it is missing. Look, there it is showing up; but it disappeared behind that hillock. Let's see, let us sit beneath this tree and it might come back. In the meantime, let us chat".

"Parbleu, I recognized it perfectly: it is the dinotherium giganteum. I had seen in the Rue Vivienne, its bones shown to the public for a bit of money, for scientists have to be industrious, one way or another, to avoid dying of hunger. Whatever the case, they showed me an enormous fossil head, 1.30 meters long and 1 meter wide, that is to say bigger than the biggest Indian elephants. It had two tusks located, against all analogy of what we know of animals alive or fossil, not in the upper jaw, but in the lower; not in the place of the canines, but in the place of the incisors; not pointing skyward, but lowered towards the ground; not sticking out of the mouth, but emerging from two holes that had to have been in the lower lip. Truly, I said to myself, this is enough to embarrass a wiser man than I, and, after many contradictory thoughts for half an hour, I finally took a side. Well, I said to myself, the die is cast: despite all my misgivings, one must have to make of this dinotherium giganteum a walrus or a seal, like Mr. Buckland said; or an elephant, as presumed Mr. de Blainville; a tapir or a pangolin, as G. Cuvier wrote; or a whale, as some German paleontologists think, and yet these animals have no analogy among them. Let's see, let's decide, I said to myself: this shall be…"

"A mole", said the genie in a small, acerbic, and mocking voice, and accompanied these words with a long peal of laughter that disconcerted me.

"A mole! But good sir, a mole hasn't the least connection, the least resemblance with a tapir, a whale, an elephant; and what would the authors I just cited say of this?"

"Your authors can say what they want; but I shall insist that the carcass that you had seen was that of a mole".

"That's impossible! See, here are the engravings they gave me at the door, judge for yourself".

The devil put his walking stick between his legs, put his glasses on his nose, took my images with his thumb and the other fingers of his left hand; then, running the index finger of his right hand on the figure representing the animal's head, he said:

"And first of all, my dear scholar, you will see that this head is 1 meter 60 centimeters at its greatest length, and 92 centimeters wide; so therefore it could not be less than 1.32 m long and 1 meter wide when it was covered with muscle and skin. But the average size of the head of a mammalian quadruped is at least a quarter of the length of its body. The dinotherium therefore was at least 5 to 6 meters long, which equals the size of the largest elephants. I am being conservative in choosing those dimensions; and I suppose that this carcass found on the banks of the Rhine by Professor Klipstein is not the biggest dinotherium the species provided, which is more than probable, since we have a few other fragments that are proportionally larger, and which suggest that the animal keeping us busy must have been longer than 6 meters".

"And you conclude from there that it should have been a mole?"

"One moment! Notice the enormous cavity destined to receive the bones of the nose".

"Yes, of the trunk".

"Who said anything about a trunk? Where do you see a trunk?"

"Scientists..."

"Why do you want to see a trunk instead of a nose? Take the skeleton of a pig or that of a mole, you will find at the same place enormous muscle impressions. Would you then conclude that the pig or the mole has a trunk? So the dinotherium has a nose, but a long nose, mobile, thick, powerful, good for searching in the earth; in short, a mole's nose. Do you deny that? Is it more unrealistic that an animal has a nose like any other animal's, than to have an anomaly instead?"

"It is true that by coldly calculating probability, one must believe more easily in analogies than anomalies, this seems more logical; but a mole!"

"Notice, my dear, that the orbits or holes of the eyes are extremely small in comparison to those of all known animals, and that they do not close in the posterior part; and, in fact, why would the dinotherium have eyes proportionally larger than those of a mole since, having to live in the darkness of a subterranean home, these organs would have been no more use to it than to the mole. As animals who are forced to push soil in front of them and by digging with their head, the frontal bones are short, but strong and very thick; the face of the occiput, of great dimension, forms with them a 130-140 degree angle, which you only see in whales. The prodigious muscles that move this colossal head gave it crushing strength. The chrysochlore, or Cape golden mole (talpa asiatica, L.) alone can offer you some analogy with the dinotherium in this aspect. You conceive that an animal forced to fray itself an underground passage, three or four meters in diameter, will need that prodigious strength in the neck muscles, strength that can conly compare, as I said, with that of a whale. And despite that it must have often encountered obstacles, stones, tree roots, despite living in the soft and deep soils, and the earth that the rivers, such as the Rhine, and the great flows of water carry and accumulate with the centuries in the basins that they run through and inundate every year. It would have been stopped dead in its tracks if nature had not given it a pickaxe to tear out those obstacles. This pickaxe, there it is: these are the tusks emerging from the lower jaw and directed earthward. They resemble, my word, those forked hoes that vineyard-keepers use in rocky or freshly cleared earth. There, look, they must have had terrifying strength, if we can judge by the deep depressions carved in the temporal bones to lodge the muscles that moved and directed the lower jaw. Besides, these tusks or teeth offered, relative to their shape, and especially in the place that they occupy, an example of a structure unique in all creation”.

“As for its other teeth”, added the demon, pointing his finger at the figure depicting them, “you will see that they are five in number. The first is cutting at its anterior part, the third has three hills, and the other two; from that one must conclude that the animal lived on roots, rhizomes, and tubers that lived underground. But, I ask you, what good would a trunk be for it? It would have certainly been a hindrance, and that is all”.

“I concede that this head is very good for digging in the ground, but that does not prove that the animal lived underground”.

“Let us examine the other fragments”, said the genie. “The scapula is long, narrow, and looks entirely like that of a mole. Observation has proven that all animals who have it in this shape use their forelegs in constant, painstaking motions, requiring great muscular strength. Thus this form of scapula, rare in mammals, is very common in birds, because the latter need great wing strength to remain aloft.

Now on to the second phalange of the front foot. You will notice that the articular facet of this bone is completely different from that of other animals. As an indispensable result of this very superficial articulation, the dinotherion could not walk on the tips of its fingers, and it would have to drag itself on the exterior edges of the hand, like the mole. This last animal is still is still the only one that presents in this phalange an analogy of form with our fossil monster”.

But here is an even more conclusive fragment; it is the first phalange, or inguinal phalange of this same front foot. Look how it is deeply notched in its anterior part. This incision exists in mammals only in three kinds of animals, all three of which dig in the ground and live in burrows; it gives their claws the prodigious strength that they need. The pangolin, the chrysochloris or Cape mole, and the common mole are the only living animals that have the same conformation, and, remarkably in the mole, the character is less pronounced than in the dinotherion.

And so, my dear, what must we conclude of all this? It is that, as naturalists have sworn, the dinotherion has no analogy with any animals other than those I have cited and, having the head of a mole, the scapula of a mole, and the hands of a mole, must, it seems to me, resemble a mole more than a whale. It is true that the great anatomist Cuvier made of it a giant pangolin, but he hadn’t seen the head”.

“I admit, lord demon, that most analogies are in favor of your opinion, and yet, here are teeth that…”

“That look nothing like a mole’s, I agree, because the jaws of the dinotherion lack incisors and canines, but they are no less suited for grinding roots and even mollusks and insects that it could find in its excavations. Besides, my dear, this anomaly, if it is one, has many examples in living animals. For example, if you ever go to New Holland, you will find a large family of marsupial mammals whose species have so many analogies that it is difficult to separate one from the group it forms, and who differ as much as possible by their dental system. Among these heterogeneously-toothed species, the opossum (the only genus not from Australia) represents insectivorous carnivores, like tenrecs and moles; the rat-kangaroo has teeth adapted for a frugivorous diet, like the hedgehog; the giant kangaroo lives on vegetation, lacks the upper canines that characterize the preceding and only has canines that are transverse to its jaws, which bring it closer to our herbivorous pachyderms; finally, the wombat is, like the hare, a veritable rodent by the teeth and by the intestines. And yet no naturalist has tried to separate these marsupials to put them in the great divisions where their teeth would have rigorously classified them. I intend therefore to make of the dinotherion, if it is not a mole, at least a related genus that I would place with the desmans, the moles, the chrysochlores and the tenrecs, all subterranean animals like it. And besides, if you aren’t content, you can place it elsewhere, but in this case you would have to, according to your principles, create not a genus, a family, or even an order, but a separate class that it would occupy by itself, and this necessity would be the bloodiest critique that you could make of the so-called natural method of your scientists”.

Despite the high opinion I had of my irascible demon’s merit, he had so filled my head with pangolins, seals, tapirs, whales, and elephants, that I could not in any way accept his mole, and a small smile of vanity and disapprobation came over my lips. He noticed, and cried out!

“Ah! Ah! Mister Incredulous! Have I not employed to convince you the same analogic arguments that your sagest paleontology professors use every day; but it will take more than reason to convince you, from what I see. Well then, morbleu! I will convince you with your own eyes or I shall lose my devilry”. He pounced upon me and seized me by the arm, which took away my desire to laugh; he threw me behind him astride his crutch, like a witch heading to the Sabbath on a broomstick, and together we flew into the air, we took off like a crossbow bolt. The speed of our voyage dizzied me so, that I cannot positively say how much time we took to make our way, nor where we passed to find ourselves on the borders of the Rhine, but what is certain is that we were traveling faster than on a train or on a steamboat.

When I came to, I was laid out on a bed of moss shaded by a tree at least thirty to thirty-five meters tall. I asked the genie which country we were in.

“We are”, he told me, “in this country that will be named, in a few thousand years, the Rhenish province of the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. This great lake that you see there in the East will dry out, and on of the most beautiful rivers of Europe, the Rhine, will cross its ancient bed in its entire length. The place where we are now will be the burg of Eppelsheim and further the city of Alzéi. If you remember the first voyages we made during the other periods, you will notice how much the vegetation has changed, and you will recognize the tree under which we are as a walnut tree quite similar to the common walnut tree, but with more angular nuts that end in a sharp point”.

Suddenly a low but horrible roar made me shiver to the very bone. I looked around in fear, but saw nothing. This horrible cry resonated in my ears a second time and I felt the earth shake under my feet. The idea of underground noises that you hear before an earthquake or rather before mountain upheaval, following Élie de Beaumont, or the sinking of a province according to Beudant, brought terror to my heart, and I thought for a moment that I would be lifted up at the top of a new chain of Alps raising from the depths of the Earth, or sinking into the central fire of the globe in a collapse. I got up quickly and started to run as fast as I was able. But I hadn’t made two hundred paces before my demon grabbed me by my arm, sat me down on a fragment of rock, and, with his finger, indicated the place under the tree where I had been where the most extraordinary scene unfolded.

The earth shook convulsively, and its movement was communicated by the shaking foliage of the walnut tree, which shook and balanced in the air as if a whirlwind had gone into its thousand branches. The tree bent over and straightened several times, then finally, it fell over with a crash, and the earth rose in a great cone seven meters high, opening up at the top of this singular molehill.

“Parbleu”, I told the genie, “I could swear you’re showing me the formation of the new Pyrenees in miniature”.

“In miniature!” he answered, “by my word, that’s quite the miniature! There, there it comes out of its hole”.

Indeed, I saw, coming out of the hole that had opened at the top of the cone like a volcanic crater, a monstrous head three times bigger than a barrel, then an even thicker neck; then a massive body, about three meters in diameter, that is to say as big as the biggest elephant; and finally, a strange animal, five to six meters long, with a terrifying appearance, and dragging itself clumsily on four very short, very thick legs. Its whole body was covered in long, silky hairs, green and shifting in hue from copper to bronze, offering, like the Cape chrysochlore, beautiful metallic reflections. Its very large nose, about sixty centimeters long, ended in a sort of mobile snout, bristling all over with sharp and keratinous tubercles, suitable for opening up the inside of the earth. Under this nose was an enormous lower jaw, prolonged anteriorly in a long chin pointing downwards. At the end of this chin, two tusks almost touching at the base, more than two feet long, emerged through the skin of the lip and directed their points perpendicularly earthwards, yet with a light curvature towards the forelegs. I saw that this monster was using them to help it crawl, by stretching its head out, sinking them into the soil, and pulling its body forward. Its eyes were so small that you would not have seen them through the long hairs surrounding them, if they did not gleam with a dark and red fire like two sparks. Its ears were very small and the concha was barely apparent. Its hindlegs were rather short and armed with very strong claws, but its forelegs ended in two enormous hands absolutely similar to those of a mole, and they were used to push the earth to the right or left as it used its nose to dig an underground tunnel.

The formidable animal descended from atop the monticule it had created; with a lot of agility, it crawled a few meters, then made a cry so sharp, so noisy, so extraordinary that I cannot compare it to anything that human ears have ever heard. The demon saw me shudder and reassured me, telling me that it was calling another animal of its species, and it would move away from us if it heard a response. It continued to make a sharp cry from time to time, moving to the edge of a great forest covering the flanks of a hill, and where I saw a few monticules similar to its own. Meanwhile, I observed a few of those animals a bit smaller in size, and I pointed them out to the genie.

“You are not mistaken”, he told me, “for the paleontologists know in fact, under the name dinotherium bavaricum, another species of this kind, but a bit smaller. What is most unusual in the history of these two dinotherions is that the scientist, G. Cuvier, took the bones of the great dinotherion to be those of a giant tapir, equal in size to the greatest Indian elephant”.

[contemplatingoutlander]

The heat index reached 152 degrees in the Middle East — nearly at the limit for human survival

As the Northern Hemisphere approaches summer’s peak, heat is testing the limits of human survival in Earth’s hottest spots — and demonstrating the extremes that are increasingly possible and probable against the backdrop of accelerating global warming. In recent days, China set an all-time high of nearly 126 degrees Fahrenheit, while Death Valley hit 128 degrees, two shy of the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth. Phoenix was expected to observe a record-breaking 19th consecutive day at or above 110 degrees Tuesday. And in the Middle East, the heat index reached 152 degrees, nearing — or surpassing — levels thought to be the most intense the human body can withstand. Such conditions are more than enough to overwhelm the body’s ability to regulate its internal temperature, experts said, and offer a glimpse of dangers only expected to become more prevalent as global warming increases extremes in heat and humidity. “We know these extreme temperatures are killing people right now,” said Cascade Tuholske, an assistant professor at Montana State University.

Can the fossil fuel oligarchs who fund the Republican Party FINALLY acknowledge that climate change is real and contributing to more extreme, deadly weather events?

Wealth can only protect one so much from extreme weather events.

Isn't it time for even these greedy people to understand that their continued denial of the problem (and the denial of the Republican politicians they have bought) is contributing to the destruction of life on the planet at a much faster pace than we initially thought?