#utah fossil record

[malorisaurus]

I posted this in a community I am in, but I also wanted to post it here for my own posterity.

I live in Idaho, and for the past week, I have been on a long road trip driving through Utah and SE Idaho going to various fossil sites, museums, dinosaur attractions, etc. The list of places I visited are:

Dinosaur National Monument - hot hot hot! But very worth it. It is perhaps the most well known location on this list, so I won't be too detailed here. Highly worth it, though!

Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum - a smaller museum, but they had an interesting focus on actual field work which is great if you are interested in spending time in an exhibit focused on the discovery and preservation of fossils as well as seeing skeleton and fossil exhibits. Good hands on exhibits for kids.

Hiking trails like the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Bone Trail and the Copper Creek Dinosaur Track trail - The sun! It is brutal! BRING LOTS OF WATER.

Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point - This is one of the largest, if not the largest, displays of dinosaur skeletons in the country. It was interesting to see the positioning that they chose, and the skeletons were often posed in fully decorated scenes which was a fun change from the usual museum pedestal setups. The museum moves through the fossil record chronologically, so while dinosaurs are a large feature, they are not the only focus.) Excellent space for kids with lots of activities and hands on displays.

Natural History Museum of Utah (they had lokiceratops fossils and a skull cast on display, which was pretty cool to see. Their displays in general were wonderful. Their other displays were also wonderful, and they did a great job including hands on stuff for adults and kids alike.

George S Eccles Dinosaur Park in Ogden - I had a really fun day here, though the dinosaur statuary was often comically outdated—their T. rex was standing fully erect putting weight on his tail, which was nostalgic and funny. A lot of that statuary is dated because it is from when the park was founded, but they have made some attempts to update the statuary. Inside is a geology exhibit as well as a fossil exhibit, and their signs were informative and more accurate. Overall a very fun experience, though.

Did some driving around and hiking to view some outcroppings at the Wayan Formation, but this was just general site seeing for my own gratification and there isn't really access to much of the area.

Idaho Museum of Natural History at CSI in Pocatello - they had several oryctodromeus fossils as well as complete skeleton displays. This was of particular interest to me because they are unique burrowing dinosaurs found pretty exclusively to the area, and it is now our state dinosaur as of 2023. The museum is small, but I will say that all of the displays are very thoughtful, and they included a lot of birds, small mammals, and plants in their informative displays. The Hagerman Horse also featured, which is our state fossil, and they highlighted the unique fossil record of Idaho.

Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument - This was my final stop of this particular trip, and I am glad that I went. There is no access to the fossil beds themselves, but there are some great trails with lots of informational placquards with views of the fossil bed area. The Thousand Springs Visitor center for the monument is one of my favorites that I have been to. The rangers were so excited, friendly, and informative. I asked to become a Jr. Ranger, and I did the book and got my badge and patch after being sworn in as a protector of fossils and advocate for conservation by a wonderful ranger who talked with me for a long time about all of the things they had on display as well as an endocast of a hagerman horse brain. The ranger got very excited about that and told me the thing he loved most about it was that the brain size to body mass ratio indicated that it would have been similar to that of modern day horses, so that it indicates that the hagerman horse had personalities, emotions, etc. just as modern horses do. I am already of the belief that this is largely true of all life on the planet, but how it was described really hit me and I got quite emotional about it! It was extra fun because I could see how excited it made the ranger—the expression of like "YES we have TRUE ENGAGEMENT." 😂 It is a small little place, but turned out to be a highlight of my trip.

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded post! I took about 5 million pictures, and am working on organizing them all by location and animal. My goal is to go through, animal by animal, and read the current literature and compare it to the information and skeleton positioning at each of the museums. I will be sharing that progress here eventually. If anyone has any questions or recommendations for travel in the area, hmu!

[ranger-danger]

I like how when people travel they tell me about trees. “There were these super cool trees and all I could think was ‘oh you’d love to see these.’” 🖤🖤🖤

[new-dinosaurs]

Fona herzogae Avrahami et al., 2024 (new genus and species)

(Reconstructed skull of Fona herzogae, from Avrahami et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: Fona = Fo'na [ancestor of the CHamoru people in their oral history]; herzogae = for Lisa Herzog [discoverer of one of the localities where Fona specimens have been found]

Age: Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian), between about 99.17–99.52 million years ago

Where found: Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, U.S.A.

How much is known: Remains of at least five individuals, including nearly complete skeletons.

Notes: Fona was a thescelosaurid, a group of relatively small (sheep-sized or smaller), bipedal ornithischians ("bird-hipped" dinosaurs). Thescelosaurids were traditionally thought to have been ornithopods (a group that includes the duck-billed hadrosaurids, among others), but several recent studies suggest that they were equally closely related to both ornithopods and marginocephalians (the group uniting the horned ceratopsians and dome-headed pachycephalosaurs).

Fona exhibits many potential adaptations for digging burrows, including enlarged attachment points for muscles on the shoulders and increased fusion among the hip vertebrae and pelvic bones. Some of these same features and direct evidence of preserved burrow structures have been reported for another thescelosaurid that lived at around the same time, the closely related Oryctodromeus of Montana and Idaho. If Fona also lived in burrows, being buried in them may explain why its fossils are so abundantly and completely preserved, considering that remains of small dinosaurs are otherwise uncommon at the sites where it has been found.

A range of minor anatomical differences can be observed among different individuals of Fona. Some of these differences might represent sexual dimorphism or features that changed during growth, but further research is needed to identify the most likely explanations for them.

Reference: Avrahami, H.M., P.J. Makovicky, R.T. Tucker, and L.E. Zanno. 2024. A new semi-fossorial thescelosaurine dinosaur from the Cenomanian-age Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah. The Anatomical Record advance online publication. doi: 10.1002/ar.25505

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

FOSSIL FRIDAY and Happy December!

New month, new topics, possibly fresh snow in the next two hours (at least here in northern Utah).

Today, we are going to learn a little about index fossils!

Yes, Kirk, index fossils. Index fossils are part of Earth's record book. They are plants or animals that are characteristic of a particular span of geologic time or environment (usually both!). To be considered an index fossil a specimen must fulfill these 4 criteria:

1.) They must be DISTINCTIVE. If you can't identify it easily, it doesn't really help you much. Take Mucrospirifer, a type of brachiopod. That sucker is hard to miss!

2.) The must have a WIDE geographic range. If it's only found in, say southern Alberta, Montana and Wyoming, it's not terribly useful to anyone else. (Sorry Rexy, you're out!)

3.) It must be ABUNDANT. There has to be a lot of them. That's why most macrofauna doesn't work. There just aren't enough complete specimens. However, trilobites like this Elrathia are freaking EVERYWHERE.

4.) Finally, they must have a SHORT range through time. If you last too long, it makes it hard to pinpoint how old the rock is. The ammonite, Pavlovia, only lived during the Late Jurassic Period.

Index fossils are the basis for defining boundaries in the geologic time scale through a branch of geology called biostratigraghy (one of my areas of study. Love me some biostrat.) Examples of good index fossils include trilobites, brachiopods, and ammonites. All this month we are going to focus on one of these index fossils: Ammonites!

And, as always, if you like what you see here and want more content, you can always check out Minerals, Rocks and Fossil Talks on these other platforms:

Just look for this symbol below and you've got the right place! Happy Friday!

[irusanw4]

I'm back again for DINOSAUR FACT TIME!! Rules are the same as before!

The fact for today is: The Falcarius (meaning "sickle cutter"), is a theriznosaur that lived in the early Cretaceous and was discovered by fossil collector Lawrence Walker in Grand County, Utah. They were discovered in a mass fossil graveyard of sorts with hundreds of the species being clumped in a single area. Adults were usually 4-5 meters (13-16 feet) in length and weighed around 100kg (220 lbs). They held approximately 16 teeth in their upper jaw and 28 in the lower, which they used to consume a (supposedly according to their dental records in comparison to other species) mix of foliage, fruit, and some small lizards!!

I hope you enjoyed this installment of dinosaur fact time! :]

Oh this is so cool!!! I love therizinosaurus-es [therizinosauri?] a lot :3

[blueiscoool]

Billionaire Ken Griffin Buys Stegosaurus Fossil ‘Apex’ For Record $44M

Stegosaurus skeleton, nicknamed 'Apex,' sells for record $44.6M

A nearly complete stegosaurus skeleton sold at a Sotheby's auction in New York on Wednesday for a record $44.6 million -- the most ever paid for a fossil.

The dinosaur, nicknamed "Apex" -- which lived between 146 and 161 million years ago in the Late Jurassic Period -- was originally expected to sell for between $4 million and $6 million, according to the auction house.

Sotheby's has said Apex is the "most complete and best-preserved Stegosaurus specimen of its size ever discovered."

The skeleton was discovered on private land in Moffat County, Colorado -- in northwestern Colorado and on the border with Utah and Wyoming -- in May 2022 by commercial paleontologist Jason Cooper, with excavation completed in 2023, according to Sotheby's. The county is an area where many other dinosaur fossils have been discovered and is home to the Dinosaur National Monument.

Apex measures 11 feet tall and 27 feet long from nose to tail. The skeleton consists of 319 bones -- 254 of which are fossils and the remainder being either 3D printed or sculpted. It's unclear if Apex was male or female.

Stegosaurus sp. Late Jurassic (approx. 161-146 million years ago) Morrison Formation, Moffatt County, Colorado, USA

[notwiselybuttoowell]

A slew of early actions by the Trump administration has set about throwing open more land and waters for the fossil fuel industry, triggering the reversal of regulations that strengthen the Endangered Species Act, the country’s landmark 1973 conservation bill, including a rule that protects migratory birds from unintentional killing.

The department of interior has been tasked with allowing all previously refused drilling leases, including in the Alaskan Arctic, and with drawing up plans to “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands”. This could shrink wildlife refuges and national monuments, which are protected lands designated by the president. Trump slashed the size of two vast national monuments in Utah when last in office.

Critics argue that endangered species will be steamrolled under this agenda, and the Endangered Species Act imperilled. The legislation has helped safeguard more than 1,700 species and their habitats, preventing 99% of those listed from going extinct, most famously the bald eagle.

However, a lack of resources has stymied many listed species from a full recovery and opponents of the act claim that it has unduly blocked economic development. Trump recently railed against protections afforded to the delta smelt, a small, unassuming creature in California that the president called an “essentially worthless fish”.

The last Trump administration demanded economic considerations be weighed when deciding upon endangered species listings, contrary to the text of the act. It listed just 25 species for protection during its first term, the lowest of any administration, and refused petitions to protect species such as wolverines and hellbender salamanders.

One of Trump’s first executive orders after returning to the White House in January shows, though, that he is prepared to further escalate an overhaul of endangered species laws, experts say. The order, which declared a national energy emergency even amid a record glut of oil and gas drilling, calls for the endangered species committee, a group nicknamed the “God squad”, to meet at least quarterly.

This committee, which would be led by Burgum, five other senior officials from different government agencies and a representative from an affected state, has rarely been used but has the power to override the Endangered Species Act even if it results in the extinction of a species, hence its existential nickname.

“It has the power of life and death over a species,” says Patrick Parenteau, an environmental law expert at Vermont Law School who was involved in writing the legislative language for the God squad in the late 1970s. “It can allow a project to go ahead and expatriate a species from the face of the Earth.”

The committee can only be convened through a stringent set of conditions, including a requirement that an exemption to the act can only be taken due to some sort of national emergency. The panel has never decided to kill off a species without some other ameliorating settlement in place, Parenteau said, with the body last meeting in 1992 to decide the fate of the spotted owl, menaced by logging in the Pacific north-west.

“They have never actually pulled that lever of extinction, until now,” says Parenteau. “Invoking a fictional energy emergency is not grounds for short-changing the consultation process, there’s no way of meeting those requirements legally. This is about throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks, while distracting us from all the other endangered species rules Trump is repealing.”

Even if the squad isn’t able to sweep aside wildlife protections, environmental groups fear a broader assault is under way against the protections of species in several states that will find strong support from the Trump administration.

The Republican-led states of Montana and Wyoming both unsuccessfully asked the federal government, during Joe Biden’s term, to remove protections from grizzly bears, while Republican members of Congress have backed a bill similarly stripping grey wolves from the endangered species list.

Such moves may succeed with Trump in the White House, but species could also die out because of neglect from the federal government, Parenteau says. Programmes to recover species are chronically underfunded and private landowners, who host many of the last individuals of certain species, are unlikely to be incentivised in the coming term to safeguard those animals.

[mindblowingscience]

Fossil evidence from the Tornillo Basin in West Texas and the Uinta Basin in Utah reveals two new species of omomyids—a family of small-bodied early primates from the Eocene epoch. The findings also clarify previously disputed taxonomic distinctions among these primates, according to researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, Des Moines University in Iowa and Midwestern University in Arizona. The study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, significantly expands the fossil record of primates from these regions and also allowed the researchers to confirm the existence of three distinct genera of omomyids.

Continue Reading.

[jmpphoto]

Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument by James Marvin Phelps Via Flickr: Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument Utah March 2025 Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a vast and rugged expanse in southern Utah, covering nearly 1.87 million acres of breathtaking landscapes, rich geological history, and remote wilderness. Named for the massive series of rock formations known as the "Grand Staircase," the monument also encompasses the Kaiparowits Plateau and the Escalante Canyons, each offering unique and dramatic scenery. This remote region is a treasure trove for paleontologists, with numerous dinosaur fossils dating back over 75 million years, as well as a rich archaeological record of Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont cultures. Outdoor enthusiasts are drawn to its slot canyons, waterfalls, and scenic trails, including iconic spots like Lower Calf Creek Falls and Zebra Slot Canyon. Despite its rugged beauty, the monument has been the center of political debates regarding conservation and land use. Whether for scientific discovery, outdoor adventure, or quiet solitude, Grand Staircase-Escalante remains one of the most awe-inspiring and untamed landscapes in the American West.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Earth's orbital rhythms link timing of giant eruptions and climate change

On ten thousand to million years time scales, climate dynamics on the Earth’s surface are driven by both external and internal processes. Earth`s interior provides heat from radioactive decay and chemical compounds by volcanic degassing, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Quasiperiodic changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun regulate the amount of incoming solar radiation on the planet’s surface as well as its distribution across latitudes, affecting the length and intensity of the seasons. The interplay of both processes through complex geochemical interactions on the surface of our planet shape and regulate the climate we live in.

“Just like a metronome, we used the rhythmic changes in solar insolation imprinted in geological data to synchronize geological climate archives from the South Atlantic and the Northwest Pacific. These key records span the last million years of the Cretaceous and are synchronized down to 5,000 years or less, geologically a blink of an eye 66 million years ago,” says lead author Thomas Westerhold from MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. To unravel causality arguments in Earth climate history across regions, this kind of synchronization is essential. “So, we had the geological records perfectly lined up in time, and observed that two major changes in climate and biota occurred at the same time in both oceans. But we had to find a way to test if these changes are caused by large scale volcanic eruptions related to the Deccan Traps in India,” says Westerhold.

The up to two kilometers thick basaltic rocks of the Deccan Traps cover a large part of western India. This large-scale volcanism flooding entire landscapes is referred to as Large Igneous Province by geoscientists. Several times in Earth’s history these caused mass extinction events of life on the surface of the planet. Particularly the release of volcanic gases like carbon and sulfur dioxide during the formation of the flood basalts may have played a key role.

“The formation of the flood basalts and its subsequent weathering will leave a geochemical fingerprint in the ocean. Therefore, we measured the Osmium isotope composition of the South Atlantic and the Northwest Pacific deposits. They should show the same fingerprint at the same time,” says co-author Junichiro Kuroda (University Tokyo, Japan), who conducted the geochemical analyses.

“To our surprise we found two steps in the Osmium isotope composition in both oceans contemporaneous with major eruption phases of the Deccan Traps in the latest Cretaceous. And even more surprising those steps had different impacts on the environment as recorded by fossil remains in the drill cores,” says Thomas Westerhold.

The new data were difficult to understand, but geochemical modeling helped to unravel their secrets. “The volume of the erupted flood basalt must have been much larger than previously though during this early phase of Deccan Trap volcanism. And the related distinct emissions of carbon and sulfur dioxide had diverse effects on the global climate system,” says Don Penman (Utah State University, USA) who did the geochemical modeling. According to the new finding, it seems plausible that at the onset of major Deccan Trap volcanism, independently dated 66.288 Million years by radioisotopic methods, an initial pulse with sulfur rich eruptions occurred stressing the ecosystem locally and possibly also globally.

IMAGE: Thick basaltic rock sequences of the West Indian Deccan Trap volcanic rocks. Photo: Blair Schoene, Princeton University  Thick basaltic rock sequences of the West Indian Deccan Trap volcanic rocks. Photo: Blair Schoene, Princeton University  Credit Blair Schoene, Princeton University

[wormtoxin]

comments say this is a picture of Pike’s Peak, and while I’m not personally sure where this photo is taken from, it’s Very developed land, explicitly by human hands.

The Ute tribe calls the lands surrounding Pike’s Peak their homelands, and has been interacting with the landscape for generations.

“In 2001, the Pikes Peak Historical Society established an endowment fund in order to help members of the Ute Indian Nation return to their original homelands around Pikes Peak. This annual visit enables the Ute people to do ceremonies at their ancient sacred places, including their Sundance grounds on Pikes Peak and at their culturally scarred trees. These trees are usually Ponderosa Pines, which live to be quite old. There are several types of these Ute trees, and are labeled by the PPHS according to their function; Medicine/Healing Trees, Prayer Trees, Burial Trees, etc. These Living Artifacts are a precious resource, linking modern culture with the first inhabitants of the Pikes Peak area, the Tabeguache Band of the Ute Indians who were forcefully relocated to the Uintah-Ouray Reservation in Utah in 1880. These Living Artifacts, some 800 years old, establish the Pikes Peak area as an enormous outdoor, living museum.”

Furthermore: “Pikes Peak was known to the Ute People as “Tava,” meaning “Sun” in their dialect of the Aztec language. The Tabeguache, or “People of Sun Mountain,” was the largest of the ten nomadic bands of the Ute. They followed the herds of wild animals throughout their lands, harvesting the elk, deer and buffalo at specific places at certain times of the year. This lifestyle mandated that they move their camp every three or four weeks. They constructed a medicine wheel at the heart of each new camp, linking them to Mother Earth like an umbilical cord.”

Finally: “UTE CULTURALLY SCARRED TREES

by Celinda Reynolds Kaelin. Copyright 2003

Throughout traditional Ute ancestral lands, hundreds of culturally scarred trees have been identified. In the Pikes Peak area, these have been mapped and recorded by the Pikes Peak Historical Society, the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Sanborn Western Camps/The Nature Place and independent experts such as archaeologist Marilyn A. Martorano.

These culturally scarred trees are of several different types: (1) the Peeled Bark, or Medicine Trees, (2) arborglyphs or Message Trees, and (4) burial markers or Burial Trees.”

“Harv and Med Tree CorrectedMedicine Tree and Ranger Harv Berman, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument”

“Medicine Tree near a cave”

While nature is beautiful and gives us a lot to appreciate by itself, this mythical “pure untainted untouched land” has never been true! Humans have shaped their ecosystems as much as any other animal since there have been humans living. These trees are definitely “born of the soil of their ancestors”, but they’re also, explicitly, born of the bodies of the Ute people’s ancestors. These lovely ponderosa pines have been ritually scarred and intentionally planted as burial trees by the Ute people before Capitalism was a twinkle in european eyes.

As human beings, we’re explicitly tied to the land, and not just spiritually. The ability of native peoples to hunt, fish, enjoy, govern, and yes, care for, their ancestral lands is integral to the good health of people and the planet. Capitalism is an important factor, but more directly, settler colonialism governs human proximity to nature. Even if the work week were abolished and class consciousness perfected decolonization is still crucial to the project of liberation.

[yourreddancer]

Bernie - on the CA fires

In America today, large and devastating wildfires that were once relatively uncommon have become an increasingly common occurrence.

In California, five of the largest wildfires in the history of the state have happened in the last five years. And, as you read this, one of the most destructive wildfires the state has ever seen is taking place in Los Angeles. That fire is still going, and with high-winds in the forecast today and tomorrow, this horrific level of destruction is far from over.

And we have not even entered the so-called "fire season."

8 months without rain. 24 people dead. 12,000 structures damaged or destroyed. 150,000 people evacuated. $150 billion in damages.

Overall, the wildfires have burned about 62 square miles, an area larger than Paris.

The frightening reality is: what we're seeing in Los Angeles today, unless we fundamentally change our energy policies, is likely what we will see in the future in the United States and throughout the world. There is no more "fire season." Not in America. Not anywhere.

What we are watching on the news in California is precisely what we mean when we talk about the "existential threat" of climate change.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, almost all of Southern California is in either moderate or severe drought. It is the second-driest period in almost 150 years. Combine that with hurricane force winds — winds that blow embers and carry fire; winds so strong it makes it difficult to fight those fires from the air — and you have a recipe for disaster.

It is extremely dangerous that Republicans in Washington and California are politicizing this issue and attacking Democratic officeholders.

This is Trumpism at its worst. And is nothing more than an effort to distract attention away from the underlying cause of this crisis.

No, President-elect Trump, climate change is not a "hoax." It is all too real. It is playing out now in Los Angeles.

It was not government incompetence that caused recent wildfires to blaze through Republican states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah.

It was not government incompetence when Hurricane Helene caused 219 deaths and almost $80 billion dollars of damage in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.

It was not government incompetence when devastating tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

No. All of this, as well as drought, the warming of our oceans, the melting of the Arctic ice caps, the heat waves throughout the world, are directly related to the fact that the last ten years have been the warmest ten years ever recorded.

Climate change does not care if you live in a "red state," a "blue state" or a "purple state." It does not care if you live in a rural area or urban area. It does not care if you are a working class person struggling to get by or live in a multi-million dollar home in the Pacific Palisades.

Climate change is what we are talking about when we are talking about more floods, more extreme weather, more ocean acidification, more drought, more famine, more disease, more mass migration, and more human suffering.

And for Republicans who like to whine and moan about the deficit and the debt, climate change is what we are talking about when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the cost of climate disasters has cost the United States almost $3 trillion since 1980.

And, unless we have the courage to take on the greed, lies and irresponsibility of the fossil fuel industry, the worst is yet to come.

We have a fundamental choice to make. We can listen to the fossil fuel industry, the climate deniers and their representatives on Capitol Hill, and ignore the reality of climate change.

Or, we can listen to the scientists who have made it abundantly clear that we must act boldly and aggressively to prevent a climate catastrophe, to prevent what is happening in Los Angeles today from becoming an everyday occurrence.

In my view, we have spent far too long and wasted too much time discussing whether or not climate change is real. This debate was not driven by science but by a decades-long campaign of lies, distortion and deceit funded by the fossil fuel industry.

And to do that, we need to send a message to people across this country — in so-called “red states,” “blue states,” and “purple states” — that a changing climate impacts us all.

Bottom line: we must bring the global community together to act aggressively to protect humankind. Nothing less than the habitability of our planet for future generations is at stake.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

[weather-usa]

A hazardous heat dome caused record-breaking temperatures on Thursday.

Weather Forecast For Hilliard OH:

A scorching heat dome is expected to reach its peak intensity Thursday afternoon, making it the hottest day of the year so far for millions in the western US.

Thursday's temperatures soared up to 25 degrees above the seasonal average, giving many locations a midsummer feel.

The intense heat will persist through the weekend before slightly easing early next week. However, many typically hot areas in the West will continue to experience temperatures up to 10 degrees above normal.

See more:

https://devpost.com/software/weather-forecast-for-oklahoma

This prolonged, unseasonable heat is driven by a robust heat dome—a large area of high pressure that settles over a region, trapping air and heating it with abundant sunshine for days or even weeks.

The extreme temperatures will pose a significant danger to those exposed to the elements without means to cool off. Nighttime won't offer much relief either, a sign of a world increasingly impacted by fossil fuel pollution.

Excessive heat warnings are currently in effect for over 18 million people across California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. Most of these warnings—the highest level of heat alert issued by the National Weather Service—are expected to remain active through Friday.

The heat has already claimed lives across the US. Several individuals have succumbed to heat-related illnesses since last weekend.

Four migrants died from "heat stroke and dehydration" as triple-digit temperatures scorched the US-Mexico border, according to the US Border Patrol, El Paso Sector.

Climate and Average Weather Year Round in Illinois:

In the East, a 59-year-old man in Prince George’s County, Maryland, died from heat-related complications, officials announced Wednesday. This marks the state’s first heat-related death of the year, though further details were not disclosed.

The extreme heat also posed significant challenges for firefighters battling a blaze in Napa County, California. Four firefighters were hospitalized due to injuries sustained in the rugged terrain and "hot summer conditions," according to CAL Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit. All four are expected to make full recoveries.

Earlier this week, the strengthening heat dome shattered more than a dozen daily high temperature records in the West. Throughout the weekend, several dozen more records could be broken.

Cities like Flagstaff, Arizona; Reno, Nevada; and Fresno, California, are among those where daily high temperature records may be surpassed this week.

While Phoenix narrowly missed hitting 110 degrees on Wednesday, it surpassed this threshold on Thursday, reaching a scorching 113 degrees. This broke the city's previous record for the day by 2 degrees. Similarly, Las Vegas experienced temperatures of 111 degrees, tying with 2010 for the earliest occurrence of such heat readings in the city.

See more: https://weatherusa.app/zip-code/weather-35011

https://weatherusa.app/zip-code/weather-35013

https://weatherusa.app/zip-code/weather-35014

https://weatherusa.app/zip-code/weather-35015

https://weatherusa.app/zip-code/weather-35016

Death Valley, renowned as the hottest spot on Earth, reached a staggering 122 degrees, surpassing its daily record of 121 degrees set in 1996. Typically, such extreme temperatures are not experienced until later in June.

Triple-digit heat will persist in California's Central Valley throughout the weekend, while desert regions of California, Nevada, and Arizona will endure temperatures in the 110s.

Summer-like warmth will extend northward into the Northwest on Friday, potentially setting records in parts of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho over the weekend.

Although not record-breaking, Seattle will face temperatures in the upper 70s on Friday, nearing 80 degrees on Saturday. These highs are about 10 degrees above the early June average.

[occupyhades]

Operation Deimos: The Abyss of Behemoth

Operation Deimos keeps track of the Agents of Behemoth: The Backstabbing Parasites of Corporate Personhood.

“Woe to the rebellious children,” says the LORD, “Who take counsel, but not of Me, And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, That they may add sin to sin." Isaiah 30:1 (NKJV) 

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. 1 John 3:10 (NIV)

The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him. Proverbs 5:22 (BSB) 

Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. 3 John 1:11 (NIV) 

The weapons of the scoundrel are destructive; he hatches plots to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just. Isaiah 32:7 (BSB) 

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And there were open books, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books. Apocalypse 20:12 (BSB)

And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Apocalypse 20:15 (BSB)

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Monday Musings: In Conclusion

This month has been dedicated to the Cambrian Period. Something most people are not aware of is that Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods are broken down into epochs and stages...just like the Cenozoic.

Just for fun I wanted to use this column of the Cambrian Period to show where all the major deposits and animals we've talked about (and a few we haven't) occurred.

Like our favorite trilobites!

Trilobites appeared in the fossil record at about 521 Ma, right at the end of Stage 2 of the Terreneuvian Epoch. Not long after that, the Chengjiang and Sirius Passet lagerstatten were deposited. This was towards the end of Stage 3 of Series 2. This is when the animal Haikouella lived.

Next is Emu Bay Shale. We haven't talked about that one yet. As you can imagine, Emu Bay is in Australia on Kangaroo Island.

It is one of two sites containing Redlichiidan trilobites.

The Burgess Shale was deposited at the beginning of the Drumian Age during the Mialingian Epoch. This is when Hallucigenia and Marella lived.

This is followed by the Wheeler Shale, Marjum and Weeks Formation sequence in the Guzhangian Age.

The final lagerstatten is the Orsten Fauna of Sweden. The fossils are just a little bit younger than the Utah ones and much smaller. This site preserved larval stages and the first fossil tardigrades.

By the end of the Cambrian there was a major faunal turnover into the Ordovician Period. Many brachiopods and conodonts died but the group that was hit the hardest was the trilobites. Those that lived on the outer edges of the shelfs and slope environments were hardly affected but those that lived in the shallow seas on the shelf were wiped out.

The Cambrian Period was important and I hope you enjoyed learning about it this month. Next month we will switch from geochronology to paleontology with comparative anatomy! There will be a video on the basics posted to youtube on October 19th but if you want to see it sooner then join my new Patreon! The video will be posted two weeks earlier.

There will also be interviews with my fellow paleontologists as well as lesson videos and access to the Minerals Rocks and Fossil Talks discord server. Thanks for all the support and fossilize you later!

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

By Christopher Smart

August 22, 2023

BORAT AND THE INANE GEORGIA VOTE CONSPIRACY

Years from now when people read about the 98-page indictment in Georgia of Donald Trump and 18 coconspirators they may well shake their heads and say, this couldn't be true, it's too stupid. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis used the state's RICO statue to reveal an alleged criminal enterprise that is so witless it could have been cooked up by Borat: OK, here's what we'll do, in swing states we'll meet at the YMCA or a bar somewhere and get some idiots to commit felonies by declaring they're the real electors. Then Trump will tell his MAGA base to show up on Jan. 6 because, “It'll be wild.” When Congress is thrown into chaos by the attacking mob of insurrectionists, we'll get Mike Pence to count the phony electors and Trump will win. Ta da. OK Wilson, it's slightly more complicated than that, but not by much. Trump doesn't do complicated. You're right Wilson, Utah Sen. Mike Lee is up to his neck in this but is not named in the indictment. He'd rather be lucky than good any day. The big problem now is how to schedule the four separate criminal trials Trump is facing. He's asked the Georgia court to set April 2026 as the trial date, possibly hoping by then he'll be emperor or grand poo-bah and can make it all disappear with a wave of his wand. Poof. Where the hell did that Borat guy get to, anyway?

NEW ANTHEMS FOR REAL AMERICANS

You know, victimhood just keeps getting harder and harder. But luckily we still have real Americans to sing about injustice, like Oliver Anthony who just broke through with, “Rich Men North of Richmond,” that tells it like it is: “Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds/Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds/Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground/'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down.” None other than Marjorie Taylor Greene, champion of angry white people, called it the “the anthem of the forgotten Americans...” We know who the enemies are: welfare queens and woke politicians. Damn straight. It's been viewed 17 million times on YouTube and right-wing influencers can't get enough. It comes on the heels of Jason Aldean's smash, “Try That In A Small Town” that hit home in red states. “Car jack an old lady at a red light/Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store... Cuss out a cop, spit in his face... Well, try that in a small town/See how far ya make it down the road....” It's a dog-eat-dog world and it's good people are still singin' about it so we won't be fooled by stuff like that “Barbie” movie. We need more Merle Haggard's in this world, “where even squares can have a ball.”

CULTURE WARS — CLIMATE CHANGE, WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE?

As everyone knows by now, Karl Marx was an environmentalist. And according to informed sources on the internet, climate scientists hate capitalism. They say things like the polar icecaps are melting to scare people from buying those condos in Miami Beach with garages full of sea water. The Earth is getting hotter, they cry with very little evidence to back it up. OK, sure, Texas had some record breaking heat and July was the hottest month since the moulton Earth cooled, but so what. The lefties go around yelling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. But it's just a PR campaign to get Big Oil to invest more money in green energy. It's that whole “New Green Deal” pushed by AOC and her commie comrades in Congress. Luckily, The Heritage Foundation is ginning up “Project 2025” that will propound “dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels,” says The New York Times. Big Oil and conservatives know what to do — they're lumping climate in with guns, gays and abortion. They know people don't trust elitists who want to stick needles in your arms, kill babies, take your guns and make your kids gay. Americans don't want experts telling them stuff. When they want to know the weather, they'll look out the window or turn on Fox News.

Post script — That's going to do it for another week here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of natural disasters so you don't have to. Hurricane Hilary, which became tropical storm Hilary, wreaked havoc across Mexico's Baja Peninsula before it pummeled Southern California and Nevada. Also Sunday evening, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake centered in SoCal'sVentura County had folks wondering if the end had come. But that was nothing compared to Maui, where wildfire reduced Lahinia to ashes in minutes, leaving at least 114 dead and some 800 missing. Well Wilson, maybe we are in End Times just before the Second Coming. In the U.S., 39% of adults say “we are living in the End Times,” according to a Pew Research survey. Here are some of the signs from The Bible that The End is near: deception, famine, natural disasters, the spread of new diseases and war. But not to worry, says Salt Lake City soothsayer Ron Anderson. “The End has always been near,” he said, “if those are the signs.” What do you think Wilson, can The End set us free. It's hard to worry about stuff if the curtain is about to come down. This could be the time to buy that Porsche — after all if The End is near you won't have to make payments. If it doesn't come, well you'll just have to play it by ear.

OK Wilson, we know you and the guys in the band like good ol' American ballads, like Marvin Gaye's “What's Goin' On,” The Eagles' “Lyin' Eyes" and, of course, “Blowin In The Wind,” by Dylan. So maybe you and the guys can take up where we left off with Merle Haggard and his anthem about real Americans. Hit it, Wilson:

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee; We don't take our trips on LSD We don't burn no draft cards down on Main Street; We like livin' right, and bein' free. We don't make a party out of lovin'; We like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo; We don't let our hair grow long and nasty and dirty, Like the hippies out in San Francisco do. I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, A place where even squares can have a ball. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, And white lightning's still the biggest thrill of all. Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear; Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen. And football's still the roughest thing on campus, And the kids they still respect the college dean. And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, A place where even squares can have a ball. And we still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, And white lightning's still the biggest thrill of all. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

(Okie From Muskogee — Merle Haggard)