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9Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Brad Witt, Former President Trump, Henry Heimuller, Joe Biden, Pat Robertson, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden’s dogs, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Bill’s Standard Disclaimer
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Giants That Once Ruled The Seas
Scientists have uncovered new indications about a curious fossil site in Nevada, a graveyard for dozens of giant marine reptiles. Instead of the site of a massive die-off as suspected, it might have been an ancient maternity ward where the creatures came to give birth. The site is famed for its fossils from giant ichthyosaurs, reptiles that ruled the ancient seas and could grow up to the size of a school bus. Their name means fish lizard, they were underwater predators with large paddle-shaped flippers and long jaws full of teeth. The massive skeletons, which boast vertebrae the size of dinner plates and bones from their flippers as thick as boulders .Since the ichthyosaur bones in Nevada were excavated in the 1950s, many paleontologists have investigated how all these creatures could have died together. Now after decades of studying the rocks, soils, fossils, researchers have proposed a different theory. Several lines of evidence from the dirt, all point towards one argument. That this was a place where giant ichthyosaurs came to give birth. Once a tropical sea, the site is part of Nevada’s Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park which now sits in a dry, dusty landscape near an abandoned mining town. They identified fossils from at least 37 ichthyosaurs scattered around the area, dating back about 230 million years. The bones were preserved in different rock layers, suggesting the creatures could have died hundreds of thousands of years apart rather than all at once. A key fact came when the researchers spotted some tiny bones among the massive adult fossils, and recognized they belonged to embryos and newborns. The researchers determined that the creatures journeyed to the site in groups for protection as they gave birth, like today’s marine giants. The fossils are believed to be from the mothers and offspring that died there over the years. Finding a place to give birth separated from a place where you might feed is really common in the modern world — among whales, among sharks, so why not million years ago. A clue helped rule out some earlier reasons. Testing the chemicals in the dirt didn’t turn up any signs of volcanic eruptions or huge shifts to the local environment. And the geology showed that the reptiles were preserved on the ocean floor pretty far from the shore, meaning they probably didn’t die in a mass beaching event. While we continue to study these creatures and all the other creatures that are here only because of fossilization, we will continue to advance our knowledge and fascination with all these giant creatures which lived in the sea and on the land.
Tammy
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