Evolution 'favours bigger sea creatures'

The animals in the ocean have been getting bigger, on average, since the Cambrian period - and not by chance.

That is the finding of a huge new survey of marine life past and present, published in the journal Science.

It describes a pattern of increasing body size that cannot be explained by random "drift", but suggests bigger animals generally fare better at sea.

In the past 542 million years, the average size of a marine animal has gone up by a factor of 150.

It appears that the explosion of different life forms near the start of that time window eventually skewed decisively towards bulkier animals.

Measured by volume, today's tiniest sea critter is less than 10 times smaller than its Cambrian counterpart; both are minuscule, sub-millimetre crustaceans. But at the other end of the scale, the mighty blue whale is more than 100,000 times the size of the largest animal the Cambrian could offer: a trilobite less than half a metre long.

For more information click here

Ichthyosaurs

A fossil stored in a Doncaster museum for 30 years and thought to be a plaster copy has turned out to be a new species of ancient reptile.

A young palaeontologist working with the University of Manchester found the fossil in 2008, in the collections of Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery.

He realised it was the 189-million-year-old remains of an ichthyosaur - further study confirmed it to be a previously unknown species.

It was so well preserved he could determine the contents of its stomach, which were actually the hooks from the tentacles of squid.

It is not uncommon to find ichthyosaur fossils in England. The sharp-toothed marine reptiles swam in large numbers in the seas around Britain when the dinosaurs roamed.

Ichthyosaurs

• Often misidentified as "swimming dinosaurs", they first appeared in the early Triassic period (251 million to 199 million years ago)
• The name means fish-lizard, although the creature has been classified as a reptile since the mid-19th Century
• Its length ranged from 1m to 14m - although the average length was 2m to 3m (the Doncaster fossil is 1.5m)
• The creature was noted for its sharp, robust teeth.
• Ichthyosaurs became extinct before the dinosaurs, dying out in the early part of the late Cretaceous period (145.5 million to 65.5 million years ago)

This new species has now been named Ichthyosaurus anningae - in honour of Mary Anning, the British fossil-hunter who discovered the first ichthyosaur on the Dorset coast in about 1811.

Thanks to Tom Penhall for sending a link

Heart of Earth's Inner Core revealed

Scientists say they have gained new insight into what lies at the very centre of the Earth.

Research from China and the US suggests that the innermost core of our planet has another, distinct region at its centre.

The team believes that the structure of the iron crystals there is different from those found in the outer part of the inner core.

The seismic wave data suggests that crystals in the "inner inner core" are aligned in an east-to-west direction - flipped on their side, if you are looking down at our planet from high above the North Pole.

Those in the "outer inner core" are lined up north to south, so vertical if peering down from the same lofty vantage point.

Click here to read more on the BBC News website.

Thanks to Y13 Geog for the link

Down to Earth (Geology magazine)

Down to Earth is a geological magazine now in electronic format
(it is also the name of a Justin Beiber album it seems!).

The latest issues are below.

February     2015  click here
January       2015  click here
December    2014  click here
November    2014  click here
October        2014 click here
September   2014 click here
August         2014 click here
July             2014 click here
June            2014 click here
May             2014 click here
April            2014 click here

Planet Oil

BBC 3 part series about the importance of oil and how we have become so reliant upon it.

"IF OIL DIDN'T EXIST WE WOULD NEED TO INVENT IT" 

Prof Iain Stewart

On BBC Scotland Tuesday 10th Feb at 9.00pm.

If you have SKY you can watch it, or alternatively on BBC iPlayer. 

If anyone could record it onto DVD that would be great! 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gzf9k

Science Rocks! (Infinite Monkey Cage)

Award winning science/comedy chat with Brian Cox, Robin Ince and guests.

To listen to the programme click here.

The guests this week include Eric Idle (from Monty Python) & comedian Ross Noble 

as well as some geologists!

Other Infinite Monkey Cage episodes can be found here.

Continents may not have been created in the way we thought

From the 1950s until recently, we thought we had a clear idea of how continents form. Most people will have heard of plate tectonics: moving pieces on the surface of the planet that collide, pull away or slide past one another over millions of years to shape our world.

There are two types of crust that sit on top of these plates: oceanic crust (that beneath our oceans) and continental crust (that beneath our feet). These move across the surface of the Earth at rates of up to 10cm per year. Many are in a state of constant collision with one another.

Their formation is undergoing something of a re-think................

http://theconversation.com/continents-may-not-have-been-created-in-the-way-we-thought-33334

Geology Revision Cards

Sign up on the google doc below: 

https://docs.google.com/a/wells-cathedral-school.com/spreadsheets/d/1n881yqsUTTN6mUxeIB9dHKzsYiaXvQ--C6jKE9xJw60/edit#gid=0

Do dinosaurs still live among us?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zyrx34j