Mr-glomeroporphyritic - Expect Nothing

Shout out to yet another day of me ignoring my homework! I knew you were there the whole time! I was consumed with self inflicted brain pain and did nothing! It's hard to be alive! Thank you!

Perks about learning German is that it makes geology terms so easy to understand

Fenster = window; literally a term we use for erosion or tectonics revealing lower beds

Augen = eye; also literally used to describe eye/almond shaped mineral grains in metamorphic rocks like gneiss (which I learned is also a German word).

Lagerstätte(n) = bed, deposit, directly translates to "storage place"; sedimentary beds with excellently preserved fossils. Actually had to look up the meaning as I took only one class and knew what "stätte" meant.

Inselberg = island mountain; an isolated ridge surrounded by a flat plain or pediment

If you know French, geomorphology is gonna be an easy one. Rouche moutonnée, cirque, arête, lacustrine... those are the ones I know off the top of my head.

Let's look at this with a handful of dinosaurs:

Microraptor

Anchiornis

Vegavis

Titanis

Secretarybird

"Nonavi(la)an Dinosaur": Includes Microraptor. Does not include the rest.

"Non-Neornithine Dinosaur": Includes Microraptor and Anchiornis.

"Mesozoic Dinosaur": Includes Microraptor, Anchiornis, and Vegavis

"Extinct Dinosaur": Includes Microraptor, Anchiornis, Vegavis, and Titanis

"Living Dinosaur": Includes Secretarybird

"Neornithine Dinosaur": Includes Vegavis, Titanis, and Secretarybird

"Cenozoic Dinosaur": Includes Titanis and Secretarybird

"Avia(la)n Dinosaur": Includes Anchiornis, Vegavis, Titanis, Secretarybird

"Dinosaur that looks like a bird": literally all five of them

Utah Layering

ftr I am forever going to be bitter that the post I wanted to be "let's talk about extinct ecosystems and how cool they are!" got derailed into yet another post just talking about a single taxon like the millions of other posts on palaeoblr

NASA Data Sonification: Black Hole Remix

In this sonification of Perseus. the sound waves astronomers previously identified were extracted and made audible for the first time. The sound waves were extracted outward from the center. (source)

wait are chickens actually decended from t-rexes or is it just a comedic pairing

Chickens and T. rex share a recent common ancestor, more recent than T. rex shares with Stegosaurus or Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus

Chickens did not descend from T. rex, because T. rex is a very specialized and derived dinosaur

However, they - and all other birds, because all birds are in a single group - descended from small raptorial dinosaurs like Velociraptor. And, the common ancestor of Velociraptor and all birds (including chickens) could fly

And since birds descend from the same common ancestor as all other dinosaurs, they're dinosaurs.