Jurassic Marine Graveyard Yields 'Monster' Fossil 78
M00NIE writes "A 150 million year old giant fish-like reptile has been unearthed on an Arctic island off Norway, along with many other top marine predators. The find is 'one of the most important new sites for marine reptiles to have been discovered in the last several decades.'" From the article: "'One of them was this gigantic monster, with vertebrae the size of dinner plates and teeth the size of cucumbers,' Joern Hurum, an assistant professor at the University of Oslo, told Reuters on Thursday. 'We believe the skeleton is intact and that it's about 10 meters (33 feet) long,' he told Reuters of the pliosaur, a type of plesiosaur with a short neck and massive skull. The team dubbed the specimen 'The Monster.'"
Sea Monster A Go Go (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting, a sort of elephant graveyard for sea monsters.
Of course, the scary part will be when Kim Jong Il sets off North Korea's nuclear tests, waking up the big brother of one of these things. Then it attacks Tokyo.
People are flipping on the news, thinking they somehow got a monster movie instead, but it's on every channel. Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer are fighting over who gets the first interview with it, but then they get scooped by Deborah Norville and Inside Edition. Millions tune in, hoping to see Deb get chomped by a giant prehistoric monster... and they're not disappointed.
Simultaneous Farking, Digging, and Slashdotting cause the clip to shoot to #1 on YouTube. Someone puts up a fake MySpace page for the monster. Within 24 hours it has 896,327 MySpace friends, a garish background, and all of the 86 "dancing monster" animated
Wannabe BotNet masters start the SeaMonsterAV.32 virus, which is an e-mail promising never-before-seen footage of the Sea Monster. 3 million people are infected, and the "Get a SeaMonster Powerful Penis" spams flood out by the billions...
Sometimes, when your imagination wants to take you for a ride, just say no.
- Greg
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Godzilla (Score:5, Interesting)
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It was (probably) a bold and strong thing to come out in that day and in su
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So... (Score:1)
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But that's exactly what you just did, and it was hilarious.
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Petrol (Score:1)
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It wasn't time that did it. It was going pterodactyl hunting with Dick Cheney.
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And yet... has it? After all, isn't the biggest monster of all... MANKIND??
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Aww.... that was cheap.
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Is it cliché night or something?
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Why, squirrels, of course. Giant, fluffy, man-eating (re: mankind will be gone), amphibious squirrels.
This is my design, I call it intelligent, hence it must be so.
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That's right ... after all, we know that any resemblance between Bush and a chimpanzee is purely coincidental.
Nothing new. (Score:3, Funny)
Sea monsters ARE in the Bible! (Score:5, Informative)
Sea monsters ARE in the Bible and every ancient form of literature. It's called Leviathan. Nobody needs to "fit" anything.
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Even other interpretations of the word refer to crocodiles or a giant shark, never a dinosaur.
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That being said, it's obvious the Biblical passages are unlikely to refer to any of these because if they did, then these creatures lived into human times and the bones of such creatures would be found in younger sediments almost up to the present day, rather than deep in Earth history. They'd be a little hard to miss, given how large and distinctive they are.
sea whale (Score:2, Funny)
What other types of whale are there? I can't imagine what a "land whale" would look like.
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I'm sure they'll be able to confirm this amazing prediction within hours once they put their minds to it. The Bibl
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As far as I know, plesiosaurs or ichthyosaurs don't have dermal scutes (i.e. boney plates in their skin) on their back. Thanks for playing.
It's possible this passage is referring to a crocodile. It would make more sense.
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Fish like? (Score:2)
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That depends on how you use the word likeness. The simmilar shape between whales and the Pliosaur is probably a result of somewhat simmilar living conditions. Still, one is a reptile and the other is a mammal, and as far as I know, biologicaly(fell free to correct me on this, I'm no biologist)reptiles are closer to fish, than what mammals are.
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Photos (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,441160
What? (Score:1)
standardisation needed (Score:1)
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Joggrafy 101 (Score:2)
Regards,
--
*Art
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard [wikipedia.org]
From Wiki
By the terms of the international diplomacy recognized Norwegian sovereignty. Norway took over administration of Svalbard in 1925. However, under the terms of this unique treaty, citizens of various other countries have rights to exploit mineral deposits and other natural resources "on a footing of absolute equality".
Oh-No! (Score:1)
Svalbard is a Norwegian territory (Score:5, Informative)
It does exist in a sort of legal limbo though, in that any country which signs the Svalbard treaty can go in and look for natural resources. Russia and its Soviet precursor have had a fairly large city (Barentsburg) there for decades, supporting a coal mine which is now running out.
The chief authority on Svalbard is the office of 'Sysselmannen', which is located in the main Norwegian settlement, Longyearbyen.
A few hours south (by snowmobile) of Longyearbyen is the site of the Svea mine, which is sitting on a very rich coal seam, it is currently one of the most productive (per employee) mines in the world.
Svalbard also contains the big international research station at Ny Ålesund, which is operated by the Kings Bay Company.
http://www.kingsbay.no/ [kingsbay.no]
Visiting Svalbard in March a couple of years ago was one of my most memorable trips ever:
http://confluence.org/confluence.php?visitid=8138 [confluence.org]
Terje
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Whoa, cool! Really cool, in every respect! thx!
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Vague description (Score:1)
Alternatively, she had a very nice set of dinner plates.
Present-day animals suck (Score:1)
It's almost too much to bear! I want my big animals back, now!
Giant == 10m ? (Score:1)