Rhino ’Cooked to Death’ 9 Million Years Ago, Fossil Reveals
2012 11 27
By Jeanna Bryner | LiveScience.com
About 9.2 million years ago, a teenage two-horned rhinoceros was literally cooked to death when a Mt. Vesuvius-like eruption enveloped it in lava reaching more than 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius), scientists say.
The perhaps fortunate result: a well-preserved skull of the Rhinocerotid, with a tale to tell.
An analysis of the volcanic rock-preserved skull suggests the animal’s grisly death was near instantaneous. "[T]he body was baked under a temperature approximating 400°C, then dismembered within the pyroclastic flow, and the skull separated from body," the researchers wrote online Nov. 21 in the journal PLoS ONE. The flow of volcanic ash carried the detached skull about 19 miles (30 kilometers) north of the eruption site and to the site where it was discovered in Cappadocia in Central Turkey.
"The articulated skull and mandible were found alone, and there were no other rhino bones in the surroundings, except for some rib fragments, potentially of rhino affinities," said study researcher Pierre-Olivier Antoine of the University of Montpellier in France.
When alive, the rhino (Ceratotherium neumayri) would have weighed between 3,300 and 4,400 pounds (1,500 and 2,000 kilograms), about the size of a young white rhino, though sporting a shorter head, Antoine said. The animal was 10 to 15 years old, a young adult, when it died in a Pompeii-style eruption.
[...]
Read the full article at: livescience.com
Related Articles
Latest News from our Front Page
|
No Bank Deposits Will Be Spared from Confiscation
2013 05 18
As alert Zero Hedge readers are aware, this week the EURO Politburo is busy debating the dodgy subject of deposit "bail-ins."
The following article very succinctly explains this odious mode of fractal fractional reserve end-game chicanery.
The author encourages all of you to share it with others.
NO BANK DEPOSITS WILL BE SPARED FROM CONFISCATION
By Matthias Chang Esq, futurefastforward.com (with author’s permission)
I challenge ... |
Military Says No Presidential Authorization Needed To Quell “Civil Disturbances”
2013 05 17
A recent Department of Defense instruction alters the US code applying to the military’s involvement in domestic law enforcement by allowing US troops to quell “civil disturbances” domestically without any Presidential authorization, greasing the skids for a de facto military coup in America along with the wholesale abolition of Posse Comitatus.
The instruction (embedded at the end of this article), which ... |
Ancient Maya Pyramid Destroyed in Belize
2013 05 17
An archaeological group says it plans to take legal action.
Despite its small size, the Caribbean country of Belize is known for a few outstanding characteristics: a spectacular barrier reef, a teeming rain forest, and extensive Maya ruins.
It now has one fewer of those ruins.
A construction company in Belize has been scooping stone out of the major pyramid at the site ... |
Ginger: A Warming Herb
2013 05 17
Ginger is an Asian herb that is particularly well known to us in the West. Over time, and with trial and error, its stimulating properties and piquant flavor have been integrated into both our herbal “materia medica” and cuisine.
Brewed as an herbal tea, ginger root is particularly helpful for those people who have underactive stomachs and difficulty producing adequate amounts ... |
Australian man dead for 40 minutes revived with new CPR machine
2013 05 17
In an Australian first, doctors have used a new resuscitation technique to revive three patients who were clinically dead for up to an hour.
One of the lucky survivors was Colin Fiedler, 49, who was pronounced dead at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria, after suffering a heart attack, The Herald Sun reported.
Doctors brought Fieldler back to life using a U.S.-made ... |
| More News » |
|
|
|
|
