Chilesaurus diegosuarezi is From the Tithonian Jurassic

Tithonian age of dinosaur fossils in central Patagonian, Chile: U–Pb SHRIMP geochronology

Authors:

Suárez et al

Abstract:

Three Tithonian concordant U–Pb SHRIMP zircon ages of 148.7 ± 1.4, 147.9 ± 1.5 and 147.0 ± 1.0 from tuffs intercalated in a clastic sedimentary succession with exceptional dinosaur bones including the new taxon Chilesaurus diegosuarezi gen. et sp. nov. exposed in central Chilean Patagonia (ca. 46°30′S) are reported herein. The fossiliferous beds accumulated in a synvolcanic fan delta reaching a shallow marine basin as indicated by glauconite present in some of the beds, and coeval with the beginning of the transgression of the Aysén Basin.

Pre-Colvis Culture Monte Verde Archaelogical Site Yields Information on Earliest Known PaleoIndians

Stone tools, cooked animal and plant remains and fire pits found at the Monte Verde site in southern Chile provide greater interdisciplinary evidence that the earliest known Americans--a nomadic people adapted to a cold, ice-age environment--were established deep in South America more than 15,000 years ago. The research, led by Tom Dillehay, Rebecca Webb Wilson University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, appears in the Nov. 18 issue of PLOS ONE.

[...]

The team recovered a total of 39 stone objects and 12 small fire pits associated with bones and some edible plant remains, including nuts and grasses. The bones tended to be small fragments, broken and scorched, indicating that the animals had been cooked. They often came from very large animals, like prehistoric llamas or mastodons, as well as smaller creatures like prehistoric deer and horses. The Monte Verde site was unlikely to have been able to support the kind of vegetation that those animals needed to eat, so they were likely killed and butchered elsewhere. The objects were radiocarbon dated and most were found to range in age from more than 14,000 to almost 19,000 years old.

The wide scattering suggests that the people who created these features were nomadic hunter-gatherers who might have camped for only a night or two before moving on. "Where they're going, we don't know, and where they're coming from, we don't know, but this would have been a passageway from the coast to the foothills of the Andes," Dillehay said. Dillehay believes that they may have come through Monte Verde because the terrain was more walkable than the surrounding bogs and wetlands, and because it provided access to stone to make tools.

link.

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi: A Bizarre new Herbivorous Theropod From Tithonian Jurassic Chile

An enigmatic plant-eating theropod from the Late Jurassic period of Chile

Authors:

Novas et al

Abstract:

Theropod dinosaurs were the dominant predators in most Mesozoic era terrestrial ecosystems. Early theropod evolution is currently interpreted as the diversification of various carnivorous and cursorial taxa, whereas the acquisition of herbivorism, together with the secondary loss of cursorial adaptations, occurred much later among advanced coelurosaurian theropods. new, bizarre herbivorous basal tetanuran from the Upper Jurassic of Chile challenges this conception. The new dinosaur was discovered at Aysén, a fossil locality in the Upper Jurassic Toqui Formation of southern Chile (General Carrera Lake). The site yielded abundant and exquisitely preserved three-dimensional skeletons of small archosaurs. Several articulated individuals of Chilesaurus at different ontogenetic stages have been collected, as well as less abundant basal crocodyliforms, and fragmentary remains of sauropod dinosaurs (diplodocids and titanosaurians).

No word whether it preferred red or green.   Obviously it was a Hatched variety.

Using Digital Enhancement to Study Prehistoric Rock Art

An assessment of methods for the digital enhancement of rock paintings: the rock art from the precordillera of Arica (Chile) as a case study

Authors:

Cerrillo-Cuenca et al

Abstract:

The digital tracing of rock art is becoming a standard for archaeologists working in this field of research. The lack of specific software for this task has resulted in archaeologists either using solutions that are not statistically robust enough or working with overly generic fields of image analysis. This paper will assess the application of three techniques for digital tracing: Principal Components Analysis, K-means, and Decorrelation Stretch. In addition to these techniques of image analysis, this paper will also explore three selective techniques that classify or enhance pigmentation. These analyses have been implemented in a software package called PyDRA (developed by one of the authors, ECC). This software makes use of several scientific libraries for the digital analysis of an image.

As a case study, we chose three rock art sites located between 3100 and 3500 m above sea level in the precordillera of Arica, the northern region of Chile. All of the paintings are located inside rock shelters that are easily accessible; however, we lack a systematic recording for analysing these sites. Pampa El Muerto 14 and Mullipungo 1 were recorded through direct tracings between 1980 and 1990. The Lupica 1 site was identified only in 2013 and has not been recorded until now. Due to the advancement of technology in the years since the 1980s, we have been able to compare the proficiency of different digital and statistical techniques. Our study uses the most adequate parameters and enables us to trace the paintings digitally without actually handling the surface of the rock.

Metallurgy in the Aconcagua Valley Under the Inca

Metallurgical traditions under Inka rule: A technological study of metals and technical ceramics from the Aconcagua Valley, Central Chile
Authors:

Plaza et al

Abstract:

The spread of the Inka state in the Aconcagua Valley (Central Chile) is thought to have been culturally mediated, avoiding military coercion, and thus leading to different forms of cultural acceptance, resistance or hybridisation. However, there has been no previous attempt to investigate the extent to which these interactions are reflected in the use of metals and metallurgical technologies. Here we present analytical work on metallic artefacts and technical ceramics from Cerro La Cruz and Los Nogales, two Valley sites with evidence dated to the Late Period (ca. AD 1400-1540). The analyses included SEM-EDS, optical microscopy, petrography, XRD and FTIR. The results suggest that the sites represent different technological traditions. At Cerro La Cruz, the style of the metal objects and the lack of tin bronzes reflect continuity with an ancient metallurgical tradition with bases in the Diaguita Culture, rather than a wholesale adoption of an Inka metallurgical tradition. In Los Nogales, the presence of tin bronze and the use of perforated crucibles and other technical ceramics lined with bone ash is consistent with a tradition closely related to the Inka expansion and north-western Argentina, perhaps reflecting a stronger receptivity towards the new technologies. This disparity supports the idea that the Inka domination in the Valley was not forceful, and suggests a closer relationship between the state and some local groups, not previously identified.

Was There Only One Elasmosaur Species in Maastrichtian Cretaceous Chile?

A new postcranial skeleton of an elasmosaurid plesiosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of central Chile and reassessment of Cimoliasaurus andium Deecke

Authors:

Otero et al

Abstract:

We describe a new specimen of an elasmosaurid plesiosaur from the upper Maastrichtian of central Chile. The specimen includes a relatively complete dorso-caudal series, a few cervical vertebrae, and a fragmentary pelvic girdle. The specimen is identified as a sub-adult non-artistonectine elasmosaurid (Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria) based on graphic bivariate analysis of the cervical vertebral proportions. The caudal vertebrae have distinctive features such as neural arches that are recurved cranially, with pedicels overlapping the dorso-posterior surface of the immediately anterior centrum, and terminal centra with two pairs of deep dorsal articulations for the neural arches. These unusual features are present in several late Maastrichtian adult specimens from the Quiriquina Formation of central Chile, and have been included within the hypodigm of the historic taxon Cimoliasaurus andium Deecke (nomen dubium). The specimen studied here likely represents the same taxon or a closely related form, showing slight differences in both size and ontogenetic stage. The preserved elements of this new skeleton afford comparison with several other late Maastrichtian specimens from Chile that were previously, albeit tentatively, referred to “C. andium”. The similarity of these specimens suggests that the late Maastrichtian elasmosaurid diversity of central Chile (excluding aristonectines) may be represented by taxa with low morphological disparity, or by a single taxon.

New New Mexico Green Chile Variety Released

The new seeds are inconspicuous, filling a handful of 1.5-pound coffee bags and tucked at the bottom of a shelf in the Seed Vault.

The repository — kept between 34 degrees and 40 degrees Fahrenheit — holds decades of seeds grown and developed by New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute.

On that bottom shelf is the institute’s newest star: NuMex Sandia Select, a new variety, previously used as red chile, that can now be used as green chile.

“There’s been a lot of buzz about this, so I think it will be very popular,” said Danise Coon, an agricultural research scientist at the Chile Pepper Institute. “People have been wanting a new Sandia variety for a long time.”

Seed packets are now on sale for $5 at the Chile Pepper Institute. Proceeds benefit NMSU’s Endowed Chile Pepper Research Chair campaign.

Local company Biad Chili will also sell roasted NuMex Sandia Selects, maybe as early as this August, and seeds beginning in 2015 or 2016, co-owner Chris Biad said.

Word got out about the upcoming variety a few years back, and people have been calling about it, asking when the seed will be released, Coon said.

“I get excited about it because I think it’s an improvement,” Biad said.

link.

Aristonectes quiriquinensis: a new Elasmosaur From Maastrichtian Cretaceous Chile

Aristonectes quiriquinensis, sp. nov., a new highly derived elasmosaurid from the upper Maastrichtian of central Chile

Authors:

Otero et al

Abstract:

This paper describes a new species of elasmosaurid plesiosaur, Aristonectes quiriquinensis, sp. nov., based on a partial skeleton recovered from upper Maastrichtian beds of the Quiriquina Formation of central Chile. The material described here consists of two skeletons, one collected near the village of Cocholgue, and a second juvenile specimen from Quiriquina Island. Prior to these finds, Aristonectes was viewed as a monospecific genus, including only the enigmatic Aristonectes parvidens, the holotype of which consists of an incomplete skull and incomplete postcranium. Other material referred to the genus includes an incomplete juvenile skull and other postcranial material from the upper Maastrichtian of Antarctica, as well as a partial skull from the Quiriquina Formation of central Chile. The relationships of Aristonectes have been controversial, with competing theories assigning the genus to Cryptoclididae, Elasmosauridae, and Aristonectidae; however, there is a developing consensus that Aristonectes is a derived elasmosaurid, and this paper gives strong evidence for this view. Comparison of the specimen here studied with the holotype of A. parvidens demonstrates that A. quiriquinensis is a distinct species. The completeness of the adult skeleton allows the first confident size estimates for adult Aristonectes. It is a large plesiosaurian with a relatively large skull with numerous homodont teeth, a moderately long and laterally compressed neck, and relatively narrow trunk, with slender and elongate forelimbs. The two specimens are restricted to the upper Maastrichtian of central Chile, posing questions concerning the austral circumpolar distribution of different elasmosaurids towards the end of the Cretaceous.

Ladinian Triassic Silesaurid Found in Chile

link in Spanish.

Red or Green? The Ultimate Question Makes it to CNN

link.

He needed to go south down I-25 to Hatch, for crying out loud...

Rise of the Milky Way in Uber HD (64 megapixels)

Galactic Center at zenith at Paranal observatory from Stéphane Guisard on Vimeo.

A Video of a Satellite Breaking up Over Chile