Aegis Ashore Declared Operational in Romania, Angers Russians

The Navy and U.S. Missile Defense Agency declared a ballistic missile defense site in Romania operational this week.

The Lockheed Martin-built Aegis Ashore facility in Deveselu is the first of two sites planned as part of the U.S. and NATO’s BMD network based on the same technology used in the Navy’s guided missile destroyers and cruisers to protect against ballistic missile threats.

The site is built around a SPY-1D(V) air-search radar linked to three 8-cell Mark-41 Vertical Launch Systems armed with Raytheon Standard Missile 3 interceptors – the same equipment used on destroyers. The installation is named by U.S. sailors.

link.

2nd link.

Russian reaction is less than positive.  Which is stupid.  They can easily overwhelm this.  It merely takes away the ability to use one or a few nukes.  Limited nuclear war is a fallacy the Russians still believe in.

Ten European Union Members Send Letter Stating Russo-German NordStream Gas Pipeline NOT in European Interests

Russia's plans to extend its gas link to Germany run counter to EU interests and risk further destabilizing Ukraine, 10 European governments said in a letter to the European Commission that called for a summit-level debate on the issue.

A group of European companies signed an agreement with Gazprom in September to expand its Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, bypassing Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Gazprom said it would halt gas deliveries to Ukraine while Kiev said it could find cheaper supplies elsewhere.

The letter, written on Thursday and signed by Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, says the project should come under the closest regulatory scrutiny and called for "an inclusive debate" at next month's EU summit.

"The position of the European Commission on the Nord Stream II project will also essentially influence the perception of the EU's common foreign and security policy among its core allies and traditional partners," the letter, seen by Reuters, said.

World leaders have been urging Moscow and Ankara to avoid any escalation of tensions following the shooting down of a Russian jet by NATO member Turkey.

Russia's relationships with the European Union and Ukraine have been volatile since the annexation of Crimea in March last year.

The Nord Stream extension to deliver increased volumes of gas straight to Germany could have serious consequences for Kiev and EU nations, the letter said.

link.

The PaleoBioDiversity of the Ecosystem of Romania's Hateg Island From the Campanian to the Terminal Maastrichtian Cretaceous

The East Side Story – The Transylvanian latest Cretaceous continental vertebrate record and its implications for understanding Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary events

Authors:

Csiki-Sava et al

Abstract:

The latest Cretaceous continental vertebrate faunas of the wider Transylvanian area figured prominently in discussions concerning the Cretaceous–Paleogene Boundary (K-Pg) events when they were first described by Nopcsa between 1897 and 1929, because they were assumed to be late Maastrichtian in age. Subsequently their age was reconsidered as early Maastrichtian, and were thus regarded of lesser importance in understanding the K-Pg boundary events in Europe and worldwide. Moreover, Transylvanian continental vertebrate assemblages (the so-called ‘Haţeg Island’ faunas) were often lumped together as a temporally restricted assemblage with a homogenous taxonomic composition. Recent fossil discoveries and more precise dating techniques have considerably expanded knowledge of the Transylvanian vertebrate assemblages, their ages, and their evolution. A synthesis of the available stratigraphic data allows development of the first comprehensive chronostratigraphic framework of the latest Cretaceous Transylvanian vertebrates. According to these new data, expansion of continental habitats and emergence of their vertebrate faunas started locally during the latter part of the late Campanian, and these faunas continued up to the second half of the Maastrichtian. During this time, long-term faunal stasis appears to have characterized the Transylvanian vertebrate assemblages, which is different from the striking turnovers recorded in western Europe during the same time interval. This suggests that there was no single ‘Europe-wide’ pattern of latest Cretaceous continental vertebrate evolution. Together, the available data shows that dinosaurs and other vertebrates were relatively abundant and diverse until at least ca. 1 million years before the K-Pg boundary, and is therefore consistent with the hypothesis of a sudden extinction, although this must be tested with future discoveries and better age constraints and correlations.

Oase-1: This man was 10% Neandertal

To Erik Trinkaus, the jaw of the oldest modern human found in Europe has always looked strange. Its huge wisdom teeth and hefty, buttressed lower jaw reminded him of Neandertals, and he argued that this fossil, 37,000 to 42,000 years old, was the product of generations of mixing between modern humans and our extinct cousins. “It wasn't a popular idea,” admits Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Other paleoanthropologists insisted that the young man whose remains were found in 2002 in Peştera cu Oase cave in Romania was just a chunky example of our own species.

Now, 15 years later, Trinkaus has been vindicated by ancient DNA. The young Oase man inherited as much as one-tenth of his DNA from a Neandertal ancestor, and that ancestor lived only 200 years or so previously, according to a talk this month at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. “One of Oase's ancestors—its great-great-great-grandparent—is Neandertal,” reported Qiaomei Fu, a geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences–Max Planck Society Joint Laboratory for Human Evolution in Beijing and a postdoc in the lab of population geneticist David Reich at Harvard Medical School. The finding is “important as the first direct evidence of a very recent admixture event in Europe,” says population geneticist Laurent Excoffier of the University of Bern.

Europe just after the arrival of modern humans has long seemed a likely setting for such close encounters, given that Neandertals and modern humans overlapped there about 45,000 to 39,000 years ago. But until now, ancient DNA pointed to a different time and place for such a liaison. By sequencing the genomes of fossil Neandertals and comparing them with today's human genomes, paleogeneticists had found that living Europeans and Asians—but not Africans—have inherited just 1% to 4% of their DNA from Neandertals. DNA from fossils of two modern humans from what is now Russia also suggested that their Neandertal heritage was faint (see http://scim.ag/RussDNA). So researchers proposed that modern humans and Neandertals had rare and relatively early encounters, perhaps in the Middle East, when moderns swept out of Africa 60,000 to 50,000 years ago.

The DNA from Oase 1, a lower jaw without a skull, complicates that picture, Fu reported at the Biology of Genomes meeting. Working in a team led by paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, she and her colleagues captured 2.2 million base pairs of the fossil's DNA. Then, they sequenced 78,055 locations where the genomes of Neandertals and modern humans are known to differ. They found that the Oase man had far more Neandertal DNA—composing 4.8% to 11.3% of his genome—than either the ancient modern humans from Russia or living Europeans and Asians, Fu said.

What's more, the young man had inherited the Neandertal DNA in “large chunks,” including several segments more than 50 million base pairs long; one chunk spanned half the length of chromosome 12. Those unbroken stretches of Neandertal DNA suggest that the interbreeding must have been just four to six generations back. If the mixing had been more ancient, the long DNA segments would have been broken up by the reshuffling of chromosomes that takes place every generation. “This is quite amazing,” Fu said in her talk. “We're quite excited about that.”

If modern humans and Neandertals had several successful matings, why do living humans' genomes record only the earlier event?

link.

A Short Necked Azhdarchid Pterosaur From Maastrichtian Cretaceous Romania

A Medium-Sized Robust-Necked Azhdarchid Pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea: Azhdarchidae) from the Maastrichtian of Pui (Haţeg Basin, Transylvania, Romania)

Authors:

Vremir et al

Abstract:

We describe a pterosaurian cervical vertebra collected from Maastrichtian sediments at the Pui locality in the Haţeg Basin, Romania. This specimen, a medium-sized, robust fourth cervical, is distinctive in morphology and represents a new, as yet unrecognized, azhdarchid pterosaur size class within the Haţeg Island fauna: it most likely belongs to a new taxon which we opt not to name here. The vertebra is referred to Azhdarchidae based on clearly preserved diagnostic features characteristic of this group and differs in proportions and anatomical details from the recently named azhdarchid Eurazhdarcho langendorfensis Vremir et al., 2013a, from the Sebeş region of the Transylvanian basin. We take issue with claims that all Maastrichtian Romanian azhdarchids (and other penecontemporaneous azhdarchids and azhdarchoids) should be uncritically assumed to be synonymous: it ignores anatomical characters that allow the specimens concerned to be differentiated and is based on an erroneous “one stratum, one species” philosophy contradicted by empirical data from other azhdarchoid assemblages. It has been suggested that the absence of small to medium-sized pterosaurs in Upper Cretaceous sediments is indicative of an evolutionary trend. However, evidence from the Haţeg Island fauna may indicate instead that smaller-sized pterosaurs were indeed present in this interval but remain underrepresented due to rare preservation and collection.

Nidophis insularis: a Small Maastrichtian Cretaceous Snake Found in a Dinosaur Nest, but not Eating Eggs (hint, something small and toothy was eating it)

A Late Cretaceous madtsoiid snake from Romania associated with a megaloolithid egg nest – Paleoecological inferences

Authors:

Venczel et al

Abstract:

Here we report on the taphonomy and paleoecological implications of the first record of a small madtsoiid snake (Nidophis insularis) closely associated with a megaloolithid dinosaur egg nest. Taphonomic and sedimentologic evidence suggest that the snake was buried autochthonously within or nearby the egg nest, with at least partially articulated skeleton. Count of growth rings on the vertebral zygapophyses indicates that the holotype of Nidophis belonged to an adult individual approaching the limit of its maximum body size of about 1 m length. The presence of layers of arrested growth on the zygapophyses, together with other independent data (e.g., paleomagnetic data, sedimentology, paleosol development stage, stable isotope geochemistry) indicates that Nidophis lived under a semi-arid, seasonally variable subtropical climate, having alternative periods of active feeding. The trunk vertebrae with relatively low neural spines and without prezygapophyseal accessory processes indicate a relatively heavy-bodied, slowly-moving animal, one that probably had a semifossorial habit and was an active forager, but definitively not a dinosaur nest raider as suggested for certain large madtsoiid snakes (the Indian Sanajeh). Potential prey items, available around the dinosaur nesting area, probably ranged from small squamate eggs to various small vertebrates. Finally, one anterior trunk vertebra of the holotype displays distinct bite marks left by a small-sized and pointed-toothed predator, most probably a crocodyliform or a theropod, thus documenting that madtsoiids were also preyed upon.

Did mommy bring home a snack?

Ancient Greeks Were Sorta Right: Peuce Island Existed, but as the Dunavat Peninsula

The ancient legendary island of PEUCE – myth or reality?

Authors:

Romanescu et al

Abstract:

The testimonies left by the ancient Greeks indicate the existence of the legendary Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube. Several locations for the island have been proposed throughout history: the pre-continental inland of Chilia, the fluvio-maritime levee of Letea, the initial alluvial fan of the Danube, the Dobroudjan inland between the Danube, the Black Sea and the valley of the Telita River and the Dunavat Peninsula, and others. All of these hypotheses have been proven wrong, except for that regarding the Dunavat Peninsula; but for the Dunavat Peninsula to have represented an island, there must have been a fluvial or maritime corridor separating it from the rest of the Dobroudjan inland. The Beibugeac corridor represented the last link in deciphering this enigma. Interdisciplinary research has been conducted to confirm or refute the theory of the existence of an arm. The overall morphology is favourable to the existence of a fluvial arm. Nonetheless, analysis of the geologic boreholes demonstrates that the nature of the sediments is purely continental and that they originate in the superficial erosion of the calcareous slopes belonging to the Dunavat Hills and Bestepe Hills. The position of Peuce Island in the south of the most important Danubian arm makes possible its location between the Halmyris Gulf, the Danube Delta and the continental inland of Dobroudja. The ancient Greeks were interested only in the exploitation of the sea and the coastal area. For this reason, they built cities only within reach of the sea (Orgame [Argamum], Histria, Tomis and Callatis). When viewed from the sea or the surrounding swamp areas, the Dunavat Peninsula – given that it is elongated and narrow – seemed like an island covered by pine forests. Because it was mistaken for an island, its misleading name was ascribed and transmitted throughout history.

New Anklyosaur Fossils From Maastrichtian Cretaceous Romania

Geological log profile of the Vurpăr locality, Transylvanian Basin, Romania. CH: channel deposit; F: floodplain deposit; P: paleosol deposit.

New ankylosaurian material from the Upper Cretaceous of Transylvania

Authors:

Ősi et al

Abstract:

Ankylosaurian remains from the Transylvanian Basin, Romania, are extremely rare. More than 100 years after the discovery of the first and only better-known assemblage, namely the type material of Struthiosaurus transylvanicus, new ankylosaurian material has been discovered in the Maastrichtian of the Haţeg Basin, as well as at another locality (Vurpăr), in the Transylvanian Basin, that is described here. The material consists of one tooth in a small jaw fragment (from the Haţeg Basin) and at least two accummulations of associated, as well as several isolated, postcranial elements (from Vurpăr). No diagnostic elements are preserved that would overlap with the type of S. transylvanicus, so we cannot assign any of the new specimens to this species. The tooth shows marked differences compared to those of other anklyosaurs including S. austriacus and Hungarosaurus in having only six, more or less equally sized, apically pointed cusps separated by deep grooves. The postcranial material from Vurpăr represents at least three different individuals. The humerus is the most diagnostic element among the postcranial remains being most similar both in size and morphology to humeri referred to as Struthiosaurus from different European localities, thus here we refer the humerus and probably associated elements preserved in one assemblage to as cf. Struthiosaurus sp.; the remaining specimens from Vurpăr are retained as Nodosauridae indet. Histological studies have confirmed the adult nature of all sampled bones in the Vurpăr ankylosaur material suggesting that these fully grown animals were of similar size to Struthiosaurus, a small-bodied nodosaurid the ontogenetic status of which, however, has never been investigated histologically. The obviously diminished body size of the Transylvanian ankylosaurs compared to other members of the clade could be explained by insular dwarfism using the same histology-based argument as presented for Magyarosaurus.

New Campanian/Maastrichtian Cretaceous Island Vertebrate Site From Romania

Petreşti-Arini – An important but ephemeral Upper Cretaceous continental vertebrate site in the southwestern Transylvanian Basin, Romania

Authors:

Vremir et al


Abstract:

The Transylvanian region of Romania preserves some of the most unusual and iconic dinosaurs in the global fossil record, including dwarfed herbivores and aberrant carnivores that lived during the very latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) in an ancient island ecosystem (the Haţeg Island). A series of artificial outcrops recently exposed during a hydroelectric project, the Petreşti-Arini section near Sebeş in the Transylvanian Basin, records a 400+ meter sequence documenting the transition from fully marine to terrestrial environments during the Campanian–Maastrichtian. Calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy indicates that the lower marine beds in this section, part of the uppermost Bozeş Formation, can be assigned to the CC22 biozone, corresponding to the lower–mid upper Campanian. These beds smoothly transition, via a brackish-water unit, into the fully continental Maastrichtian Sebeş Formation. Dinosaur and pterosaur fossils from the uppermost Bozeş Formation can be assigned a late Campanian age making them the oldest well-dated terrestrial fossils from the Haţeg Island, and indicating that the classic Haţeg dinosaur fauna was becoming established by this time, coincident with the first emergence of widespread land areas. Vertebrate fossils occur throughout the overlying Sebeş Formation at the site and are dominated by the small-bodied herbivorous dinosaur Zalmoxes. The dominance of Zalmoxes, and the absence of many taxa commonly seen elsewhere in Maastrichtian sites in Romania, suggests the possibility that either the Petreşti-Arini section preserves a somewhat unusual near-shore environment, or the earliest Haţeg Island dinosaur communities were structured differently from the more diverse communities later in the Maastrichtian. Alternatively, due to the limited sample size available from the studied succession, it is also conceivable that sampling biases give an incomplete portrayal of the Petreşti-Arini local fauna. Support for any one of these alternative hypotheses requires further data from Petreşti-Arini as well as from the larger Transylvania area.

Barbatodon oardaensis: A new Kogaionid Multituberculate Mammal From Maastrichtian Cretaceous Romania

A new kogaionid multituberculate mammal from the Maastrichtian of the Transylvanian Basin, Romania

Authors:

Codrea et al

Abstract:

The Latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) terrestrial sedimentary sequences of the Haţeg Basin in Transylvania are well known for the so-called “Haţeg Island” vertebrate faunas, which evolved in endemic (insular?) conditions. In addition to frogs, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, birds and dinosaurs, peculiar multituberculate mammals have been recorded, all belonging to the family Kogaionidae. Here, a new species of the genus Barbatodon is reported from the Maastrichtian Şard Formation in the Transylvanian Basin (Alba County, Romania). Barbatodon oardaensis n. sp. is characterized by M1 cusp formula 3:4:2 and is much smaller than the two other Maastrichtian kogaionids from Transylvania, Barbatodon transylvanicus and Kogaionon ungureanui. The origin and paleobiogeography of kogaionids are discussed.

Barbatodon transylvanicus: A Cretaceous Multituberculate Mammal from Romania

What I find interesting is the reported use of iron to strengthen the teeth.  Do we have extent examples of this?

Introducing the Romanian Stocky Dragon

By describing a new double-clawed and highly-unusual relative of Velociraptor, paleontologists have answered a long-standing question: what did the Late Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs in Europe look like? Balaur bondoc, described this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first reasonably complete skeleton of a meat-eating dinosaur from the final 60 million years of the Age of Dinosaurs in Europe and provides insight into an ecosystem very different from that of today. Europe at the end of the Cretaceous was awash in higher seas and was an island archipelago dominated by animals smaller and more primitive than their relatives living on larger landmasses.

"We've all been waiting for something like this, and the wait has yielded an interesting surprise," says Mark Norell, chair of the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History and one of the authors of the research paper describing the fossil. "B. bondoc is heavy, with unexpectedly stocky limbs and fused bones. It shows just how unusual the fauna of the area was during the waning years of the dinosaur era."

"Balaur might be one of the largest predators in this ecosystem because not even a big tooth has been found in Romania after over a hundred years of research," says co-author Zoltán Csiki of the University of Bucharest. "Fragmentary remains of Balaur were already known for more than 10 years, but the morphology is so weird we didn't have any idea where to fit them."

Balaur bondoc, which means "stocky dragon," was unearthed in Romania by geologist and co-author Mátyás Vremir of the Transylvanian Museum Society. Higher sea levels at the end of the Cretaceous flooded much of present-day continental Europe, so Romania, which was an island, is now one of the best windows into Europe at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. Other fossils discovered in these deposits include dwarf sauropods that were the size of cows and tiny duck-billed dinosaurs.

[...]

The new theropod fossil, the type specimen, is a partial skeleton that includes leg, hip, backbone, arms, hand, rib, and tail bones. But B. bondoc has 20 unique features when compared to its nearest relatives, including a re-evolved functional big toe with a large claw that can be hyperextended, presumably used to slash prey. Because there is also a large claw on the second toe, as is typical of the group of dinosaurs to which B. bondoc belongs, the new species has unusual double-clawed feet. Unique features are also found in other parts of the foot, leg, and pelvis. The feet and legs are short and stocky, with bones fused together, and the pelvis has enormous muscle attachment areas, indicating that this species was adapted for strength over speed. Finally, the hand is atrophied and some of the bones are fused, features that would have made grasping difficult. This, in combination with the leg and foot traits, indicates that the lower limbs rather than hands were used to grasp and disembowel prey.

"Balaur is a new breed of predatory dinosaur, very different from anything we have ever known," says Stephen Brusatte, a graduate student at Columbia University who is affiliated with the Museum. "Its anatomy shows that it probably hunted in a different way than its less stocky relatives. Compared to Velociraptor, Balaur was probably more of a kickboxer than a sprinter, and it might have been able to take down larger animals than itself, as many carnivores do today."

"Nevertheless, Balaur is the size of an oversized turkey and unlike what we know of the large predators from other parts of the world at the same time period, like Tyrannosaurus or Carnotaurus," says Csiki. "As European dinosaur faunas were known to be peculiar, we half-expected to find peculiar predators as well. But, as the first good record of these, Balaur surely exceeds our most daring expectations."

no time and then some.

Magyarosaurus: Horse Sized Sauropod

(image credit: Mihai Dumbrav)

In 1895, the sister of an eccentric palaeontologist called Franz Baron Nopcsa discovered small dinosaur bones on their family estate in Transylvania. Nopcsa interpreted these as the remains of dwarfed animals that had once lived on an island. Among these finds were a number of bones belonging to a sauropod dinosaur which Nopcsa named Magyarosaurus dacus, after his native country.

A team of scientists led by Koen Stein and Professor Dr. Martin Sander from the University of Bonn, decided to cut up the fossil bones of the dwarfed dinosaur and study their microstructure. "It's astonishing that the microanatomy of these bones has been preserved for us to study after 70 million years," says Stein, who carried out the research as part of his PhD studies. "Bone is a living tissue, and throughout an animal's life it is constantly dissipating and building up again." Humans, for example, have completely resorbed and rebuilt their skeleton by the time they are fully grown. This also occurred in sauropod dinosaurs. "We were able to distinguish these rebuilding features in Magyarosaurus, which prove that the little dinosaur was fully grown," Koen Stein explains.

Paper here.

Island Dwarfing in Romanian Dinosaurs Confirmed

The idea of the small prehistoric beasts on Hateg Island, Romania, was proposed 100 years ago by the colourful Baron Franz Nopcsa, whose family owned estates in the area.

He found that many dinosaur remains on Hateg were half the size of their close relatives in older rocks in England, Germany, and North America.

The baron's theory has been tested for the first time by Professor Mike Benton at the University of Bristol, and six other authors from Romania, Germany, and the United States.

The team found that the Hateg Island dinosaurs were indeed dwarfs and not just young dinosaurs.

A favourite theme of evolutionary ecologists is whether there is an ''island rule'' - where large animals isolated on islands evolve to become smaller.

Three species of the Hateg dinosaurs - the plant-eating sauropod Magyarosaurus and the plant-eating ornithopods Telmatosaurus and Zalmoxes - are half the length of their nearest relatives elsewhere.

The team examined these three dinosaurs, each represented by many specimens. They found no evidence of any large bones such as they would expect to find in their normal-sized relatives.

More importantly, a close study of the bones confirmed that the dinosaurs had reached adulthood so they were not just underdeveloped youngsters.

Colorful baron? hmmm. Sounds like there's a story behind the science there.