Prehistoric Birds Take Flight and Pique Public Interest
Birds have really taken flight these past two decades—ancient birds, that is! A flurry of new research has led to a flurry of books with titles like Dinosaurs of the Air, The Mistaken Extinction: Dinosaur Evolution and the Origin of Birds, Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs, and The Rise of Birds, among others. Many of these books appeared as this new heyday was dawning, and today barely a month goes by without some major new find or journal article.
Much of this activity has been thanks to remarkable finds in China of exquisitely preserved feathered dinosaurs, dinosaur-like birds, bird-like dinosaurs, and early birds themselves. The October 2, 2020 airing of NPR’s Science Friday radio program featured young Jingmai O’Connor, described by some as “the punk rock paleontologist.” Working with the Field Museum of Chicago and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Jingmai is in the center of the action when it comes to bird ancestors and ancient birds.
During her Science Friday interview, she noted how the field has benefited because paleontology is still a relatively new discipline in China and thus has generated much excitement and—consequently— much more funding compared to what comes out of the U.S. Treasury. New finds are made on an especially frequent basis as more eyes look to the ground among poor Chinese farmers seeking to supplement incomes with dramatic new fossils.
And all science is benefiting as ancient birds take flight from the stony pages of time!
PULLING TO KEEP GLOWING TREASURES GLOWING
The neighboring towns of Ogdensburg and Franklin, New Jersey, straddle the Franklin-Sterling Hill mining district. The district is worldfamous both for the economic wealth it once produced (33 million tons of high-grade zinc ore) and for its variety of collectible minerals (357 species). What really put it on the mineral collector’s map was the 91 fluorescent minerals that glow beautifully. Thanks to these and many rare mineral species, it’s been said to be one of the top ten mineral localities in the world!
When the Franklin mine closed in 1954, locals wanted to preserve its heritage, so a group got together in 1959 to form the Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society (FOMS). One notable result of their efforts was the founding of the nonprofit Franklin Mineral Museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1965. When the neighboring Sterling Hill Mine in Ogdensburg was shuttered in 1986, a similar museum—the Sterling Hill Mining Museum—was also established three years later, which now encompasses the Zobel Hall Museum and the Warren Museum of Fluorescence. By 1991, the entire district was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
During normal times, you could explore the various museums in these two towns, go for guided tours inside the mines themselves (including the fabled “Rainbow room”), enjoy self-guided tours of old mining equipment and machinery outside, and even collect fluorescent minerals from mine dumps during fee digs. In fact, at various times of the year,
you could go on both day and night digs on the Buckwheat Dump—a 3.5-acre area of old mine tailings.
One of the truly big events is the annual spring Super Diggg™ organized and run since 2005 by the Delaware Valley Earth Science Society, with collecting time running from morning until well into the night. This event usually occurs in coordination with the annual FOMS/Sterling Hill Gem, Mineral & Jewelry show, and outdoor rock swap and sale. But these are not normal times. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Franklin Mineral Museum closed its doors early this year until further notice. The Sterling Hill Mining Museum did its best to still cater to rockhounds. While its mine tours were canceled, they kept the gift shop open with limited hours and offered continuing outdoor collecting opportunities, weather permitting, with the requisite face mask and social distancing requirements. But, as of October 19, even that is canceled. Per their website, “no tours, no collecting, and no gift shop.”
The 2020 Super Diggg™ to the Buckwheat Dump originally scheduled for April 25, was postponed to a projected date of November 7, but as of the publication of this issue, I’ve seen no recent confirmation of that date. During this time of the pandemic, it is strongly suggested you keep tabs on the Super Diggg™ website (http://sterlinghillsuperdig. org), where you can ask to be added to their mailing list to receive updates.
After the “year that never was,” here’s hoping these museums and local mineral societies are soon able to keep a glowing treasure glowing for us all!
Given uncertainties in light of the pandemic, check ahead of time if you plan to visit these museums.
Franklin Mineral Museum
973-827-3481; info@franklinmineralmuseum.com; https:// franklinmineralmuseum.com Sterling Hill Mining Museum (973) 209-7212; info@ shmmuseum.org; http:// sterlinghillminingmuseum.org
CHARTING EARTH CLIMATE OVER 66 MILLION YEARS
In the September 11, 2020 issue of the journal Science, a team of environmental and earth scientists led by Thomas Westerhold (University of Bremen, Germany) unveiled a highly detailed and well-dated record of climate change around the world, stretching across the entire Cenozoic Era of the past 66 million years, or ever since the dinosaurs died out.
Previously, paleontologists had used fossils such as microscopic foraminifera to “read” the record of climate change from ocean sediments.
Such single-celled forams have tiny carbonate shells that incorporated and thereby recorded oxygen- and carbon-isotopes in the waters around them. Such isotopes, in turn, gave scientists clues about the state of the climate. But such analyses also came with uncertainties. For instance, sediments holding such forams may have been reworked and redeposited, leading to uncertainty as to when, exactly, they were laid down in the fossil record. Plus, there are clear gaps here and there in that record.
Westerhold’s team has managed to come up with much more highly resolved and exact measures of carbon and oxygen isotopes from deepsea benthic sediments, including forams. In their article, they talk a lot about “astrochronology,” “astronomical forcing,” “dynamical systems,” “recurrence plots,” “nonlinear relationships,” “stochastic processes,” “recurrence analysis,” and other jargon that will confuse even the best of us.