Paso Internacional Los Libertadores

The Paso Internacional Los Libertadores, also called "Cristo Redentor", is a mountain pass in the Andes between Argentina and Chile. It is the main transport route out of the Chilean capital city Santiago into Mendoza city in Argentina and so carries quite heavy traffic.
Overview.
From the Argentine side the route to the pass is a slow, gentle incline until entering a tunnel at approximately elevation. On the Chilean side the slope has a far higher grade, and the road descends down a long series of switchbacks to make the descent.
Opened in 1980, the Tunnel of Christ the Redeemer (Spanish: Túnel Cristo Redentor) is long, and serves as an important land crossing between Chile and Argentina. At the middle of the tunnel is the national border, which is the termini of Chile Route 60 and Argentina Route 7. The path can be closed during winter because of heavy snows blocking both ends and the threat of rockfall.
Its name comes from the four-ton "Christ the Redeemer of the Andes" ("Cristo Redentor de los Andes") statue placed in 1904 near the Uspallata Pass at an elevation of . The pass was the highest point of the road before the opening of the tunnel lowered the maximum elevation by , eliminated 65 switchbacks and shortened the route by .
On 19 September 2013, nearly 15,000 Chileans got stranded on the Argentine side, when the pass had to be closed for 10 hours because of freezing temperatures and between 40 and 50 centimeters of snow.
Alternative proposed tunnels.
In order to ease the dependence on the only tunnel in the area and to permit year-round crossing, two lower tunnels have been proposed. One of them is the "Túnel Juan Pablo II" ("John Paul II Tunnel"), which would be constructed at an altitude of between , long, to join the towns of Horcones, Argentina and Juncal, Chile.
Another proposed tunnel, named "Paso Las Leñas" ("Las Leñas Pass"), at an elevation of and of length, would connect El Sosneado in Argentina (near San Rafael) and Machalí, Chile.
The Aconagua Bi-Oceanic railway is a proposal for a base tunnel under this pass.


Schramidontus

Schramidontus is a genus of crustaceans from the Late Devonian period found in Strud, Belgium, closely related to "Angustidontus" and classified as part of the order Angustidontida. It is an important genus because of its position in the eumalacostracan family tree and the insight study of the genus may give of the origin of the Decapoda. The generic name derives from Frederick Schram, who helped the scientific community in the field of the Palaeozoic malacostracans and the suffix "-idontus" in relation to the similarities between "Schramidontus" and "Angustidontus". The specific name is from Labas, a stream that flows near Strud quarry, where the genus was discovered.
Description.
"Schramidontus" had a subcylindrical smooth carapace and a triangular telson. It had two pairs of grasping maxillipeds, the second being twice as big as the first, that it could use to bring prey to the maxillae, maxillulae and its large mandibles. This feature was not present in its only close relative, "Angustidontus", which probably used its maxillipeds to hit and hold its prey. In addition, "Schramidontus" had six pairs of pereiopods. The first five were subchelated, short and ending in a hooked dactylus, and the last pair was shorter and narrower with a small simple dactylus.
Classification.
"Schramidontus" is classified as part of the extinct family Angustidontidae together with the pelagic genus "Angustidontus" from Europe and North America. This family is the only family classified as part of the eucarid order Angustidontida. Angustidontids are diagnosed as eucarids that possess carapaces and stalked eyes with "scale-like exopods" on the second antennae, an elongated pleion and a tail fan. These features make the group distinct from most eumalacostracan crustaceans and they are classified as part of the Eucarida due to their carapace being fused to thoracic segments 1-7.
The cladogram below is based on the relationships of the Eucarida assumed by Gueriau, Charbonnier and Clément (2014), based on the gradual modification of the first thoracopods into the maxillipeds seen in the Decapoda.
Paleoecology.
The small quarry of Strud in which "Schramidontus" was found has no evidence of marine influence, but it suggests a continental environment. In these deposits fossil remains have been found of several animals such as tetrapods and a fauna of well-preserved freshwater crustaceans, including decapods, conchostracans, notostracans and anostracans. There is also evidence of fossil remains of plants such as early seed-plants. The Belgian angustidontids can be recognized as early continental eumalacostracans, probably freshwater. "Schramidontus" was found in a continental environment, and although this represents the first documentation of continental angustidontids, it differs from the marine environment in which "Angustidontus" is usually found.
The first two pairs thoracopods are inserted laterally in the mouth. Several factors such as the size and articulation of the three endopodal articles suggest that these thoracopods were able to bring prey to the maxillae, maxillulae and its large mandibles. In addition, the spiny occlusal margins of their dactyli suggest that the genus was fed by filtration. Therefore, these thoracopods are considered to be maxillipeds.


Carpodaptes

Carpodaptes was a genus that encompassed small, insectivorous animals that roamed the Earth during the Late Paleocene. Specifically, "Carpodaptes" can be found between the Tiffanian and Clarkforkian periods of North America. Although little evidence, this genus may have made it through to the early Eocene. They are known primarily from collections of jaw and teeth fragments in North America, mainly in southwestern Canada and northwestern America. "Carpodaptes" are estimated to have weighed approximately 53-96 grams which made them a little bigger than a mouse. However small, "Carpodaptes" was a placental mammal within the order Plesiadapiformes that appeared to have a high fiber diet. This insect-eating mammal may have been one of the first to evolve fingernails in place of claws. This may have helped them pick insects, nuts, and seeds more easily off the ground than with paws or claws. "Carpodaptes" was thought to only exist in North America but recent discoveries of dentition fragments have been found in China.
Dentition.
The fossil record of "Carpodaptes" is relatively sparse excluding jaw and teeth fragments. However, much can be concluded off of these few fragments. Their upper jaw had a dental formula of 2:1:3:3 and 2:1:2:3 on their lower jaw. "Carpodaptes" are characterized by their plagiaulacoid dentition seen on their first lower premolar. Their p4 had 5-7 apical cusps depending on the specimen. This enlarged p4 would have potentially allowed the mammal to have crack open nuts and seeds as well as act as a slicing function on invertebrates. Their p3 is characterized by lingual apical cusps that are flattened and sometimes even concave. In some species of "Carpodaptes", their upper M1 indicates a specialized wedging function that acts in accordance with their p4. The varying development of dentition between "Carpodaptes" species indicates they were adapting their teeth to conform with a high fiber diet. However, their teeth are still rather primitive in comparison to other early-diverging primatomorphans of this era. "Carpodaptes" are also recognized by the loss of their p2, and some species even show to have a shortening of their mandible to potentially exert a greater biting force. Finally, their upper molars are studded and file-like which would have assisted with breaking open nuts and seeds.
Taxonomy and phylogeny.
"Carpodaptes" is part of an early diverging group of primates that lived approximately 60 million years ago. This genus was first identified in 1921 by Matthew and Granger. They are sister taxa to "Carpolestes" and "Carpocristes". "Carpocristes", unlike "Carpolestes" and "Carpodaptes", dominated Asia whereas the other two thrived in North America. Within the genus, 7 species have been identified: "Carpodaptes aulacodon, Carpodaptes cygneus, Carpodaptes hazelae, Carpodaptes hobackensis, Carpodaptes jepseni, Carpodaptes rosei," and "Carpodaptes stonleyi."
It was originally thought that "Carpodaptes" was a subset of the genus "Carpocristes" until recent discoveries found the progression of ridges, serrations, and apical cusps more well defined in "Carpodaptes" than "Carpocristes". This suggests that "Carpocristes" diverges from an earlier common ancestor with "Carpodaptes" rather than "Carpodaptes" being a direct descendant of "Carpocristes".
The brief connection of North America with Europe could help explain how "Carpodaptes" expanded to Asian localities, however it is perplexing that no fossil evidence has been recovered from European regions. This may suggest "Carpodaptes" survived more efficiently in a warm and dry climate than a warm and moist one.
Paleoecology.
"Carpodaptes" prospered during the late Paleocene and some species made it through the early Eocene. Fragments of "Carpodaptes" have been notably found in the Swan Hills of Canada, Big Horn Basin, and Clark Forks Basin in Wyoming. This suggests that "Carpodaptes" lived in a subtropical, humid climate in which there would have been plenty of flora to seek refuge from larger animals. This coincides with the hypothesis that "Carpodaptes" mainly consumed fruits and nuts as there is a corresponding diversification of plant species in the late Paleocene. At the same time, insects began to recover from the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum which allowed "Carpodaptes" to expand into broader niches with a broader dietary requirement. The radiation of insect herbivores in the late Paleocene is a possible explanation of a rise in CO2 levels at the end of the Paleocene. This would have been in part of "Carpodaptes" radiation into scansorial insectivores. It could also explain why many species of "Carpodaptes" did not survive through the Paleocene-Eocene boundary.


Paudash Lake

Paudash Lake is a lake in south central Ontario southwest of Bancroft along Highway 28. The lake is located just north of Silent Lake Provincial Park in Haliburton County, south of the panhandle of Algonquin Provincial Park. The nearest communities to Paudash Lake are the village of Cardiff, close to the lake's Inlet Bay, and the hamlet of Paudash to the northeast of Lower Paudash Lake. Actually two lakes, 'Paudash' and 'Lower Paudash', the lakes are located on the Crowe River, near its head waters, which flows into the Trent River at Crowe Bay north of Campbellford.
Geography and geology.
Paudash Lake has several different sections within it; Lower Paudash Lake (Outlet Bay) to the east, North Bay to the north, Joe Bay to the southwest and Inlet Bay to the northeast. The lake has a surface area of and a maximum depth of . Fish species include largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, walleye, lake trout, perch, pumpkinseed, northern cisco, white sucker, and small bait fish of various types.
The area contains over 10,000 lakes which were formed by glaciers some 11,000 years ago during the end of the last ice age. In the heart of the Ontario lake country are the two areas known simply as "Muskoka" and "Haliburton" (which are both actually a district or county respectively). To most people in Ontario, the area is simply part of what is known as cottage country, in reference to the some 250,000 summer cottages on the lakes of southern Ontario.
North Bay has massive pink granite, partially tree-covered cliffs, rising hundreds of feet out of the lake along the shoreline. Except in the bare-rock areas, most of the lake's shore is lined with trees and heavy foliage.
Paudash Lake is located within the Canadian Shield. During the last Ice age, glaciers scraped away a deep layer of soil, through to metamorphosed sedimentary deposits and the original Precambrian bedrock. As a result, the soil atop the Canadian Shield is typically thin, less than a deep in many cases. In addition, there is a great deal of exposed bedrock, such as the beautiful cliffs on Paudash Lake. All of the lakes in the Shield were carved out or sculpted by glaciers, and usually have the characteristically rocky shorelines, although many depressions contain deep glacial deposits in addition to water. In the case of Paudash Lake, the local bedrock is metamorphosed sedimentary rock, including limestone (now marble), which helps to neutralize acid rain .
Water and climate conditions.
The water of Paudash Lake is clear and typically reaches within six feet of the surface in the summer. The lake is fed by numerous small streams forming the headwaters of the Crowe River, including that from four small lakes including Silent Lake, Deer Lake, Anderson Lake, and Centre Lake. Based on this inflow, and the outflow to the Crowe River, the provincial government estimates that the water of the lake is replaced every three years. The lake is normally totally frozen over from mid-December to the third week in April, when the ice usually breaks up.
History.
 Paudash Lake was named after Chief George Paudash, a Crane-doodem (clan) member of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indians of the Hiawatha Reserve of Rice Lake. The immediate area was first settled by pioneer families in the early 1870s. One of the original families, the McGillivray's, are still part of the Paudash Lake community. In 1875, Malcolm McGillivray Sr. took a land grant of at Concession V111, a point of land jutting into Paudash Lake, and later built the first bridge over the narrows between the upper and lower lakes (by today's Anchorage Resort). While the first summer cottage was built on Big Island by the Johnson family in North Bay in the early 1920s, there was very little development on the lake, and indeed in Haliburton as a whole, until the late 1930s, when the two great access highways from the south were constructed. Highway 28 in the east, and Highway 35 in the west, with Highway 118 later connecting the two. The War then delayed development on the lakes, and finally in the late 1940s, development got under way.
From the 1880s to the 1940s there were commercial resorts in Muskoka and Haliburton that were accessible by railroad and boat, with local transport over dirt roads by horse and buggy and later, cars and buses. The uncoordinated and ill-advised attempts by the government to develop Muskoka and Haliburton between 1850 and World War II for other purposes were a failure, however, due to the area's general unsuitability for agriculture and industry.
Major cottage development on Paudash Lake got underway in the 1950s and continued through the 1960s. Today, the lake is largely 'developed' with 640 properties, and virtually all new construction involves the removal of 50- or 60-year-old cottages and their replacement by modern cottages, usually designed by architects. Fifteen percent of the land on the lake is unoccupied, permanent 'Crown land', as well as one large island.
Ojibwas on Paudash.
On November 5, 1818, the six Chiefs of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Nation of southern and central Ontario, including Chief Paudash, sold and conveyed to the Crown what is today all of southern Muskoka and southern Haliburton (below 45 degrees north), for the "consideration of the yearly sum of Seven Hundred and Forty Pounds Province Currency in goods at the Montreal price". Chief Paudash's "mark" on the Treaty was, in accordance with the custom of signing as a representative of the Crane-doodem, a tiny stick drawing of a Crane (Public Archives of Canada R.G. 10, ser.4, v.2, Treaty No. 20.). The use of the Crane-doodem agrees with accounts that say the Chief who made the mark, probably George Paudash father of Mosang, and grandfather of Robert, was the last hereditary grand chief of the Missassaugas. The grand chief was derived from the chief of the dominant doodem. This is coincidentally interesting also because the crane image dominates the Petroglyphs at Stoney Lake in Petroglyph Provincial Park. It MIGHT suggest that the crane is a recent addition graphically laying claim to the site by the Ojibwa (or at least Mississaugas).
Despite the fact that Paudash Lake is named after an Indian Chief, there is universal agreement among anthropologists and archeologists that the Ojibwa tribe of Ontario never established regular settlements in most of Haliburton. This was not simply due to the Indians' nomadic habits, but also due to the extremely long and harsh winters and the lack of major rivers bisecting the area for transportation. Another significant influence was the fact that the lakes in Haliburton were not a major food source. But this is actually irrelevant because it is common knowledge among Ojibwa themselves and among scholars of other aboriginal hunter-fisher-gatherer peoples, that they did not establish permanent settlements because they had to move from one site of hunting-fishing-gathering to another and stayed only as long as needed. (It would be analogous to how modern sports fishermen try one lake and another, one spot and another.) But this has nothing to do with naming. As with the Eels Lake and Jacks Lake south of Paudash, it was the practice of early settlers - when the Indian presence still had strength - to name lakes after the apparent dominant Indian clan or extended family patriarch or chief. Jack's Lake was named after Jack Cow and Eels Lake after Eel Cow. It follows that settlers experienced the visits now and then of the Paudash family at Paudash Lake and that was how the name was established.
As Haliburton did, and still does, contain a tremendous amount of game, the Ojibwa tribe did use the area as a summer hunting ground at least at the time of early settlers. At the time of the early settlers in the 1870s and 1880s, there were still small Indian hunting parties passing through the Paudash Lake area during the summer. While they had no permanent camp on the lake, the hunting parties would occasionally spend the night on Wolf Point on Joe Bay or at the north end of Silent Lake. Certainly Paudash Lake did have an earlier name in the Anishinaabe language spoken by the Ojibwa, as did all major Haliburton lakes. However, very few other major Haliburton lakes have retained Anishinaabe associated names, the most notable being Kashagawigamog (long-winding-water). But settlers did have a tendency of naming lakes after the clan chief who appeared to identify with a lake, as described above, and for that reason the use of the Paudash name could suggest that the Paudash clan frequented that lake and considered it their hunting-fishing territory in the same way Jack's Lake and Eel's Lake were named after two brothers - Jack and Eel, and that settler history shows Jack fiercely claiming his territory (breaking beaver traps set by others). In early settler times, names of lakes were not given by governments but by settlers according to what family or chief/patriarch of clan seemed to claim it their territory. Aboriginal boat using hunter gatherer tribes were organized in this way - and it is a natural pattern because it can be found throughout the northern wilderness among boat-using peoples - they defined their hunting territories according to water basins, and if it was a river, then the extended families or clans claimed tributaries and lakes of that river system. There could be some 5-6 clans on branches of that river system. wandering from campsite to campsite in a territory determined by this activity, dependent on where their canoes could go. But these clans might be small - maybe a dozen or so people - and natural human social needs brought clans together usually annually in a common place. For river oriented clans, that common place would be at the bottom of that river system. Paudash Lake, like Eels and Jacks, not to mention Stoney and others, are all on waterways flowing to Rice Lake; thus Rice Lake became the congregating site and governments saw it, and most early original reserves were defined at these congregating sites and then the clans were encouraged to remain and farm and not travel to their traditional hunting territory (that was passed down from father to son within a clan). Paudash Lake, thus, is a Rice lake Ojibwa lake, and that is why its name is Paudash - the same as that of a dominant Rice Lake family in Ojibwa history.
By the time the Pilgrim Fathers landed in the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in 1620, French Canadians had already explored Muskoka and Haliburton and had established relations with the Indians on Georgian Bay of the Great Lake Huron, even further west of Muskoka. Indeed, before England took over New France, French were dealing with the Ojibwa. But the matter of the Rice Lake and in general Mississauga Ojibwa is complicated because the Mohawks invaded southern Ontario in the mid-1600s and pushed the original Huron settlements, and any Algonquian (Ojibwa) friends north up the Trent Severn valley. There is a question of whether the Mississaugas originated on the north shore of Lake Huron, or whether they were originally the Ojibwa of the major north lake Ontario rivers who were driven out in the mid-1600s along with their friends the Hurons, and returned in the late 1600s to reclaim their original territories from the Mohawk nations who had settled there. (All those settlements vanished by 1700, and what remained in all areas were the Mississaugas.) This is the relevance of the French information, but its relationship to Paudash Lake is quite indirect and this entire paragraph is going somewhat off the subject of Paudash Lake.
Wildlife.
Paudash Lake is largely surrounded by semi-wilderness, which usually begins right behind the cottages near the lakeshore. The larger mammals include the American black bear, moose, elk, the eastern Canadian wolf, white-tailed deer, the North American cougar, and the Canadian lynx. The smaller mammals include the red fox, beaver, raccoon, muskrat, mink, otter, marten, fisher, weasel, ermine, skunk, porcupine, woodchuck, red and gray squirrel, northern flying squirrel, the snowshoe rabbit, and various shrews, moles, bats, chipmunks, voles, mice, and lemmings.
Reptiles and amphibians include the snapping, spotted, wood, blanding's, and painted turtle, American toad, spring peeper, and the gray tree, striped chorus, bull, green, mink, wood, pickerel, and leopard frog. There are no poisonous snakes in Haliburton, but there are the following non-poisonous snakes: common garter, common water, brown, eastern ribbon, hognose, eastern ringneck, smooth green, milk, and red-bellied.
The unofficial symbol of Haliburton and Muskoka is the loon, also honoured as Ontario's provincial bird. In addition to loons, other water birds on the lake include the great blue heron, the great egret, the sandhill crane, and the hooded merganser. Other water birds include a wide variety of ducks, grebes, bitterns, herons, terns, and mergansers as well as the Canada goose, the double-crested cormorant, the ring-billed and herring gull, the common sandpiper, the killdeer, the common snipe, the Virginia rail, the sora, the American coot, and the common moorhen.
Boreal tree varieties.
Paudash Lake lies within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Forest region.
The native trees of the Paudash Lake area include the silver, red, sugar, mountain, and striped maple; the jack, red, and white pine; the largetooth and trembling aspen; the yellow and white birch; black, white, and possibly red spruce; the bur and red oak; the white, black, and red ash; the pin, black, and choke cherry, and the balsam fir, eastern tsuga (hemlock), tamarack (larch), balsam poplar, white cedar ("Thuja occidentalis"), American beech, ironwood ("Ostrya virginiana"), and speckled alder.
Environmental considerations.
During the last 40 years, a great deal of time and effort has been expended by both the government and the residents to ensure that Paudash Lake remains in as natural a state as possible and free of pollution. The installation of any septic tank system is carefully controlled by the building code and must be well removed from the lakeshore. Over the years, careful checks have been made to ensure against septic leakage into the lake, including dye tests in all septic facilities and tests for any septic bacteria around the entire shoreline. However, water quality problems from earlier area mining operations (i.e. Faraday and Dyno mines) are still adversely impacting water quality.
While Paudash is a natural lake, it is raised artificially with a small dam at the east end of the lake at the outlet to the Crowe River. This dam helps maintain the lake at a fixed water level.
In order to construct a boat dock on the shoreline, an approved plan and permit is required to ensure that the dock will not harm marine life. In addition, all property owners are encouraged to maintain their shoreline in a natural state, with attractive native foliage, and avoid fertilizing lawns.
Today, the lake is an example of conservation efforts over the years and has a local watershed conservation authority which works for continued success in this area. There have been efforts in recent years to ensure the undisturbed retention of the natural wetland areas of the lake which act as both a biofilter and a refuge for wildlife.
Paudash Lake is a headwater of the Crowe Valley Watershed. It is a cold water lake supporting a healthy population of lake trout and small mouth bass. Maintaining and improving water quality has been and continues to be a key objective of permanent and seasonal residents of Paudash Lake. The Paudash Lake Conservation Association, formed in 1973, has been engaged and effective in a number of initiatives to support this objective.
Data from the Provincial Water Quality Monitoring Network shows elevated concentrations of cobalt similar to those found in surface water around Cobalt, Ontario. Subsequent testing by the Ministry of the Environment concluded in a 2003 report that only sites immediately downstream of Madawaska Mine (none of which are on Paudash Lake) "consistently exceeded Provincial Water Quality Objectives (PWQO) for uranium contamination", but noted as well that concentrations of uranium and radon-226 in the top level of sediments in lower Paudash Lake are higher than background levels and higher than in subsurface sediments, suggesting relatively recent dispersal of these contaminants.
In general terms, the association tests each year for phosphorus and for water clarity and the results are shown to be relatively normal. There are 33 wetlands on Paudash Lake, and as a result of association activities, some years ago it was determined that they comprise a total of five wetland complexes, two of which are provincially significant. Billboards the association has placed at various public places around the lake identify these and educate the public as to the environmental protections these offer in maintaining water quality through filtration and the value they provide in flood control.
The association has significantly contributed to education and practical action in sponsoring a Shoreland Restoration Project involving the planting of indigenous plants in shoreland areas with voluntary public support in the 1990s, and subsequently in 2007 has offered a Dock Talk Program to local participants providing advice on a variety of issues affecting water quality, such as erosion, septic tank maintenance, water pollution and other issues with proposed recommendations for prevention and mitigation.
In 2004, the association commenced the development of a Paudash Lake Management Plan, with the participation and support of the entire Paudash Lake community, local municipalities and government agencies. The plan, published in 2006, contains more than a hundred recommendations relating on the one hand to proposals for inclusion in official plans and zoning bylaws and on the other hand advice to local residents concerning protection of water quality, water levels and fisheries and mitigation of noise, excessive boating traffic, reduction of night light exposure and many other factors.
Water quality has been and remains a key concern and a consistent objective among residents of Paudash Lake.
Roads and services.
As of 2008, all properties on Paudash Lake are serviced by Hydro One, either by land line or marine cable. All properties are also serviced by Bell Telephone, by land line or marine cable, and all properties are within range of cell telephone service. Bell offers only dial-up Internet service, but satellite high-speed internet service is available. TV service is available off-the-air or by satellite, as there is no available cable service. The lake is in range of all major broadcast facilities; such as channel 2 Global, channel 4 and channel 12 CHEX (CBC), channel 6 CTV, channel 33 CBC and channel 42 TVO.
Properties on Joe Bay are serviced by all-weather roads, as are portions of Lower Paudash Lake (Outlet Bay) and Inlet Bay. There are still a number of shoreline areas in North Bay, Outlet Bay, and Inlet Bay which contain water access only properties and North Bay, itself, is largely inaccessible in the winter except by snowmobile. The lands surrounding the lake are by and large wilderness areas except for the narrow band of cottages near the shoreline.
Mail service is available five days a week, Monday through Friday, at either a post box on the property or at central post boxes placed at various locations on the lake access roads. The area is serviced by both FedEx and UPS, however, newspaper delivery is not available.
Summer recreation.
North Bay features a public sand-bottom beach (with rest rooms) that can be accessed by car off of Highway 118 (via North Bay Beach Road) and by boat. The beach features a boat launching ramp and there is an annual regatta that takes place on the beach. Water-skiing and wakeboarding are available. Many of the classical outboard ski boats are seen, as well as the latest inboard wakeboard and ski boats and smaller sailboats. Boat traffic on the lake is usually quite moderate, even on holiday weekends. There are numerous species of fish available in the lake. There is also an annual Rock Bass Derby for the children of the lake held by the Conservation Association.
The Bancroft Village Playhouse is about 20 minutes from the lake and was built in the 1920s.
Winter recreation.
Paudash Lake, like similar freshwater lakes in Ontario, freezes over during the winter months with 18 to 24 inches (46-61 centimeters) of ice which will support a fully loaded dump truck. During this time the lake is often traversed by snowmobilers and ice fishing is also common. Just over away, Silent Lake Provincial Park has over of cross-country ski trails, featuring natural, wood-fired warming huts along the trails.
The Paudash Trail Blazers Snowmobile Club maintain trails throughout the region during the winter months. The Central Region of Ontario contains over of interconnected, groomed snowmobile trails which, in turn, are interconnected to the Ontario system of of maintained snowmobile trails. During the last 20 years, the Ontario provincial government and the huge Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs has spent some million on the development of the largest snowmobile trail system in the world. It is regularly patrolled by the snowmobile clubs and the Ontario Provincial Police.
Marinas, food, and lodging.
There are three marinas on the lake offering standard marine services:
Lodging and food is offered at the following establishments:


Mount Lucy Anne Formation

The Mount Lucy Anne Formation is a formation cropping out in Newfoundland.


Protobalistum

Protobalistum imperiale is an extinct prehistoric tetraodontid bony fish that lived from the Lutetian epoch of Eocene Monte Bolca.
In life, it would have resembled a somewhat-flattened boxfish with five massive spines along the anterior-dorsal side, with the longest spine directly above the forehead, and the shortest spine directly in front of the dorsal fin. It is distinguished from its close, sympatric relative, "Spinacanthus", in that its scales are large, and form a sort of armor. (In "S. cuneiformis", the individual scales are relatively small, and do not touch each other).
"Protobalistum imperiale" and "Spinacanthus" were a part of the ecosystem of the lagoon that would become Monte Bolca. It has been suggested that, because of their similarity to boxfish, and due to their close relation to modern-day triggerfish, spinacanthids may have preyed on shellfish and small fish.


Choquesafra

Choquesafra or Choquezafra (possibly from Quechua "chuqi" metal, every kind of precious metal / gold (<Aymara), "sapra" beard) is a mountain in the Vilcabamba mountain range in the Andes of Peru. It is located in the Cusco Region, La Convención Province, on the border of the districts of Inkawasi and Vilcabamba. Choquesafra lies west of the Panta group and south of a river named Rancahuayco. The Huajchay River originates northwest of the mountain. It flows to the southwest as a right affluent of the Apurímac River.


Scotia Plate

The Scotia Plate () is a tectonic plate on the edge of the South Atlantic and Southern oceans. Thought to have formed during the early Eocene with the opening of the Drake Passage that separates South America from Antarctica, it is a minor plate whose movement is largely controlled by the two major plates that surround it: the South American Plate and the Antarctic Plate.
Roughly rhomboid, extending between and , the plate is wide and long. It is moving WSW at /year and the South Sandwich Plate is moving east at /year in an absolute reference frame. It takes its name from the steam yacht "Scotia" of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902–04), the expedition that made the first bathymetric study of the region.
The Scotia Plate is made of oceanic crust and continental fragments now distributed around the Scotia Sea. Before the formation of the plate began (40Ma), these fragments formed a continuous landmass from Patagonia to the Antarctic Peninsula along an active subduction margin. At present, the plate is almost completely submerged, with only the small exceptions of South Georgia Island on its northeastern edge and the southern tip of South America.
Tectonic setting.
Together with the Sandwich Plate, the Scotia Plate joins the southernmost Andes to the Antarctic Peninsula, just like the Caribbean Plate joins the northernmost Andes to North America, and these two plates are comparable in several ways. Both have volcanic arcs at their eastern ends, the South Sandwich Islands on the Sandwich Plate and the Lesser Antilles on the Caribbean Plate, and both plates also had a major impact on global climate when they closed the two major gateways between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.
North Scotia Ridge.
The northern edge of the Scotia Plate is bounded by the South American Plate, forming the North Scotia Ridge. The North Scotia ridge is a left-lateral, or sinistral, transform boundary with a transform rate of roughly 7.1 mm/yr. The Magallanes–Fagnano Fault is passing through Tierra del Fuego.
The northern ridge stretches from Isla de los Estados off Tierra del Fuego in the west to the microcontinent South Georgia in the east, with a series of shallow banks in between: Burdwood, Davis, Barker, and Shag Rocks. North of the ridge is the deep Falkland Trough.
South Georgia microcontinent.
Experts in plate tectonics have been unable to determine whether the South Georgian Islands are part of the Scotia Plate or have been recently accreted to the South American Plate. Surface expressions of the plate boundary are found north of the islands suggesting a long-term presence of the transform fault there. Yet seismic studies have identified strain and thrusting south of the islands indicating the possible shift of the transform fault to an area south of the island. It has also been suggested that the plate bearing the islands may have broken off from the Scotia Plate, forming a new independent South Georgia microplate, yet there is little evidence to make this conclusion.
The South Georgia microcontinent was originally connected to the Roca Verdes back-arc basin (southernmost Tierra del Fuego) until the Eocene. Before that, this basin went through a series of geological transformations during the Cretaceous, through which South Georgia was first buried, then made a topographic feature again by the Late Cretaceous. At about 45 Ma, South Georgia, still part of the South American Plate, got buried again and something, possibly rotation of the Fuegian Andes, completed the break-up and allowed South Georgia a second exhumation. During the Oligocene (34–23 Ma) South Georgia was reburied again as seafloor spreading took place in the West Scotia Sea. 10 Ma, finally, the South Georgia microcontinent was uplifted as a result of the collision with the Northeast Georgia Rise.
South Scotia Ridge.
The southern edge of the plate is bordered by the Antarctic Plate, forming the South Scotia Ridge, a left-lateral transform boundary sliding at a rate of roughly 7.4–9.5 mm/yr that occupies the southern half of the Antarctic-Scotia plate boundary. The relative motion between the Scotia Plate and the Antarctic Plate on the western boundary is 7.5–8.7 mm/yr. Though the South Scotia Ridge is overall a transform fault, small sections of the ridge are spreading to make up for the somewhat jagged shape of the boundary.
At the eastern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, the beginning of South Scotia Ridge, a small and heavily dissected bank degenerates into several outcrops dominated by Paleozoic and Cretaceous rocks. A small basin, Powel Basin, separates this cluster from the South Orkney microcontinent composed of Triassic and younger rocks.
The eastern continuation of the ridge, the Scotia Arc east of the South Sandwich Plate, are the South Sandwich island arc and trench. This volcanic active island arc has submerged ancestors in Jane and Discovery banks in the southern ridge.
Shackleton Fracture Zone.
The western edge of the plate is bounded by the Antarctic Plate, forming the Shackleton Fracture Zone and the southern Chile Trench. The Southern Chile Trench is a southern extension of the subduction of the Antarctic and Nazca plates below South America. Heading south along the ridge, the subduction rate decreases until its remaining oblique motion evolves into the Shackleton Fracture Zone transform boundary. The south-western edge of the plate is bounded by the Shetland microplate separating the Shackleton Fracture Zone and the South Scotia Ridge.
North of South Shetland Islands and along the southern half of the Shackleton Fracture Zone is the remnant of the Phoenix Plate (also known as Drake or Aluk Plate). Around 47 Ma the subduction of the Phoenix Plate started as the propagation of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge continued. The last collision between Phoenix ridge segments and the subduction zone was 6.5 Ma and at 3.3 Ma movements had stopped and the remnants of the Phoenix Plate was incorporated into the Antarctic Plate. The southern part of the Shackleton Fracture Zone is the former eastern edge of the Phoenix Plate.
East Scotia Ridge.
The eastern edge of the Scotia Plate is a spreading ridge bounded by the South Sandwich microplate, forming the East Scotia Ridge. The East Scotia Ridge is a back-arc spreading ridge that formed due to subduction of the South American Plate below the South Sandwich Plate along the South Sandwich Island arc. Exact spreading rates are still being disputed in the literature, but it has been agreed that rates range between 60 and 90 mm/yr.
The banks of northern Central Scotia Sea are superposed on oceanic basement and the spreading centre of the West Scotia Sea. Analyses of samples of volcaniclastic rocks from these sites indicate they are constructs of a continental arc and in some cases oceanic arc similar to those being formed in the currently active South Sandwich Arc. The oldest volcanic arc activity in the central and eastern regions of the Scotia Sea are 28.5 Ma. The South Sandwich forarc originated in the Central Scotia Sea at that time but has since been translated eastward by the back-arc spreading centre of the East Scotia Ridge.
Timeline.
The timing of the formation of the Scotia Plate and opening of the Drake Passage have long been the subject of much debate due to the important implications for changes in ocean currents and shifts in paleoclimate. The thermal isolation of Antarctica, engendering the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet, has largely been attributed to the opening of the Drake Passage.
Formation.
The Scotia Plate originated about (Ma), during the late Mesozoic at the Panthalassic margins of the Gondwana supercontinent between two Precambrian cratons, the Kalahari and East Antarctic Cratons, now located in Africa and Antarctica. Its development was also influenced by the Río de la Plata Craton in South America. The initial cause for its formation was the break-up of Gondwana in what became the south-west Indian Ocean.
The earliest marine fossils found on the Maurice Ewing Bank, on the eastern end of the Falkland Plateau, are associated with the Indian and Tethys Oceans and probably slightly more than 150 Ma. The Weddell Sea opened and spread along the southern margin of the Falkland Plateau and into the Rocas Verdes back-arc basin which extends from South Georgia and along the Patagonian Andes. Fragments of the inverted oceanic basement of this basin are preserved as ophiolitic complexes in this area, including the Larsen Harbour complex on South Georgia. This makes it possible to restore the original position of the South Georgia microcontinent south of the Burdwood Bank on the western North Scotia Ridge south of the Falkland Islands.
The Rocas Verdes basin was filled with turbidites derived from the volcanic arc on its Pacific margin and partly from its continental margin. The Weddell Sea continued to expand which led to the extension between the Patagonian Andes and the Antarctic Peninsula. In the Mid-Cretaceous (100 Ma) the spreading rate in South Atlantic increased significantly and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge grew from 1200 km to 7000 km. This led to compressional deformations along the western margin of the South American Plate and the obduction of the Rocas Verdes basement onto this margin. Structures associated with this obduction are found from Tierra del Fuego to South Georgia. The acceleration of the westward motion of South America and the inversion of the Rocas Verde Basin finally lead to the initiation of the Scotia Arc. This inversion had a strike-slip component which can be seen in the Cooper Bay dislocation on South Georgia. This geological regime lead to the uplift and elongation of the Andes and the embryonic North Scotia Ridge, which resulted in the initial eastward relocation of the South Georgia microcontinent and formation of the Central Scotia Sea.
Opening of Drake Passage.
Between the Late Cretaceous and the Early Oligocene (90–30 Ma) little changed in the region, except for the subduction of the Phoenix Plate along the Shackleton Fracture Zone. The Late Paleocene and Early Eocene (60–50 Ma) saw the formation of South Scotia Sea and South Scotia Ridge — the first sign of separation of the southern Andes and the Antarctic Peninsula — which resulted in seafloor spreading in the West Scotia Sea and hence the initial opening of a deep Drake Passage. The ongoing lengthening of the North Scotia Ridge beyond the Burdwood Bank caused South Georgia to move further east. The banks of the North Scotia Ridge contain volcanic rocks similar to those found in Tierra del Fuego, including on Isla de los Estados on the easternmost tip.
During the early Eocene (50 Ma), the Drake Passage between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica was a small opening with limited circulation. A change in relative motion between the South American Plate and the Antarctic Plate would have severe effects, causing seafloor spreading and the formation of the Scotia Plate. Marine geophysical data indicates that motion between the South American Plate and the Antarctic Plate shifted from N-S to WNW-ESE accompanied by an eightfold increase in the separation rate. This shift in spreading initiated crustal thinning and by 30–34 Ma, the West Scotia Ridge formed.
One of the most prominent features in the Scotia Plate itself is the median valley known as the West Scotia Ridge. It was produced by two plates that are no longer independently active: the Magallanes and Central Scotia Plates. The ridge consists of seven segments separated by right-lateral transform offsets of various lengths. The western region of the Scotia Plate can be dated to 26–5.5 Ma.
A complex pattern of spreading prior to 26 Ma is probably present in the oldest parts of this spreading regime; i.e. west of Terror Rise (north of Elephant Island) and on the shelf slope of Tierra del Fuego. Until 17 Ma the Central Scotia Plate moved quickly eastwards, fuelled by the eastern trench migration, but both plates have moved very slowly since.


Megachirella

Megachirella is an extinct genus of stem-squamate that lived about 240 million years ago during the Middle Triassic and contains only one known species, Megachirella wachtleri. It is known from a partial skeleton discovered in the Dolomites of Northern Italy and was described in 2003.
Description.
"Megachirella" is known exclusively from a partial skeleton, preserved in anatomical connection. The find includes an almost complete skull, the front half of the body and part of the front legs. The skull, although devoid of the front part of the snout, is rather robust and large; the neck is moderately elongated and the front legs are large and strong. The dimensions do not exceed in length, and the appearance is similar to that of a strong-legged lizard.
Classification.
Megachirella was discovered in the Dont Formation of the area of Braies, in South Tyrol, and described in 2003. It was classified as a member of Lepidosauromorpha, the clade of reptiles that includes lizards, snakes, the tuatara and their closest extinct relatives, at the time. In particular, the fossils show some similarities, mainly in the skull, with some primitive forms such as the Eolacertilia. A phylogenetics analysis in 2013 confirmed that it was a lepidosauromorph closely related to the crown group Lepidosauria.
A study in 2018, led by Tiago R. Simōes from the University of Alberta, found that "Megachirella" was a stem-squamate, making it the oldest known member of the order Squamata, the order that includes lizards, snakes and amphisbaenians (worm lizards). The study was conducted by performing high-resolution microfocus X-ray computed tomography (micro-CT) scans on the fossil specimen of "Megachirella" to gather detailed data about its anatomy. This data was then compared with a phylogenetic dataset combining the morphological and molecular data of 129 extant (living) and extinct reptilian taxa. The comparison revealed "Megachirella" had certain features that are unique to squamates. The study also found that geckoes are the earliest crown group squamates, not iguanians.
Paleobiology.
Despite being found in marine deposits, the fossil of "Megachirella" shows no adaptation to aquatic life. On the contrary, characteristics like the strong front legs, the shape of the claws, the well-ossified carpus and the hollow ribs lead one to think that this animal was well adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle. The specimen was probably transported to a shallow coastal environment due to heavy storms after it died.


Marocaster

Marocaster is an extinct genus of sea stars in the family Goniasteridae. It existed in what is now Morocco during the early Cretaceous period. It was described by Daniel B. Blake and Roland Reboul in 2011, and the type species is "M. coronatus".


Seppo koponeni

Seppo is an extinct genus of spiders, possibly of the superfamily Palpimanoidea, that lived about 180 million years ago, in the Early Jurassic (Lower Toarcian) of what is now Europe. The sole species Seppo koponeni is known from a single fossil from Grimmen, Germany. With the scorpion "Liassoscorpionides", it is one of the two only known arachnids from the Lower Jurassic of Germany. "Seppo" is the first unequivocal Early Jurassic spider, and was recovered from the "Green Series" member of the Toarcian Ciechocinek Formation.
Description.
The spider was described from a single female specimen. It is unknown if was an adult. The carapace is unknown, and besides that has preserved bowed converging sides with a curved posterior margin with straight posterior border of the labium, with row of at least 12 peg teeth along the cheliceral furrow, no true teeth, scattered setae on anterior surface, and slender pedipalps. Legs are preserved, the first and second being much longer than the third and fourth. All are well covered in setae and bristles, especially on the tibiae and metatarsi of leg I. It most likely belongs to the Palpimanoidea, based on the presence of cheliceral peg teeth.
Discovery.
The single known specimen was found on locality known for its fossil insects in Grimmen, near Greifswald, at the north of Germany. It was reported in 2003, when Ansorge did a recompilation of insect taxa on the Toarcian strata of Germany and England. The specimen was recovered from the Falciferum zone (Exaratum subzone), c. 180 Ma, and presented as "Araneae gen. et sp. nov." (Chelicerata). It was recovered from a fragment of calcareous nodule from the grey-green claystone, recovered from the closed since the 90's clay pit of Klein Lehmhagen, near Grimmen, Western Pomerania, Germany. It is curious for being one of the rare few examples of spiders found on calcium carbonate (along with others from the Eocene limestone of the Isle of Wight, England). The specimen was found with some parts preserved as external moulds, and these show setation and spination. This is an exception, since most of the specimen is an internal mould of calcium carbonate. The specimen was labeled with the number MB.A 2966, and deposited in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, being named in 2014 by Paul A. Selden & Jason A. Dunlop "Seppo koponeni", after the Finnish arachnologist Seppo Koponen, to celebrate his 70th birthday.
Phylogeny.
The genus was described as the oldest Palpimanoidea or the nearest sister taxon to the group. Hovewer the exact familiar placement of the genus is unclear, as was assigned to the family based on the presence of peg teeth, a synapomorphy thought to be unique to the superfamily. Howevery recent revisions of modern spiders have shown that this character is also present in the Mimetidae and other Entelegynae families. Early araneomorphs such as those in the clade Synspermiata and the families Filistatidae, Austrochilidae and Leptonetidae lack it, locating the genus as either a stem Palpimanoidea or a stem Entelegynae.
Ecology.
"Seppo koponeni" is one of the only two arachnids ever to have been found in the Toarcian rocks of north Germany, outnumbered by several thousand insect specimens at several localities. The different between the number of insects as opposed to arachnids has not been studied in depth. A possibility is that because insects can fly over water, they fall into it far more easily than spiders. It is unclear how the spider ended on a marine clay deposit, far from the land, although several theories have been suggested: ballooning is a possibility as a method of transport, perhaps helped by severe storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Another possibility might be that it was carried out to sea on floating vegetation, as wood remains have been recovered in the deposit.
On nearby land, ground dwellers were represented by arachnids, such as "Seppo" and scorpions, but also by Gryllidae, such as "Protogryllus dobbertinensis", grylloblattodeans such as "Nele jurassica", and dermapterans. These arthropods never moved far from where they lived and are generally very rare in the rocks. "Seppo" shows a rather unusual morphology, with large and porrect chelicerae and a robust leg I, contrasted with a short leg III. The robust and well-armed first legs, directed forwards, give the impression that they were prey capture appendages, a morphology typical of a sit-and-wait predator, while the short third legs are more typical of web spiders, especially orbweavers, but also palpimanoids. Short third legs are not usually found on spiders that are substrate dwellers, which have more equal legs. "Seppo" was probably not a habitual ground dweller. The armoured front legs related to capturing dangerous prey are typical of many extant palpimanoids that are araneophagous.


Santiago Roth

Santiago Roth (14 June 1850 – 4 August 1924) was a Swiss Argentine paleontologist and academic known for his fossil collections and Patagonian expeditions.
Life.
Kaspar Jakob (Spanish: Santiago) was born and raised in Herisau, Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland, as the oldest of 12 children. He attended school in the nearby town of St. Gallen, where his teacher Bernhard Wartmann raised his interest in the science of nature. Wartmann was a well known botanist and director of the Museum of History of Nature in St. Gallen.
For economic reasons the Roth family emigrated to Argentina in 1866, where they initially settled in the Colonia Baradero (Buenos Aires Province). There, Roth started a small business with leather goods. In his sparetime he collected plants, butterflies and rocks.
He married Elisabeth Schuetz, a teacher educated in Switzerland, who emigrated with her family to Argentina in 1872 as well.
After finding his first fossils he became an ardent explorer and collector of extinct mammals. Already in 1878 he was able to sell a collection of fossils to Dr. Laussen, a Dane, who gave these bones to the Museum of Zoology in Copenhagen. Roth was encouraged to continue finding and collecting rare prehistoric mammals as a profession. He contacted Prof. Carl Vogt at the University of Geneva, who was interested to buy a further collection from Roth. The transport arrived in Geneva heavily damaged. Therefore, Roth traveled to Switzerland in 1880 to repair the skeletons in the laboratories of the university. There, he had the additional benefit of being able to attend lectures on geology, zoology and osteology.
After his return to Argentina, he continued his search in the basin of the Paraná River and in the Entre Ríos Province belonging to the Pampas. He published his findings in his mother tongue, German.
Roth was continuously looking for buyers to generate income for his large family. Such an opportunity arose in 1887 when he traveled to Switzerland with his family. The Swiss geologist Prof. Albert Heim, ETH Zurich had recommended that the Swiss authorities should buy his collection nr. 5. Today, this collection is held by the Museum of Zoology at the University of Zurich and includes a huge, extinct ground sloth (Megatherium) as well as a large armored mammal (Glyptodon). A special exhibition including the Roth collection was organized in 2000.
During his stay in Switzerland he joined Albert Heim on his hydrogeological excursions to study subterranean water flows. These experiences were of much value in his country of residence, Argentina.
Roth extended his range of paleontological expeditions to Patagonia, including the areas along the Rio Negro, Limay River and Chubut River, partly together with F. Machon, another researcher from Switzerland from 1885 to 1891. There, he saw Nahuel Huapi Lake for the first time.
Francisco Moreno (known as "Perito Moreno", the famous Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia is named after him), first director of the La Plata Museum in the new capital of the Province Buenos Aires, named Roth as head of the Department of Paleontology at this museum in 1895. His friend Florentino Ameghino worked at this institution as well.
Moreno had a mandate from the Government of Argentina to work out a solution for the border disputes with Chile in the Andes region. Roth joined Moreno in 1897 – 1899 and again in 1902 on his expeditions. While at Lake Nahuel Huapi Moreno asked Roth to find a suitable place for a new settlement on the shores of this lake. He proposed a particular site and filed corresponding land claims for Swiss and German families already living in the area. This was the origin of the town to be named San Carlos de Bariloche later on.
In a publication dated 1903 Roth defined the order of Notoungulata as a category of prehistoric hoofed mammals found only in South America.
Roth was named professor for paleontology at the National University of La Plata in 1905. In 1908 he also became director of the Geological-Topographical Institute of the Buenos Aires Province. In this capacity he organized a series of wells to find groundwater.
The Argentine government sent him to the arid regions of the Santiago del Estero Province where he installed many wells. The local population was very grateful to get better access to drinking water.
His last expedition to Patagonia took place from 1921 to 1922.


List of volcanoes in Tristan da Cunha

This is a list of active and extinct volcanoes.


Zorillo Formation

The Zorillo Formation is a Mesozoic geologic formation in Mexico. Fossil sauropod tracks have been reported from the formation.


Geology of Burundi

The geology of Burundi consists largely of metamorphic rocks of Proterozoic age with inliers of basement rocks of Archaean age. The former are metasediments of the Burundian and Malagaarasian Supergroups which are of Meso- and Neoproterozoic age, respectively. Granites intrude the rocks from the Burundian Supergroup along a 350 km zone of mafic and ultramafic intrusions. Just like Tanzania, the Malagarasian Supergroup has Neoproterozoic rocks. The top of this group contains the Kibago Group, which consists of sandstones, quartzites, shales, and a basal conglomerate.
The Western Rift around and northwards of Bujumbura is partly filled by Cenozoic sediments.
Tectonics.
A fault system crosscuts the Kibaran Belt in the center of the country from North to South, and is known as the N-S accident. The fault system is either a late Kibaran suture or a late Kibaran lateral strike-slip deformation.
Economic geology.
Mining began in the 1920s though minerals are not a significant contributor to Burundi's economy, accounting for less than 1% of GDP. Among other minerals, mining in Burundi yields tungsten, tin, tantalum and niobium and possesses resources of nickel, uranium and rare earths. The mineral and petroleum industry is mostly stagnant due to poor infrastructure and transportation, as well as a civil war which ended in 2005. Many studies into mineral extraction feasibility have occurred, including gold lodes near Myinga and alluvial gold deposits in the northwest. Nickel laterite has been found near Musongati that could yield 30,000 mt/a of ore.


Riches Island Formation

The Riches Island Formation is a formation cropping out in Newfoundland.


Procompsognathus

Procompsognathus is an extinct genus of coelophysid theropod dinosaur that lived approximately 210 million years ago during the later part of the Triassic Period, in what is now Germany. "Procompsognathus" was a small-sized, lightly built, ground-dwelling, bipedal carnivore, that could grow up to 1 m (3.3 ft) long.
Discovery and naming.
The fragmentary and poorly preserved skeleton of "Procompsognathus" was found in the Middle Stubensandstein member of the Löwenstein Formation at the "Weiße Steinbruch", the quarry of Albert Burrer on the northern slopes of the Stromberg region near Pfaffenheim in Württemberg, Germany. The discovery was made by Albert Burrer in the spring of 1909 in white sandstone and gray/blue marl sediments that were deposited during the Norian stage of the Triassic period, approximately 210 million years ago.
The holotype SMNS 12591, consisted of three blocks of sandstone: one showed a small, seven-centimetre-long, severely crushed skull with lower jaws. The second and third contained the partly articulated remains of a postcranial skeleton, including twenty-nine vertebrae of the neck, back and tail; ribs; elements of the shoulder girdle and a forelimb; an ilium; both pubis and the hindlimbs. It represents an adult individual.
Burrer sent the specimen to Professor Eberhard Fraas of the "königliche Stuttgarter Naturalienkabinett". In a lecture on 9 October 1911, Fraas referred to it by the name "Hallopus celerrimus", considering it a jumping form of dinosaur that was approximately long, and was associated with the origin of birds. Later, Fraas decided to use a different name in the official publication. Fraas in 1913 named the genus "Procompsognathus" with as type species, "Procompsognathus triassicus". The type specimen is housed in the collection of the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany.
In 1921, Friedrich von Huene referred two more specimens, both also found in the Burrer quarry, in 1908, to "Procompsognathus": SMNS 12352, a partial skull and lower jaws from a larger individual than the holotype, and SMNS 12352a, an isolated left hand.
The genus name "Procompsognathus", means "before elegant jaw", and is derived from the name of another dinosaur, "Compsognathus". A later (Jurassic) small predatory dinosaur, "Compsognathus" takes its name from the Greek word "kompsos" (κομψός) which can be rendered as "elegant", "refined" or "dainty" and the Greek word "gnathos" (γνάθος) which means "jaw". The prefix "Pro" (προ) implies "before" or "ancestor of", although this direct lineage was not supported by subsequent research. The specific name "triassicus" refers to the geologic time period to which this dinosaur belongs, the Triassic.
Description.
"Procompsognathus" may have been about long, though Fraas in 1913 estimated a length of . In 2010 Gregory S. Paul gave an estimate of for the weight with a length of . A biped, "Procompsognathus" had long hind legs, short arms, large clawed hands, a long slender snout with many small teeth, and a stiff tail. The femur discovered for the type specimen of this genus measures 93mm and the tibia, 112mm. The tibia is approximately 20% longer than the femur in "Procompsognathus", an adaptation which has been strongly correlated with the development of cursorial habits in dinosaurs, suggesting that they were good runners.
Distinguishing anatomical features.
A diagnosis is a statement of the anatomical features of an organism (or group) that collectively distinguish it from all other organisms. Some, but not all, of the features in a diagnosis are also autapomorphies. An autapomorphy is a distinctive anatomical feature that is unique to a given organism or group. In 2000, Rauhut noted that its scapula is more slender than that of "Coelophysis bauri".
In 1998 Chatterjee noted that the skull of "Procompsognathus" possesses a suite of theropod synapomorphies, which included:
Classification.
Type specimen SMNS 12591.
While it is undoubtedly a small, bipedal carnivore, the extremely poor preservation of the only known "Procompsognathus" fossil makes its exact identity difficult to determine. Fraas originally assigned it to the Dinosauria. In 1923 Franz Nopcsa coined a Procompsognathinae, and in 1929 von Huene created a Procompsognathidae, though these concepts are today rarely used. In 1932 von Huene saw it as a member of the non-dinosaurian Pseudosuchia. It has since then usually been considered a theropod dinosaur, with some exceptions. In 1992 Paul Sereno and Rupert Wild stated that the holotype specimen consisted of fossils from two separate animals: the postcranial skeleton would be a theropod, likely a coelophysoid related to "Segisaurus", but the skull and the von Huene specimens they referred to the basal crocodylomorph "Saltoposuchus connectens". However, in 1993 Sankar Chatterjee after further preparation refuted their assessment and regarded the skull as that of a theropod similar to "Syntarsus", and demonstrated that it could not have been a crocodylomorph, as it lacks the landmark features of this group. Sereno (1997) and Ezcurra and Novas (2007) conducted phylogenetic analysis that supported the placement of "Procompsognathus" in the taxon Coelophysidae. This genus may be most closely related to "Segisaurus halli".
Referred specimens SMNS 12352 and SMNS 12352a.
Much controversy has arisen however, about the association with the later material referred by von Huene. In 1982 John Ostrom claimed that SMNS 12352 and SMNS 12352a originated from a taxon different from the holotype. In 2006 and 2008 Fabien Knoll concluded that SMNS 12352 represented a crocodylomorph and SMNS 12352a a crocodylomorph or some other basal archosaur. The postcranial skeleton, for which he reserved the inventory number SMNS 12591, was a coelophysoid; and the skull, now indicated with the number SMNS 12591a, a perhaps more derived theropod, possibly a basal member of the Tetanurae. In 2012 Knoll after a CAT-scan reaffirmed that SMNS 12352 was a crocodylomorph, but established it was different from "Saltoposuchus".
Oliver Rauhut and Axel Hungerbuhler (2000) noted features of the vertebrae which suggest that "Procompsognathus" may be a coelophysid or ceratosaur, and Carrano "et al." (2005), in their re-study of the related genus "Segisaurus", found both "Segisaurus" and "Procompsognathus" to belong to the Coelophysidae within Dinosauria. In 2004 David Allen considered "Procompsognathus" to be a primitive, non-dinosaurian ornithodiran.
Paleoecology.
"Procompsognathus" lived in a relatively dry, inland environment and may have eaten insects, lizards and other small prey. Contemporaries of "Prompsognathus" included the coelophysoids "Halticosaurus" and "Dolichosuchus", as well as the Sauropodomorphs "Plateosaurus gracilis" and "Efraasia minor". Weishampel, "et al." (2004) noted that theropod tracks and fossils of an unnamed herrerasaur genus are known from the Lower Stubensandstein.
In popular culture.
"Procompsognathus" appears in the novel "Jurassic Park" and its sequel "The Lost World" by Michael Crichton. The species is sometimes referred to as "compys" by the characters. While the author invents a venomous bite for "Procompsognathus" with soporific effects, there is no evidence to support venom in "Procompsognathus".


Awqa Urqu

Awqa Urqu (Quechua "awqa" enemy, "urqu" mountain, "enemy mountain", Hispanicized spelling "Auca Orjo") is a mountain in the Chunta mountain range in the Andes of Peru. It is situated in the Huancavelica Region, Castrovirreyna Province, Aurahuá District. Awqa Urqu lies southeast of Wichinka Lake.


Lherz Massif

Lherz Massif is an upper mantle peridotite body in the French Pyrenees. The rock lherzolite takes its name from this rock body.


Cerro Pared Norte

Cerro Pared Norte is a mountain located in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region of Chile. It lies on the Northern Patagonian Ice Field, at the center of a mountain ridge with steep slopes and sheer cliffs, at whose southern and northern tips lie, respectively, "Cerro Pared Sur" (2,548 m) and an unnamed summit. A glacier named after the mountain originates from their eastern slopes. "Pared Norte" (Spanish for "North Wall") gets its name from its shape and location.
The mountain and the surrounding area form part of Laguna San Rafael National Park.


Leptolepides

Leptolepides is an extinct genus of prehistoric ray-finned fish that lived during the early Tithonian stage of the Late Jurassic epoch.


Wolfville Formation

The Wolfville Formation is a Triassic geologic formation of Nova Scotia. The formation is of Carnian to early Norian age. Fossils of small land vertebrates have been found in the formation, including procolophonid and early archosauromorph reptiles and cynodonts. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation, although none have yet been referred to a specific genus.


Morinosaurus

Morinosaurus (meaning "Morini lizard", for an ancient people of northern France) was a genus of sauropod dinosaur from an unnamed formation of Kimmeridgian-age Upper Jurassic rocks from Boulogne-sur-Mer, Départment du Pas-de-Calais, France. It is an obscure tooth genus sometimes referred to the Lower Cretaceous English wastebasket taxon "Pelorosaurus".
History and taxonomy.
The French paleontologist H. E. Sauvage based this genus on a single worn tooth, apparently now lost, which he compared to those of "Hypselosaurus". Oddly, despite illustrations of the tooth, and the implications of comparing it to a titanosaur with narrow-crowned teeth, it was included as a synonym of "Pelorosaurus" in two major reviews. "Pelorosaurus", being a putative brachiosaurid, is assumed to have had broad-crowned teeth.
Age, however, was not an issue, because it was referred to the possible "Pelorosaurus" species "P. manseli" (="Ischyrosaurus"), which was also from the Upper Jurassic (the question of whether "Ischyrosaurus" or any Jurassic species should be included in "Pelorosaurus" at all is another issue). The most recent review considers it to be a "nomen dubium" without further comment.
Sauvage also suggested that a partial right humerus belonged to the type individual.
Paleobiology.
"Morinosaurus" would have been a large, quadrupedal herbivore. Having titanosaur-like teeth may suggest more titanosaurian- or diplodocoid-like feeding habits, but this is speculative. The tooth crown was 50 mm (1.97 im) tall and had a cross-section of .


Giovanni Battista Brocchi

Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Brocchi (18 February 177225 September 1826) was an Italian naturalist, mineralogist and geologist.
Biography.
Giovanni Battista Brocchi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied jurisprudence at the University of Padua, but his attention was turned to mineralogy and botany. The Bassanese naturalist Antonio Gaidon, guided him towards his first scientific studies and was Brocchi's first master in the geological and mineralogical disciplines. Gaidon introduced Brocchi to the naturalists Giuseppe Olivi and Alberto Fortis, the latter accompanying Brocchi on geological excursions in the Bassano area. In 1802 he was appointed professor of botany in the new lyceum of Brescia; but he more especially devoted himself to geological researches in the adjacent districts. The fruits of these labors appeared in different publications, particularly in his "Trattato mineralogico e chimico sulle miniere di ferro del dipartimento del Mella" (1808) a treatise on the iron mines of the Mella traditional region. These researches procured him the office of inspector of mines in the recently established Kingdom of Italy, and enabled him to extend his investigations over a great part of the country.
In 1811 Brocchi produced a valuable essay entitled "Memoria mineralogica sulla Valle di Fassa in Tirolo"; but his most important work is the "Conchiologia fossile subapennina con osservazioni geologiche sugli Apennini, e sul suolo adiacente" (2 vols., Milan, 1814), containing accurate details of the structure of the Apennine range, and an account of the marine shell fossils of the Italian Tertiary strata compared with existing species. These subjects were further illustrated by his geognostic map, and his "Catalogo ragionato di una raccolta di rocce, disposto con ordine geografico, per servire alla geognosia dell' Italia" (Milan, 1817). His work "Dello stato fisico del suolo di Roma" (1820), with its accompanying map, is likewise noteworthy. In it he corrected the erroneous views of Scipione Breislak, who conceived that Rome occupies the site of a volcano, to which he ascribed the volcanic materials that cover the seven hills. Brocchi pointed out that these materials were derived either from Monte Albano, an extinct volcano, twelve miles from the city, or from the Monti Cimini, still farther to the north.
In 1814 Brocchi presented the thesis that species, like individuals, age and eventually die out — an idea that later influenced Charles Darwin.
Several papers by him, on mineralogical subjects, appeared in the "Biblioteca Italiana" from 1816 to 1823. In the latter year, Brocchi sailed for Egypt, in order to explore the geology of that country and report on its mineral resources. Every facility was granted by Mehemet Ali, who in 1825 appointed him one of a commission to examine the territory of the recently conquered Kingdom of Sennar; but Brocchi fell a victim to the climate, and died at Khartoum on the 25th of September 1826, possibly of dysentery. Much of his writings and collections are now housed in the Museo Civico di Bassano.


Salar de Pedernales

Salar de Pedernales is a large salt flat in the Atacama Region of Chile. It is located just to the west of the Cordillera de Claudio Gay. A small lake still exists in the salt flat and provides a habitat for birds such as the Andean flamingo.
Salar de Pedernales appears to exist thanks to faults, some of which have been identified on its western side and others have influenced the positions of springs.


Sepultura Formation

The Sepultura Formation is a geologic formation in Mexico. It preserves fossils dating back to the Paleogene period.


Kone (volcano)

Kone is a volcano located in the Oromia region of Ethiopia. It is located on the Main Ethiopian Rift, which belongs to the most northern branch of the East African Rift Valley. Borchotto the nearest town is 5 km away and the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa is situated 160 km west of Kone. The nearest volcano is Mount Fentale located 30 km to the northwest, with the Boseti Gudo Volcano further away to the southeast. Kone takes up an area of 250 square miles and has an elevation of 1619m.
History of eruptions.
The complex tectonic history within Ethiopia has made the eruption history difficult to interpret from the Stratigraphic sequence. From the stratigraphy four volcanic sequences of eruption can be determined. Three Silicic phases and then a basalt phase. The most recent basalt phase is dated around 1820. This date corresponds to local legends of the eruption and the lack of vegetation growth on the lava flows provides evidence of this eruption.
Geology.
Kone, also called Gariboldi, is made up of seven nested calderas, lava flows and basaltic cinder cones. (Not to be confused with the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt in Northern America.) There are two fault lines that have caused the volcanic activity within Kone, normal faults, which are part of the Wonji fault belt and ring fractures. The normal faults cause magma to rise inducing the volcanic activity. The ring fractures have caused the calderas collapse. Both of these faults have caused activity within Kone's recent history. The calderas widths can range from 1.5 to 5 km.
There are many rock types identified at Kone and they are divided into five main groups, trachytes, comenditic rhyolites, ignimbrites, pumices, syenite inclusions and basalts. Trachytes and comenditic rhyolites form the main volume of the rock in the Complex. The ignimbrites have formed massive green sheets ranging in thickness from 15 cm to 25 m. The pumice deposits over the ground are common within Kone's Volcanic Complex and range in thickness from 50 cm to 20 m. Most of the pumice is found interlocked with the ignimbrites. There have been three basalt lava types identified at Kone, aphyric basalt, olivine basalt and a third basalt which contains large phenocrysts of olivine, augite and plagioclase. These different rock types provide evidence for different eruptive phases. Kone is unusual due to the number of calderas in the Volcanic Complex, Fentale contains only one calderas in comparison.
Renaming.
Kone's name is a recent addition taken from a local tribal word. The historical name of Kone was Gariboldi. Named according to local legend after an engineer who was responsible for building a road through two of the collapsed calderas. Thereby connecting Addis Ababa to Djibouti during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia during the 1940s.


Arizaro volcanic field

Arizaro volcanic field is a group of volcanoes west of the Salar de Arizaro
The volcanic field lies above the western shores of the Salar de Arizaro. It consists of numerous Pleistocene basaltic andesite lava flows, as well as cinder cones with Holocene basaltic lava flows. Most centres are roughly aligned in northeast-southwest direction.
The volcanic field lies in the Puna, a high plateau generated by the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South America Plate. The terrain consists mainly of Miocene volcaniclastic rocks with a single outcrop of Ordovician granodiorite. Parts of the area are covered by Quaternary alluvium and conglomerates. The basement rocks are influenced by normal faulting.
The volcanism in the field has been explained by lithospheric delamination, a process by which part of the lower lithosphere founders into the mantle. Such a process is accompanied by uplift of the abovelying crust and often by volcanism of mainly small volume. Seismic imagery has been used to argue for the existence of delaminated crust in the mantle above the downgoing Nazca Plate slab beneath the Arizaro region.
The age of the lavas has been determined by argon-argon dating. The northernmost lava flow has yielded an age of 80,000 ± 60,000 years before present, while a southern lava flow has been dated to 130,000 ± 10,000 years before present and a date of 2.52 ± 0.05 million years ago was found on a central lava flow; this last lava flow shows evidence of younger faulting.


Pothia

Pothia or Pothaia or Kalymnos Town ("Greek: Πόθια ή Ποθαία") is the capital of Kalymnos and the major settlement of the island. It is located in the south of Kalymnos in the edge of a bay. It is very close to Chorio or Chora, the old capital of Kalymnos. Pothia is the main port and includes the main public services of the island. Its population is 12,324 inhabitants according to 2011 census.
History.
Pothia was built in 1850 when the pirates' raids decreased allowing the inhabitants to move near the sea. Its population increased rapidly. During the Italian rule many Venetian type houses were built.
Places of interest.
Near Chora there is the Pera Castle or Castle of Chrisocheria. Built by Knights Hospitaller, it is one of the most famous sights of the island. Pothia has got two museums. The first is the Archaeological Museum of Kalymnos with collections from archaeological sites of the island and the second is the naval museum related with the sponge fishing and the naval tradition of the island. Other places of interest in the island are the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. The temple, built in the 19th century, has got magnificent marble sculpture by the notable Greek sculptor Giannoulis Chalepas.


Procheirichthys

Procheirichthys is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish that lived during the Middle Triassic epoch.


List of earthquakes in Canada

This is a list of earthquakes in Canada.
List.
Abbreviations used:


Apachita (Puno)

Apacheta (Aymara for the place of transit of an important pass in the principal routes of the Andes; name for a stone cairn in the Andes, a little pile of rocks built along the trail in the high mountains, also spelled "Apacheta") is a mountain in the Andes of Peru. It is located in the Puno Region, Carabaya Province, Crucero District. Apachita lies west of the peaks of Ariquma, north of Ariquma Lake and northeast of Wiluyuq Qucha and the peak of Wiluyuq Urqu.


Arkell Spring Grounds

The Arkell Spring Grounds is an aquifer-fed spring located in Arkell, Ontario, Canada. The spring is owned by the city of Guelph and provides local residents with the majority of their drinking water.
History.
Guelph began using groundwater as a principle source of drinking water in 1879 and began exploiting the Arkell Spring in 1903, though no agreement between Arkell and Guelph was formalized until 1908. Construction began on a watercourse to the city in August 1908 but was slowed by the spring water welling up into the trench being dug by work crews, and in October and November of that year the work crews used dynamite as a way of quickly clearing the route. Arkell Springs was the site of the first tree planting campaign to protect a Canadian city's water supply.
After authorities in the United States uncovered an alleged conspiracy by German saboteurs to destroy infrastructure in the USA and Canada, fears of similar plots emerged in Guelph. In July 1915, the "Guelph Mercury" newspaper reported on rumours of an attack against the community, suggesting that the immigrant community in the St. Patrick's Ward neighbourhood had sabotaged the pipeline which transported water from the Arkell Spring to the city, and blamed them for an outbreak of disease that had occurred earlier in the year. At the time, the neighbourhood had more immigrants than anywhere else in Guelph, many of them coming from German, Austrian, and other European countries. The scare prompted an investigation by Ontario's Provincial Board of Health, which sent a team of physicians and a sanitary inspector to inspect the pipeline. Although there had been no intentional sabotage of the pipe, the team discovered that cracks in the water main had allowed swamp water contaminated with animal droppings to mix with the water from Arkell Spring, and Guelph was put on a boil-water advisory until repairs could be made.
In the 1960s, the city of Guelph began establishing modern wells on the Arkell Spring Grounds that have remained in continuous operation ever since. Beginning with Arkell 7 in 1964, Guelph has established five additional wells in the area: Arkell 1 and Arkell 6 in 1967; Arkell 8 in 1989; and Arkell 14 and Arkell 15 in 2012. The Arkell Aqueduct was also constructed in 1964. For a brief period beginning around 1979 and lasting until at least 1982, Kitchener-Waterloo also drew water from the Arkell Spring. Canadian geographer Paul Birchan has suggested Guelph's use of the Arkell Spring played a major role in Guelph residents overwhelmingly voting against fluoridation in 1964 and 1972.
The Arkell Springs Grounds were shut down in April 2020 in compliance with provincial restrictions meant to limit the spread of COVID-19, but reopened in February 2021.
Hydrology.
The water which wells up at the Arkell Springs is groundwater. When rain falls in the area, it sinks into the ground and is filtered through vegetation before being deposited at the bedrock. The Arkell Spring Grounds are situated above the Dyer Bay, Rockway (possibly Reynales), and Fossil Hill Formations, geological formations which are themselves rested on top of the Cabot Head Shale. The Amabel and Guelph Formations have been found as outcrops on the grounds' eastern and western fringes, respectively.
Guelph is one of the largest cities in Canada which uses groundwater as its principle source of water. An estimated 55-80% of the city's water supply is derived from the Arkell Spring Grounds, located in the municipal "Southeast Quadrant" well system. Although located outside the city limits, the Arkell Springs Grounds exist on a plot owned by the City of Guelph. The six wells on this property range in depth and are located next to natural heritage lands. Most of the Arkell wells produce 6,500 m3 of water per day but the most shallow well, Arkell 1, draws only 2,000 m3 per day. The city collects groundwater from Arkell Springs using small pipes which empty into the Arkell Aqueduct, a non-pressurized gravity aqueduct made of concrete, transporting the water to F.M. Woods Pumping Station and Reservoir, a water filtration facility where it is treated with sodium hypochlorite.
To supplement the groundwater supply during the yearly high-demand period between April and November, an artificial recharge system draws water from the Eramosa River into an infiltration trench, keeping the spring filled up to a potentiometric surface so that it can remain at full capacity even as demand from the city drains it. Of this, roughly 50% of the water taken from the river is recovered while the remainder returns to the river; a 2017 survey using infrared imagery found several groundwater seeps where the Arkell Spring feeds into the Eramosa River. A 1982 report by the Grand River Implementation Committee determined that the recharge system would allow the city of Guelph to keep up with demand for drinking water until 2031, and recommended the Arkell Springs system be expanded by 2021; a 2014 report suggested that demand would actually outmatch supply by 2023. A Class Environmental Assessment performed by Guelph between 1999 and 2006 investigated the potential expansion of the Arkell Springs system, and a 2009 study found that the Eramosa/Arkell Intake was the only subwatershed of the Grand River at risk of being stressed by local demand. Additional bedrock wells installed during the 2011-2012 season have increased the system's output by 6,900-8,000 m3 per day.
Municipal studies have investigated the possibility that the water could become contaminated by chemical spills and pollution from the Eramosa River.
Conservation.
In 1964, red pine plantations were established around the Arkell Spring Grounds. An initiative by the Guelph municipal government is reforesting the Arkell Spring area to improve the amount and quality of groundwater available. As the introduced red pine population thins due to poor soil conditions and overpopulation, the Guelph municipal government seeds endemic plants to replace them and create a more diverse forest environment. Rather than allow the pines to die off naturally, they are cut down outside of wildlife breeding seasons, with some being removed while others are left to decompose.
Nearby landowners have also contributed to diversifying the woodland. In early 2007, the owners of the Cove Valley Farm in Halton, which borders the Arkell Spring area, were granted the 2006 Watershed Award by the Grand River Conservation Authority for conservation efforts such as the planting of 7,000 white pines beginning in 1980 and their construction of a roofed manure storage area which limits the amount of runoff pollution entering the groundwater reserves.
Recreation.
The Arkell Spring Grounds is not a public park. However, certain sections of the property are managed by the Guelph Hiking Club and the Guelph Off-Road Biking Association (GORBA). The two groups maintain over a dozen marked trails on the Arkell Spring Grounds. Only members of their organizations are allowed to use the trails on the property.
There are roughly of trails on the Arkell Spring Grounds. Hiking trails are maintained by the Guelph Hiking Club and marked with red and blue signage, while bike paths are maintained by GORBA and have yellow and green signage. Mixed-use trails are maintained by both organizations. Common hazards encountered on the property include large rocks, above-ground roots, and steep inclines.
The sections of the Arkell Spring Grounds which are not accessible by marked trails are considered off-limits in order to protect the water supply and limit visitors' exposure to hazards. Some former trails have been made into operational areas that are now closed to visitors.
There are no parking areas for vehicles on the Arkell Spring Grounds or on any adjacent roads, limiting access to the property.


Acer browni

Acer browni is an extinct maple species in the family Sapindaceae described from a series of isolated fossil leaves and samaras. The species is known from the early to middle Miocene sediments exposed in Western Oregon, Washington state, USA and Northern Graham Island, Haida Gwaii, Canada. It is one of several extinct species placed in the living section "Parviflora".
History and classification.
The eleven leaf specimens used to describe "Acer browni" were recovered from five different sites. The largest group of specimens was recovered from the early Miocene, Aquitanian, Collawash site exposed near the Collawash River in Clackamas County Oregon. Two additional paratype leaves were recovered from outcrops of the Latah Formation at the Vera site near Veradale, Washington. Another Washington site, on Bunker Creek west of Centralia, Washington produced one paratype leaf of middle Miocene age. The last paratype leaf is from the species' northernmost location, having been recovered from an outcrop of the late early Miocene Skonun Formation on the northern side of Graham Island in the Haida Gwaii of British Columbia. In addition to the leaf specimens a series of paratype specimens were described for the associated samaras recovered at the Collawash site and United States Geological Survey site USGS 8904 near the Little Butte Creek in Jackson County, Oregon.
The type specimens for "Acer browni" are placed into three different repositories. The holotype leaf and thirteen of the paratypes are currently preserved in the paleobotanical collections housed at the University of California Museum of Paleontology, in Berkeley, California. Three other paratype leaves and one paratype samara are housed in the National Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian while the last paratype leaf is part of the University of British Columbia collections in Vancouver, British Columbia. The specimens were studied by paleobotanists Jack A. Wolfe of the United States Geological Survey, Denver office and Toshimasa Tanai of Hokkaido University. Wolfe and Tanai published their 1987 type description for "A. browni" in the "Journal of the Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University". The etymology of the chosen specific name "browni" is in recognition of paleobotanist Roland Wilbur Brown for his many contributions to Tertiary paleobotany.
Description.
Leaves of "Acer browni" are simple in structure, with perfectly actinodromus vein structure and are generally oblate to widely elliptical in shape. The leaves are five-lobed with the basal two lobes small while the upper lateral lobes are about two-thirds as long as the median lobe and all lobes being triangular in outline. The leaves have five primary veins and range between long by wide in overall dimensions. "A. browni" has small teeth while the lobes have a distinct and complex bracing of veins formed by the joining of two external secondary veins. The combination of morphological features is not found in any modern species besides "A. nipponicum" and as such "A. browni" is placed into the section "Parviflora". The samaras of "A. browni" have a notably inflated nutlet and acutely diverging veins which rarely anastomise. The overall shape of the nutlet is circular to elliptic with the average length of the samara up to and a wing width of . The paired samaras of the species have a 25° to 30° attachment angle and the distal region of the nutlet and wing forming distinct u-shaped shallow sulcus. While similar in morphology to "A. nipponicum", the two related species can be separated by the sulcus which is developed in "A. browni" but not seen in the samaras of "A. nipponicum".


Garnbergia

Garnbergia is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish that lived during the Anisian stage of the Middle Triassic epoch.


Sigilmassasaurus

Sigilmassasaurus ( ; "Sijilmassa lizard") is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived approximately 100 to 94 million years ago during the middle of the Cretaceous Period in what is now northern Africa. Named in 1996 by Canadian paleontologist Dale Russell, it contains a single species, Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis. The identity of the genus has been debated by scientists, with some considering its fossils to represent material from the closely related species "Spinosaurus aegyptiacus", while others have classified it as a separate taxon, forming the clade Spinosaurini with "Spinosaurus" as its sister taxon.
"Sigilmassasaurus" was a moderately-built, ground-dwelling, bipedal carnivore, like most other theropods. It may have had strong neck musculature as evidenced by the morphology of its vertebrae (backbones). "Sigilmassasaurus" may have had semiaquatic habits and a partially piscivorous diet. It coexisted with other large theropods in the Kem Kem Formation.
History of research.
Fossils of this dinosaur were recovered at the Kem Kem Formation in the Tafilalt Oasis region of Morocco, near the site of the ancient city of Sijilmassa, for which it was named. Canadian paleontologist Dale Russell named "Sigilmassasaurus" in 1996, from the ancient city and the Greek word "sauros" ("lizard"). A single species was named, "S. brevicollis", which is derived from the Latin "brevis" ("short") and "collum" ("neck"), because the neck vertebrae are very short from front to back. "Sigilmassasaurus" comes from red sandstone sediments in southern Morocco, which are known by various names, including the "Grès rouges infracénomaniens", Continental Red Beds, and lower Kem Kem Beds. These rocks date back to the Cenomanian, the earliest stage of the Late Cretaceous Period, approximately 100 to 94 million years ago.
The holotype, or original specimen, of "S. brevicollis", CMN 41857, is a single posterior neck vertebra, although Russell referred about fifteen other vertebrae found in the same formation to the species. Other material had been found in Egypt, and was referred to by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer as ""Spinosaurus" B". Russell in 1996 considered this Egyptian specimen, IPHG 1922 X45, to belong to "Sigilmassasaurus" or a closely related animal, naming it as a "Sigilmassasaurus" sp. A second "Sigilmassasaurus " sp. was by him based on specimen CMN 41629, an anterior dorsal vertebra. ""Spinosaurus" B" would be intermediate in build between this latter "Sigilmassasaurus" sp. and "S. brevicollis". Russell created the family Sigilmassasauridae for these animals. The neck vertebrae of these dinosaurs are wider from side to side, about 50%, than they are long from front to back. Whether the neck as a whole was particularly short, is unknown: the holotype vertebra is a cervicodorsal, from the transition between the neck and the back, which would not be long anyway. The exact position of "Sigilmassasaurus" within the theropod family tree is unknown, but it belongs somewhere inside the theropod subgroup known as Tetanurae and most likely was a member of the family Spinosauridae.
Disputed validity.
The validity of "Sigilmassaurus", however, did not go unchallenged shortly after it was named. In 1996, Paul Sereno and colleagues described a "Carcharodontosaurus" skull (SGM-Din-1) from Morocco, as well as a neck vertebra (SGM-Din-3) which resembled that of ""Spinosaurus" B," which they therefore synonymized with "Carcharodontosaurus." A 1998 study went further, calling "Sigilmassasaurus" itself a junior synonym of "Carcharodontosaurus."
In 2005, however, Argentine paleontologist Fernando Novas and colleagues found that SGM-Din-3, which was used to synonymize "Carcharodontosaurus" and ""Spinosaurus" B" was not actually associated with SGM-Din-1, the "Carcharodontosaurus" skull described in 1996, and shows clear differences with the holotype of "Carcharodontosaurus". Other features of ""Spinosaurus" B" also differed from "Carcharodontosaurus", lending support to the notion that it (and therefore "Sigilmassasaurus") is a separate taxon. The same study claimed that the tail vertebrae by Russell assigned to the species were in fact those of iguanodonts. A study in 2013 by Bradley McFeeters and colleagues considered "Sigilmassasaurus" as valid and an indeterminate member of the Tetanurae.
In 2014, German-Moroccan paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim and colleagues referred the specimens of "Sigilmassasaurus" to "Spinosaurus aegyptiacus", together with ""Spinosaurus" B" as the neotype of "S. aegyptiacus", and "Spinosaurus maroccanus" was considered as a "nomen dubium" following the conclusions of previous papers. In a 2015 re-description of "Sigilmassasaurus" by Serjoscha Evers and his team, it was considered a valid genus within the Spinosauridae. These authors also proposed "Spinosaurus maroccanus" as a junior synonym of "Sigilmassasaurus", and rejected the proposal of a "Spinosaurus aegyptiacus" neotype.
A study by British paleontologist Thomas Arden and colleagues in 2018 concluded that "Sigilmassasaurus" was a valid genus and formed a tribe with "Spinosaurus" termed Spinosaurini. The largest specimen of "Spinosaurus cf. aegyptiacus", MSNM V4047, was tentatively assigned to "S. brevicollis". On the basis of vertebrae, the researchers suggested that "Sigilmassasaurus" may have grown larger than "Spinosaurus". Although in the absence of associated material, it is difficult to be certain what material belongs to which genus. Below is a cladogram based on the analysis by Arden and colleagues:
A 2020 study by British paleontologist Symth and colleagues suggested that "Sigilmassasaurus" is synonymous with "Spinosaurus" and the Brazilian spinosaurine genus "Oxalaia", with both genera falling into the "Spinosaurus" hypodigm. If supported by future research, both "Sigilmassasaurus" and "Oxalaia" would be rendered junior synonyms of "Spinosaurus" and expand its range, which would further support the theory of faunal interchanges between Africa and South America during the Cretaceous.
Paleobiology.
On the bottoms of its cervical vertebrae, "Sigilmassasaurus" bore a series of highly rugged bony structures. These were suggested by Evers and colleagues as being possible evidence for substantial neck musculature, since the attachment sites of muscles and ligaments are often indicated by scarring on the bone surface. The neck muscles inferred from "Sigilmassasaurus" in particular would have enabled it to rapidly snatch fish out of the water, as indicated by the use of similarly placed musculature in modern birds and crocodilians. This has also been proposed for the related genus "Irritator", on account of the prominent sagittal crest running towards the back of its head. However, Evers and colleagues noted that a more thorough biomechanical analysis is required for confirmation of this condition in "Sigilmassasaurus".
Several large theropods (more than one tonne) are known from the Cenomanian of northern Africa, raising questions about how such animals would have coexisted. Species of "Spinosaurus", the longest known theropod, have been found in both Morocco and Egypt, as has the huge "Carcharodontosaurus". Two smaller theropods, "Deltadromeus" and "Bahariasaurus", have also been found in Morocco and Egypt, respectively, and may be closely related or possibly the same genus. "Sigilmassasaurus", from Morocco, and "Spinosaurus B", from Egypt, represent a fourth type of large predator. This situation resembles that in the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America, which boasts up to five theropod genera over one tonne in weight, as well as several smaller genera. Differences in head shape and body size among the large North African theropods may have been enough to allow niche partitioning as seen among the many different predator species found today in the African savanna.