NOVA will be presenting a program on the latest chapter in the debate over the origin of flight. "The Four-Winged Dinosaur" will be shown on PBS (Birmingham, AL area) at these times:
Nova: The Four Winged Dinosaur (Alabama Public Television)
Tuesday, February 26, 7:00pm
Wednesday, February 27, 1:00am
Thursday, February 28, 4:00am
Friday, February 29, 12:00am
McWane has posted some "behind the scenes" pictures of the upcoming dinosaur exhibit. Enjoy!
Exhibit in Progress - Pictures (broken link)
The Wetumpka Riverfest will be coming March 8, 2008 to Wetumpka, Alabama. Along with the Crater 5k Run, arts and crafts, food and music, there will be lectures and tours of the Wetumpka meteor crater. Dr. David T. King Jr., an Auburn University professor of geology, will share information about the astrobleme. There is a free lecture March 6 at 7pm at the Wetumpka Civic Center. There is a fee for the March 8 lecture/tour packages. Space on the vans is limited, reservations required by February 29.
Fossil hunters say they have discovered bones of two massive meat-eating dinosaurs in Africa.
ABC News reported that a tiny pterodactyl with curved toes has been found in the Liaoning region of China. It was found by a research group led by Xiaolin Wang of the Chinese Academy of Science.
A beautifully preserved fossil of a tiny pterosaur suggests that the giant pterodactyls that roamed the skies during the late Cretaceous period may have come from much smaller, tree-dwelling ancestors.
The new fossil, which was discovered in 2004 in western Liaoning province, China, is about 120 million years old.
Dr. Neil Shubin of the University of Chicago and Field Museum will present the lecture "Finding Your Inner Fish: New Discoveries on the Shift From Fish to Land-Living Animal".
The lecture will be held 7;30 pm, February 21, 2008 at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, in the Biology Auditorium, across the street from the Geological Survey office. This talk is part of the ALLELE 2007-2008 presentations - Alabama Lectures on Life's Evolution. All lectures are open to the public.
Dr. Carl Stock, paleontology professor at University of Alabama, will give the program on "Biogeographic Barriers".
Background: Dr. Stock received his PhD from the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been teaching paleontology and geology and the University of Alabama for a little over 30 years. His research focus includes topics in invertebrate paleontology, stromatoporoids, paleobiogeography, and Ordovician/Silurian/Devonian.
Some of us have been digging into the old shoeboxes containing field trip photos from years past, including 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1993. Check out the field trip page and take a look at the photos, you may not even recognize some of our current members as they looked 15 - 20 years ago!
The program will be on "Ingersoll Shale", by Terry Knight, a grad student at Auburn University. Some amazing fossils, including insects, have been found in this formation. His thesis is titled “Exceptionally Preserved Soft-Bodied
Fossils of the Ingersoll shale, an Upper Cretaceous
Konservat-Lagerstätte in the Eutaw Formation of East-central Alabama".
Click for pictures of the dig in the Ingersoll shale.
For all of those who came to the December meeting expecting a program on "Eastern Dinosaurs", our sincere apologies. James Lamb has been under the weather the past few days and at the last minute decided to speak on "Volcanoes" in hopes his voice would last long enough to do the shorter program. The much longer "Eastern Dinosaurs" program will be rescheduled at our earliest opportunity, probably for the January or February meeting.
