Archimedes Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Interesting theroy to be presented at the annual GSA meeting My link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Interesting theroy to be presented at the annual GSA meeting My link I was Kraken up at this one :lol: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/10/lair-ancient-kraken-sea-monster-possibly-discovered/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilshk Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 (edited) any pictures of this fossil Edited October 13, 2011 by fossilshk Dinosaur Fossil Lab http://www.fossilshk.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 any pictures of this fossil There were pics with my link above Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmoceras Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 My link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimB88 Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 (edited) Archimedes beat you to it original post EDIT: Merged for continuity. Edited October 15, 2011 by Auspex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 I was thinking about this again yesterday and would have to file it as hard to believe. First of all, we'd have to read the actual article to go beyond the author's own quick version. One thing to consider is that an ichthyosaur vertebra looks a lot like a hockey puck. The most likely result of the decomposition of the body would be that each vertebra would fall over on a flat side, or "face up" (either the face oriented in the direction of the head or the one oriented toward the tail). We might expect some to fall one way and the others to fall the other but in a roughly linear pattern on a relatively undisturbed sea bottom, especially if it was deepwater somewhere beyond the continental shelf. Also, I'm not sure it would be possible to break the neck of a shoniosaur as their necks were very short - almost like their heads were connected directly to the body. A super-large cephalopod might be as massive as a 45-foot shoniosaur so it would be a struggle just trying to keep it from surfacing to breathe. Even if it did drown it, the "kraken" would still have to tow the body to its "lair." What would a 45-foot ichthyosaur weigh? I'm thinking 2 tons at least and maybe 3-4 tons. I was looking at that photo. It appears some of the vertebrae are cracked at least part of the way through. Ribs are easier to crack than vertebrae so the same agent could have cracked both over time (fractures in the rock). The other thing I thought of is that, yes, an octopus has a lair and it ejects its "garbage" (bones, shells of its prey) outside the lair, an "octopus' garden." It squeezes into a hole or an equally suitable space in a coral reef but where does a 100-foot octopus hide (or does it just have a favorite spot on the seafloor?)? I would think an octopus that big eats wherever it catches its prey. One thing I do agree on is that a 100-foot cephalopod would be extremely rare because it would be a prime meal over much of its life for shoniosaurs, other marine reptiles, and maybe some fishes. In any case I will try to find this article and a paleontologist to bother about it. This is a topic for critical thinking as promoted in a current thread about the teacher who didn't think whales had backbones. I hope to read more comments. Interesting theroy to be presented at the annual GSA meeting My link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mexx Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 I read somewhere that a whale shark in the range of 40 feet weighs about 12 tons, so you guess for the Ichthyosaur's weight is rather on the low side. This wold make it even harder for the cephalopod to take the Shoniosaur down. Also the world record great whit shark at 20 feet weighted in at 2.3 tons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 When I first read this I thought it was written as a joke, particularly when I got to this paragraph: "The arranged vertebrae also seemed to resemble the pattern of sucker disks on a cephalopod's tentacle, with each vertebra strongly resembling a sucker made by a member of the Coleoidea, which includes octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and their relatives. The researchers suggest this pattern reveals a self-portrait of the mysterious beast." I was getting the image of a squid staring at his tentacle while trying to arrange bones to look like the suckers on his arm. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chele Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Release the Kraken!!! I had to say that. While we are on the subject of a kraken, the Greeks had a lot of mythical creatures. I had watched a program on tv about how the greeks might have started the myth. The question about fossils being the factor for starting the stories about monsters had risen. One scientist suggested that the sight of fossils being found in ancient times was the basis of all the stories. He suggested that the Greeks thought the bones not to be millions of years old but years or maybe decades. For instance, the skull of a mammoth could have been the basis for cyclops. The skull appeared to only have one hole for an eye and the Greeks would reconstruct the bones compared to their own body structure. Now I do not know if the early Greeks knew about fossils or not but I thought this was an interesting theory. Chelebele Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwcounts Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 The "evidence" for the "kraken" is pretty much nonexistent. The author is really jumping to conclusions here, I think... http://scienceblogs....ssic_kraken.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 This whole thing could have been published in The Onion... Someone please hand that scientist an Occam's Razor. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paleoc Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I find it more likely that the original leaning domino arrangement of vertebra \\ \\ \\ \\ was moved around by a strong current to a more aero/aqua-dynamic arrangement, i.e. lying flat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Release the Kraken!!! I had to say that. While we are on the subject of a kraken, the Greeks had a lot of mythical creatures. I had watched a program on tv about how the greeks might have started the myth. The question about fossils being the factor for starting the stories about monsters had risen. One scientist suggested that the sight of fossils being found in ancient times was the basis of all the stories. He suggested that the Greeks thought the bones not to be millions of years old but years or maybe decades. For instance, the skull of a mammoth could have been the basis for cyclops. The skull appeared to only have one hole for an eye and the Greeks would reconstruct the bones compared to their own body structure. Now I do not know if the early Greeks knew about fossils or not but I thought this was an interesting theory. Follow My link and see post #75, 76 and 77 for some cool examples Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chele Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 Follow My link and see post #75, 76 and 77 for some cool examples That is very interesting, the mosasaur especially. How could they have known what the creatures looked like? Could the animals really have existed during 550 BC? Chelebele Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Posted November 5, 2011 Share Posted November 5, 2011 That is very interesting, the mosasaur especially. How could they have known what the creatures looked like? Could the animals really have existed during 550 BC? I think that they were as smart as us and when they found a big reptile skeleton they could extrapolate a close approximation of their original morphology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diplotomodon Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 This whole thing could have been published in The Onion... Someone please hand that scientist an Occam's Razor. I second that...It's a bit of a ridiculous idea, but it amuses me to no end... What a wonderful menagerie! Who would believe that such as register lay buried in the strata? To open the leaves, to unroll the papyrus, has been an intensely interesting though difficult work, having all the excitement and marvelous development of a romance. And yet the volume is only partly read. Many a new page I fancy will yet be opened. -- Edward Hitchcock, 1858 Formerly known on the forum as Crimsonraptor @Diplotomodon on Twitter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oxytropidoceras Posted July 9, 2022 Share Posted July 9, 2022 (edited) The below article is an interesting analysis of this GSA presentation. The Giant, Prehistoric Squid That Ate Common Sense Brian Switek, Wired Magazine, Oct. 2011 Yours, Paul H. Edited July 9, 2022 by Oxytropidoceras reformatted link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daves64 Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 My head hurts... Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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