Dinosaurs and the Arctic

[Outlander Systems]

My favorite dinosaur is the one with 500 teeth.

[SteyrAUG]

There's all kinds of stuff they can't explain. I am typing this from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and literally drive by the Beaufort sea on my way to work.

When our drillers drill through the first 1500 feet or so, they are going through permafrost. Guess what's frozen in there. Bits of ferns and conifer branches. I have held one of these little scaly twigs in my own hand. They come up in the drilling mud. These remnants are NOT fossilized, they are frozen. Apparently, not that long ago this place was a temperate northern climate.

Today you won't find a tree until you get well south of the Brooks Range.

In my lifetime, like many of you, I've watched as the narratives have changed or gone full circle. There's stuff that is known (the actual observations) and there's stuff they don't know (the speculative narrative attempts to string the facts together). Unfortunately people feel the need to get dogmatic about speculation. Not sure why people are so uncomfortable with not knowing things and find it so hard to say "we don't know that yet".

I just explained it, plate tectonics. Land masses move, this is also why we have faults and earthquakes. Where you are standing, millions of years ago, it was in a tropical zone near the equator. And yes there were ferns on conifers and they weren't special snow ferns and conifers.

[Disciple]

Of course, back in the 1960's/early 1970's we were told that another ice age was possibly on the way. Looks like they missed the mark on that one.

We're living in an interglacial period. Despite all the hand-wringing over global warming the return of an ice age is arguably a far greater threat. Not that the politicization of such things is not a racket of course.

[Averageman]

And that's what kills me they don't know, yet will not admit they don't know. Yet they're right quick about imposing a "Carbon Tax" to fix what they don't know.

The kicker for me was a former VP coming out and scaring the heck out of millions of his true believers that we had 15-20 years before the wheels fell off and the world ended.
Like 35 years ago?

[Straight Shooter]

And that's what kills me they don't know, yet will not admit they don't know. Yet they're right quick about imposing a "Carbon Tax" to fix what they don't know.

The kicker for me was a former VP coming out and scaring the heck out of millions of his true believers that we had 15-20 years before the wheels fell off and the world ended.
Like 35 years ago?

"They" were screaming the EXACT SAME CRAP in the early 70's. Probably back in the 60's. Damned liars all of them.

[SteyrAUG]

We're living in an interglacial period. Despite all the hand-wringing over global warming the return of an ice age is arguably a far greater threat. Not that the politicization of such things is not a racket of course.

THANK YOU for knowing.

And in geological timelines we are definitely overdue. However that could mean 100 years, 1,000 years or a gradual shift over the course of 500 years in 2,000 years. The Earth doesn't have an alarm clock with a snooze alarm.

And although we are a bit overdue for an ice age, one that could be historically mild or severe depending upon dozens and dozens of factors, hairspray isn't going to make it happen faster and eliminating fossil fuels isn't going to prevent it from happening.

Btw, the two largest greenhouse gases are water vapor (which we actually really need) and carbon monoxide (produced by mammals). So if every Republican would plant a tree and every Democrat would simply stop exhaling we'd be just fine. And yes it has to be Democrats because globally they outnumber us, especially if we count them by other names like communists.

[Alpha-17]

Paleontologists like to spin yarns. Feathered dinosaurs were in the new Jurassic Park movie, it's the new orthodoxy.

Yep. Overly feathered dinosaurs have been a staple for a while now, with them now becoming the norm even on dinos that we have zero evidence of them having feathers. (or even evidence against them having feathers) Gotta push the narrative.

Side note, it is interesting to note that back when I was a kid (and thus, into dinosaurs) "what happened to the dinosaurs?" was the big question, and "killed by an asteroid" was just the most popular theory among many. These days, that's about the first, last, and only theory anyone talks about, only losing ground to "climate change" for obvious political reasons.

[SteyrAUG]

Yep. Overly feathered dinosaurs have been a staple for a while now, with them now becoming the norm even on dinos that we have zero evidence of them having feathers. (or even evidence against them having feathers) Gotta push the narrative.

Side note, it is interesting to note that back when I was a kid (and thus, into dinosaurs) "what happened to the dinosaurs?" was the big question, and "killed by an asteroid" was just the most popular theory among many. These days, that's about the first, last, and only theory anyone talks about, only losing ground to "climate change" for obvious political reasons.

So we have found fossil evidence of what really looks like a few feathered dinosaurs, but "pop" science has picked up that ball and ran it all the way down the field. We are talking about a life form that was here for about 165 million years. Anyone who thinks they were "all like this" or "all like that" needs to have their heads examines. Most depictions of dinosaurs are ridiculous, starting with Velociraptor which probably did have feathers and were only about 2 feet tall.

There would have been the same kind of species variation as has existed in ocean life over the space of millions of years.

[Diamondback]

Yup, V. mongoliensis is about the size of a wolf. Spielberg Movieraptors are closer to a bastardization of Deinonychus and Achillobator, sized somewhere between them and Utahraptor.

Beyond that, details get hazy... my particular niche is tyrannosauria and T. rex in particular, but I know a few pro diggers including one studying under current "king of tyrannosaurs" Thomas Carr, so if anyone has questions you want answers to I'll pass 'em along and see if I can get you some.

[WillBrink]

So we have found fossil evidence of what really looks like a few feathered dinosaurs, but "pop" science has picked up that ball and ran it all the way down the field. We are talking about a life form that was here for about 165 million years. Anyone who thinks they were "all like this" or "all like that" needs to have their heads examines. Most depictions of dinosaurs are ridiculous, starting with Velociraptor which probably did have feathers and were only about 2 feet tall.

There would have been the same kind of species variation as has existed in ocean life over the space of millions of years.

It's not pop science however but very well supported that some of them had feathers:

https://adventuredinosaurs.com/2021/...-key-evidence/

Likely developed to help to allow them to survive/exists in colder areas and cooling climates.