Trudy Myers's Blog, page 19

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 3

Monday, 10/18

Shore Excursion on Palma

Having gone to bed so early, we were a bit surprised to wake up still tired, but we shuffled our way to the buffet and had some breakfast. I thought the scrambled eggs looked good, but as usual with buffet scrambled eggs, they were still a little runny. Not enjoyable. I don’t like food that isn’t well done. I got some other stuff, too, from potatoes to fruit, and some orange juice. What I really wanted was a cola, for my morning batch of caffeine, but I didn’t get any.

We went to the auditorium and waited for them to call our excursion. We got there about half an hour early, so it took them a while, but eventually, it happened. They sent us down a long black corridor and at the end of it, crew members put a sticker on our shirts that had a number on it, and we were sent down to the gangplank, where crew members scanned our room keys to note that we were leaving the ship.

Outside, there was a long line of buses waiting. A crew member took a final look at our tickets and said, “30. Your bus is at the end of the line. So we trotted off, taking him at his word, headed for the last bus. We had almost reached it when one of the tour guides stopped us. “Wait, wait, you just went past your bus,” and pointed to the sign sitting on the dashboard, instead of the sign at the top of the bus. Sure enough, the dashboard sign of the 4th bus from the end said ‘30’, and the title of our excursion. So color me pink with embarrassment as we went back and presented our tickets. Then we climbed aboard and found seats. Before long, we were on our way.

I don’t remember the name of the port city, but the island was Palma. It’s part of Spain. While the tour guide pointed out some buildings for us to look at, and told us some of the city’s history, the bus driver weaved his way through narrow streets and up a hill to the castle at the top. After the bus was parked, we were given about 20 minutes to walk back to the front of the castle and take pictures. There was a long staircase to get from the road to the castle. I opted not to tax myself by climbing all of them, but John went up and took pictures. I started to get worried as the minutes ticked by, wondering if I would have to race up the stairs to find him and drag him back to the bus. But he showed up, and we got back more or less on time.

Then the drive back down the hill, and through some more narrow streets, past more homes and churches. Then the bus stopped at the corner of modern thoroughfare, and we all got off. We walked about a block and then crossed the busy street, paused to hear some history of the building in front of us. Then we walked for about 2 days, uphill, on cobblestone sidewalks to get to the center of town. Or if not the center, then a downtown section of the city. Many important government buildings were pointed out to us, which John dutifully took pictures of.

At one point, the tour guide pointed out an old olive tree in the square that was purported to be 800 years old. It had a very interesting shape, which I would have loved having pictures of, in case I ever felt inclined to paint a portrait of a strangely shaped tree. But John never thought of taking pictures of it, and by the time I thought of suggesting it, we were off and walking elsewhere.

A block or 2 later, we paused to compare architectural details of 2 buildings. One of them was under renovation, and we had to stand about the base of the scaffolding. When we started off again, one of our group stepped forward to go through the scaffolding, only to trip over a bracing bar. He got back up, and those of us around him wondered if he was okay, but he wasn’t bleeding. So we hurried on, sometimes sharing the half-lane street with vehicles or delivery trucks.

Eventually, we came to a building which the guide called a market. Think of a mall, only instead of store fronts, it was full of booths of all sizes, selling all sorts of things, including meat and produce. We were given half an hour to roam among the booths before we gathered back together. In that time, the man who had fallen and his wife had found a pharmacy and bought some antiseptic ointment and a couple bandages for his banged-up shins, so he was a little more inclined to shake off the experience.

Once we had all rejoined the group, the guide took us inside, up the escalator to the 2ndfloor, and to a special event restaurant, where they served us a traditional meal of Palma, complete with wine. It was very good, though the wine was a little too dry for my taste. (I like soda-pop wine.)

After a filling meal, I wasn’t looking forward to walking any great distance, but it turned out we only had to walk about 3 blocks to get to our bus, which had changed location and was waiting for us. A quick trip back to the pier, and we were boarding the ship.

John went to the hot tub. I laid down on the bed and rested. In years past, I would have fallen asleep, but not this time. I’m proud of myself. I may not have made it to the hot tub, but at least I didn’t fall asleep.

We had a reservation at the Japanese specialty restaurant that evening. The type of place where they cook the food on a big grill right in front of you. This place included making the fried garlic rice on that grill, which was a fun addition. They used about a pound of garlic butter making the fried rice. Our drinks package allowed us to get mixed drinks that were $15 or less, and this restaurant had 2 cocktails on their menu, so we each got one, and then tasted each others.

Anyway, I opted for the filet mignon, well done. I usually tell them to ‘burn it, stomp on it, and burn it again’, because I’ve had ‘well done’ meat that was still mooing. But John begged me not to add those instructions, for fear the chef might actually climb on the grill to stomp on it. So I quietly asked for it to be cooked well done, and wasn’t the only one to ask for that, so there!

When he got around to cooking the filet mignon, especially the well done portions, the chef added butter and soy sauce to the meat. So when I got to eat it, it was soft and tasty, not hard and cardboardy. I’ll have to remember that trick if I ever decide to cook meat at home.

After we ate, we went back to our room, took our evening pills, checked our tickets for the next day’s excursion, set our alarms, and went to bed.

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 2

Sunday, 10/17

During our flight to Barcelona, I got woke up rather rudely as the lights were turned on and the flight attendants handed out breakfast. The yogurt was okay, but not a kind I would have picked. Much thicker than I’m used to, but at least it was fruit flavored. After breakfast, they turned the lights back out.

By now, John had opted to use the empty seat next to us, and I was sitting next to the window. Despite having only gotten about half an hour of sleep, I couldn’t go back to it. As the sky lightened as dawn approached (or were we approaching it?) I watched the Spanish landscape pass by under us. There were entire valley systems that were full of fog, which lent the view an eerie look. Some were so large, they looked like seas.

Then we flew out over water, which surprised me. I thought Barcelona was land-locked. Apparently not.

The Barcelona airport is big, with long halls to walk and many hoops to jump through. There was a bottle-neck as our passports were checked. More walking. More walking. Another bottle-neck as our Spanish health forms were checked. John’s sailed through. I don’t know what the problem was with mine, but I must have stood there for 2 full minutes before they sent me on.

Find our luggage. This was at least an hour after the plane landed. Somebody was collecting suitcases from the carousel as ‘unclaimed’. Eventually, John found our 2 suitcases, and we put on the luggage tags for our cruise. More walking.

Finally, we saw somebody holding up a sign for a cruise line. Not the one we were looking for, but ours was standing not too far away. That person directed us to another cruise employee, who was taking luggage and sending it to the ship. After standing around for a few minutes, they took us upstairs and outside to ‘go to the bus’. We walked a couple blocks. The breeze felt nice. Then into a building and down 2 floors to get tested for covid. We were told about this, but thought it would happen at the dock.

Half an hour later, we got on the bus to the ship.

We didn’t have our boarding documents that had supposedly been sent to us, but they were ready for that. They took our passports, found us in their system, gave us our cabin keys (and gave our passports back), and sent us on our way.

At last, we walked onto the ship. Our first chore was to find our muster station, in case of emergency, but that muster station was, for us, right inside the entrance. So while we were there, we booked reservations for a couple shows. Then we went to The Taste, one of the main dining rooms, to get some lunch. John got a pork chop, and I had a philly cheesesteak sandwich. Both came with fries. John finished his meal, but I was so sleep-deprived, I could only eat half of mine. My body didn’t want food, it wanted sleep. And fluid. I did manage to drink 4 glasses of cola and 1.5 glasses of water. John drank about the same. We felt semi-revived after lunch, so went and found our cabin.

Our cabin was so small, it was lilliputtin-ish. The bathroom had been split up, with the toilet in a tiny closet on one side of the entrance, and the shower on the other. There was a curtain that could be closed to separate that piece of the room from the rest of the room. Beyond that, a curved closet resided on the right, the sink, a counter and cupboards on the left. A double bed presided over the rest of the cabin, with–I’m guessing–less than a foot of clearance on either side of it. So, not a lot of room to move around in.

Our luggage had not yet shown up. John unpacked the carry-on suitcase and we took our morning pills. We hadn’t managed to take our evening pills the night before, but it was far too late to worry about that.

John went out to explore the ship, and I lay down and stared at the ceiling. After a while, I got up and unpacked my carry-on bag–mostly–and then I got on the phone and checked on our specialty dining reservations. We had forgotten when they were at, and didn’t want to miss them. Then I glanced through the shore excursion tickets, just to do something. Uh oh. According to my count, we were missing one ticket for one excursion, and both tickets for another. So I shoved them back into the envelope and trotted down to the shore excursion desk to check into it.

The shore excursion desk was busy. I expected that, so I got into line, as requested. Others apparently didn’t realize there was a line, and got help before me, but eventually I got up there, and took all the tickets out of the envelope to explain the problem. Turned out 2 of the tickets had been stapled together and I hadn’t noticed. So that missing ticket was solved. Then as I sorted through the rest of the tickets, I realized I had pairs of tickets for every port we would hit. All was well with shore excursions. Obviously, my brain wasn’t functioning well. More laying on our bed, not sleeping but resting as best we could, and still no luggage.

Eventually, we went back to The Taste for supper. John had Atlantic salmon, and I had baked zita. I was so tired, I only wanted comfort foot. We admired the 3-deck tall chandelier in the middle of the restaurant and went up to the buffet on deck 15 to have a 2nd dessert.

Then it was back to our cabin. Our luggage had shown up. We quickly unpacked–mostly–and then gave in to our fatigue. After checking our tickets for our shore excursion the next day, we set an alarm to wake us up. With an inside cabin, there would no chance of sunlight seeping in to wake up. And especially at 6:30 am, so we set an alarm or 2 and thankfully sank into some much-needed sleep.

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 1

 Okay, we were ready. Or thought we were.

Our suitcases were packed. The dog was at the kennel. We got up at 7:30 on Saturday, Oct 16, to make sure we got to the airport for a 2:56 pm departure for Miami. We left the house about 10:30, got the car parked, and got on the shuttle. It was about noon. There was, of course, a line at the airline counter, but otherwise, things were going as expected.

Until we got to the ticket booth. I handed her our passports, our vaccination cards and our print-out regarding our flights. Then; “Have you got your health form for the Spanish government?”

My jaw dropped. “I know nothing about such a form. I was never told I needed any kind of form for Spain.”

Well, such a form was necessary. Such a form was mandatory. The clerk wrote down the website on my flight information and asked me to step aside and go to that website on my phone and fill out the forms, and come back when I had the QR codes we would receive by email.

My phone! Use the internet? Check my email? I don’t use the internet on my phone; I use it for phone calls. And text messaging.

No choice. So for an hour, I stood in the middle of a busy airline ticket center, trying to fill out a form to get permission to land in Spain. First, I filled it out for a family, thinking that would be simpler (I was wrong). I filled it in for John, then went on to give it my information, skipped through the sections for 5 children, and… it wouldn’t let me go on until I filled in those sections! So I went back to fill out individual forms. Fill in the information for John, and… It told me a form for him already existed, and I should click on ‘Continue with Forms’, a button that I could not find. Tears streamed down my face as I started tearing out my hair.

Okay, not quite that bad, but I was getting pretty frazzled. It was going on 2. The crowd had dissipated. Finally, the ticket clerk came over to help and filled out the forms on her smart phone, then printed them out so I would have them when we got to Spain. She got us our boarding tickets, took the luggage we were checking in, and sent us on our way. I never even got her name. She was my hero, that day.

Next, the security line, which was long. We took out our electronics and put them in a bin. Emptied our pockets and put our extra glasses in a bin. Took off our shoes to put in a bin, was told not to use a bin. I had to take off my belly bag, and couldn’t put it in a bin, either. I told the guard I had artificial knees, and he waved me over to the big, 360 degree x-ray machine, which I expected. Then I got patted down. What was the purpose of the x-ray machine? John doesn’t have any artificial parts, but he got waved over to the x-ray machine, and got patted down as well. Apparently, what was good for the goose was good for the gander.

It was approaching 3, and they were hollering at us to get our stuff and get out of the way. John told me to grab my stuff, and run for the gate, he’d catch up. The overnight case fell open, and he had to shove stuff back into it. I shoved the computer and 2 kindles into my bag (only the computer had come out of it), shoved my phone in my pocket, grabbed my phone and ran for the tram to the concourse I needed. It was crowded, and I didn’t get a chance to get my shoes back on. As I hurried down the long hallway towards Gate 58, I heard them calling our names to report to the gate, the plane was about to leave. I got there and shoved our tickets at them, had to remind them to give back the attached tickets to get us to Barcelona (Spain). Then I turned around to see where John was.

He was coming. He handed me the glasses I had forgotten to pick up. He didn’t have his shoes. They couldn’t let us on the plane without shoes. I sat down and put on my shoes, but all his other pairs of shoes were in his checked luggage, not his carry-on. We had a plane to catch in Miami in order to get to Barcelona. What were we to do?

A man said he could give John a pair of sandals, size 12. John told him they would be a little small, but he’d take them. After looking through all his family’s carry-on pieces, the man didn’t have his size 12 sandals and apologized. At that time, a younger man approached with a pair of flip flops, which he offered John, who accepted gratefully, and we got on the plane. I have the impression we were not the last ones to get on that plane, but I can’t swear to that.

We found our seats, sat down, buckled up, sighed in relief and hoped the worst was behind us. John had lost his shoes to the conveyor belt at security. We could hope to reclaim them when we returned to Orlando. At some point, John realized I wasn’t wearing my belly bag. Another item lost to the security check point. Another thing to hope to reclaim when we returned to Orlando.

The items in my belly bag included my flash drive and my driver’s license. Luckily, our passports were in my carry-on bag, so I still had a form of ID.

We arrived at Miami without further incident. While John made use of the rest room across the hall from our arrival gate (D20), I discovered that we had 2 hours to reach our departure gate, D4.

We had had an early breakfast, but no chance to grab anything to eat or drink in the Orlando airport, and nothing had been served us during the ½ hour flight to Miami. We had 2 hours. Surely we could find something to eat in the Miami airport, couldn’t we?

Luck smiled on us. Directly across from our departure gate was a tiny Cuban restaurant, so we got something to eat. We had no clue if anything would be served to us during the 9 hour flight to Barcelona, so we ate while we had the chance, and it was good. I rather wished I had gotten 2 empanadas. I opted to munch on pretzels I had packed as a snack. Between the relief of finally being on our way and the introduction into our systems of much needed food and drink, we were feeling pretty decent.

John likes an aisle seat in a plane, but we were assigned seats A and B, which were the window seat and the middle seat, so he took the window seat. Surprisingly, nobody showed up to claim the aisle seat, but we were in the air before I realized it was going to remain empty.

After about an hour of flying, the flight attendants served drinks. And then supper. I opted for the vegetarian pasta, John had the chicken and rice. There were a lot of other things included; a bottle of water, a small salad, 2 large crackers, a wedge of cheese, a roll and a dessert bar. We ate it thankfully and finished our sodas, keeping the bottles of water for later.

After dinner, the cabin lights went off, as it was presumed everybody would sleep through the flight. There is 6 hours time difference between Florida and Barcelona, and it is an 8-hour flight. We left between 6 and 7, and would arrive in Spain between 8 and 9 (both local times.) But according to my watch, we would arrive at about 2 am. Anticipating a long, busy day the next day, I tried to sleep. I really did. John ‘rested’, but probably didn’t get much sleep. It wasn’t until my watch said it was 12:33 that my body decided, ‘Okay, it’s time to sleep.’

We would arrive in Barcelona in approximately 2 more hours, but I got a few minutes of sleep.

Jurassic Park Period Part 7

 Fauna - All the rest of it

 

Insects and arachnids - There appears to have been no major extinction of insects at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary. Many important insect fossil localities are known from the Jurassic of Eurasia. The diversity of insects stagnated throughout the Early and Middle Jurassic, but during the latter third of the Jurassic, origination rates increased substantially while extinction rates remained flat.The increasing diversity of insects in the Middle–Late Jurassic corresponds with a substantial increase in the diversity of insect mouthparts. The Middle to Late Jurassic was a time of major diversification for beetles. Weevilsfirst appear in the fossil record during the Middle to Late Jurassic, but are suspected to have originated during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic. The oldest known lepidopterans(the group containing butterflies and moths) are known from the Triassic–Jurassic boundary. Modern representatives of both dragonflies and damselflies also first appeared during the Jurassic. Although modern representatives are not known until the Cenozoic, insects thought to represent primitive relatives of modern fleasare known from the Middle Jurassic of Asia. These insects are substantially different from modern fleas, because they lack the specialized morphology and they were larger. The earliest group of stick insects first appeared during the Middle Jurassic.

Spiders diversified through the Jurassic, and several long names of species or orders were given in the article. But to me, a spider is a spider. The oldest member of the family Archaeidae is known from the Middle Jurassic of China. Mongolarachne from the Middle Jurassic of China is among the largest known fossil spiders, with legs over 5 centimetres (2 inches) long. I know I've seen granddaddy longlegs with longer legs, but maybe they are not true spiders. It's been a long time since I had the opportunity to count their legs.

Birds - The earliest avialans (birds and their ancestors) appear during the Middle to Late Jurassic. There are some examples from China that have been postulated to have been birds, but have alternatively been found to be a separate lineage of another group of animal altogether. So not only were there birds, but also animals that may or may not have been birds.

Mammals - Mammals originated from cynodonts at the end of the Triassic. Cynodonts were a group of creatures that measured up to 1.5 metres (4.5 feet) in length, and that did include a tail. They may have eaten roots, insects, eggs, and possibly even small or infant dinosaurs. As mammals, they diversified extensively during the Jurassic. While most Jurassic mammals are solely known from isolated teeth and jaw fragments, exceptionally preserved remains have revealed a variety of lifestyles. Some wereadapted to aquatic life, similar to the platypus and otters. Some members had a patagium akin to those of flying squirrels, allowing them to glide through the air. One aardvark-like mammal was likely a specialist on colonial insects, similar to living anteaters.

Early relatives of monotremes first appear in the Middle Jurassic of Gondwana. The monotremes are a group of highly specialized egg-laying predatory mammals, containing the platypus and echidnas. There are only five living species of monotreme, contained within two families.

Therian mammals, represented today by living placentalsand marsupials, appear during the early Late Jurassic, represented by Juramaia, a mammal closer to the ancestry of placentals than marsupials. Juramaia is much more advanced than expected for its age, as other therian mammals do not appear until a later period.

Two groups of non-mammalian cynodonts persisted beyond the end of the Triassic. One ate insects andhas a few records from the Early Jurassic. A herbivorous group of cynodonts has abundant records from the Jurassic, overwhelmingly from the Northern Hemisphere.

Sounds like life was all over the planet, much like it is today. Possibly not quite as diverse as it is today. If we could keep the herbivores out of our crop fields, it might be possible to colonize. And we should be able to hunt, to put meat on the table. I'm a little worried about that, though. If we killed the wrong mammal, would we disrupt the evolutionary trail that would result in humans?

Well, we'd never know about it. There's millions of years between the Jurassic Period and the development of anything resembling humans. There's several possibilities here, that I see. Either our colony would thrive, establishing a new timeline of humans on Earth. By the time 'modern day' came around, we may have taken off for outer space. In which case, we would either all leave and Earth would be devoid of humans. Or not everybody left, and the civilization continued strong, so Earth would have humans, even though it was a mixed-up mess as to how we evolved, showing up so abruptly in the Jurassic. Or at some point, our little piece of civilization would sputter and die, and there would be no humans any more, and who would be here to miss them? Or our civilization would die, and humans would evolve, lending a whole new meaning to the term 'Circle of Life'.

Okay, so we'll take a vote. Everybody in favor of settling down here in the Jurassic Period and establishing a colony, say 'Aye'.

Jurassic Park Period Part 6

 Fauna - Amphibians & Land Animals

Amphibians - The Early Jurassic Prosalirus is thought to represent the first frog relative capable of hopping like living frogs. Recognizable frogs like the South American Notobatrachus are known from the middle of the Jurassic. Although salamander-like amphibians are known from the Triassic, salamander ancestors first appeared during the Jurassic.

But most of the land animals mentioned were dinosaurs. Dinosaurs had morphologically diversified in the Late Triassic, but experienced a major increase in diversity and abundance during the Early Jurassic after the extinction of other reptile groups, becoming the dominant vertebrates in terrestrial ecosystems.

Theropods - Theropods are a group of dinosaurs that had hollow bones and 3 claws on each appendage. They first appeared in the Late Triassic. One group, called the Neotheropoda, persisted into the Early Jurassic. The earliest 'bird snout' members of the averostrans appear during the Early Jurassic and continue throughout the rest of that period and the Jurassic. Most theropods were carnivorous, although the unusual Limusaurus of China had a herbivorous diet, with adults having beaked jaws, making it the earliest known theropod to have converted from an ancestrally carnivorous diet. The Coelurosaurs first appeared during the Middle Jurassic, including early tyrannosaurs such as Proceratosaurus. The scansoriopterygids was a group of small feathered coelurosaurs with membraneous, bat-like wings for gliding, and records have been found from the Middle to Late Jurassic.

Ornithischians - This refers to an extinct order of mainly herbivorous dinosaurs characterized by a pelvic structure superficially similar to that of birds. Hence they were called "bird-hipped", or Ornithischia. However, birds are only distantly related to this group, as birds belong to the theropod line of dinosaurs. The Ornithischians included those known as "horn-faced", such as Triceratops, and the armored dinosaurs such as stegosaurs and ankylosaurs. There is strong evidence that certain groups of ornithischians lived in herds, possibly segregated by age. Some were at least partially covered in hair- or feather-like pelts, and there is much debate of whether these pelts may have been primitive feathers.

The earliest definitive ornithischians appear during the Early Jurassic. The earliest Ankylosauria and Stegosauria appear during the Middle Jurassic. At least some ornithischians were covered in protofeathers.

Sauropodomorphs- Sauropods are a group of "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs. They had long necks and tails, small heads and 4 huge, pillar-like legs. They became the dominant large herbivores in terrestrial ecosystems during the Jurassic. Some reached gigantic sizes, becoming the largest organisms to have ever lived on land. Bipedal sauropodomorphs continued to exist into the Early Jurassic, but went extinct by the beginning of the Middle Jurassic. Quadrupedal sauropomorphs were a hold-over from the Late Triassic. One type of quadrupedal from the earliest Jurassic of South Africa reached an estimated weight of 12 tons, far in excess of other known sauropodomorphs.

So it appears there were lots and lots of dinosaurs ambling across the landscape. I know I earlier said we would pause to look at some of the better-known dinosaurs, but I didn't realize how many episodes the Jurassic Period would take, just to give it this brief look. So I've changed my mind, and the next episode (all the rest of the fauna) will finish up the Jurassic Period before I go on to the next time period in the history of the Earth. Later on, when I've finished the Earth's prehistory, I'll find a time to take a look at various species of dinosaurs, so keep watching, because I'll get to them!

Jurassic Park Period Part 5

Fauna - Fish

I don't have as much information on the fish of the Jurassic as I had on the reptiles. So this blog might not be as long. But we'll see.

Conodonts - This is a class of jawless fish that had hard tooth-like elements. They were mentioned in the article I consulted only because they died out during the Jurassic, although not all over the globe at the same time. They had over 300 million years of evolutionary history, but only a handful of species made it into the Jurassic, and those went extinct early in the period. So they wouldn't have been plentiful in the oceans, but there might have been some, depending on what time during the Jurassic period a person was looking.

Sarcopterygii - This is a fancy name for lobe-finned fish, a class of fish whose fins are attached to their bodies by a single bone. This includes several genera of lungfish, which lived in freshwater environments in both hemispheres. Some of those lungfish are fairly closely related to lungfish now living in South America and Africa, rather than those living in Queensland. And there were some living in Asia that are not closely related to any group of living lungfish. Another group of this type of fish were the Mawsoniids, which are completely extinct now, but which lived in the oceans or fresh or brackish water.

Bony fish (Actinopterygii) were major components of freshwater and marine ecosystems. Among these were the Amiiform fish, which are represented today only by the bowfin, an elongated, eel-like creature with sharp, pointy teeth that live in slow-moving fresh water. During the Jurassic, the Amiiformes became fairly global. The pycnodontiforms were small to middle-sized fish with laterally-compressed body and an almost circular outline. They lived mostly in shallow-water sea. They had round and flattened teeth, well adapted to crush food items. Some species lived in rivers and possibly fed on molluscs and crustaceans. Although they had a large variety of representatives during the Jurassic, they are all extinct now. Teleosts, which currently make up over 99% of living Actinopterygii, appeared during the Triassic and underwent a major diversification during the Late Jurassic. The Pachycormiformes are a group of fish closely allied to teleosts. They first appeared in the Early Jurassic, and included both tuna-like predatory and filter-feeding forms. This included the largest bony fish known to have existed, with an estimated maximum length over 15 metres (45 feet).

Chondrichthyes - are fish whose skeletons are mostly made of cartilage, rather than bone. During the Early Jurassic, Hubodonts, which appear to have been primitive forms of sharks were common in both marine and freshwater settings. However, by the Late Jurassic, hybodonts were minor components of most marine communities, having been largely replaced by neoselachians, which contains all living sharks and rays. Hybodonts remained common in freshwater and restricted marine environments. Relatives of the bullhead shark, carpetsharks, and mackerel sharks all made their appearance during the Jurassic. There were also other examples of extinct and relatives of now-living sharks mentioned, so I would suppose that shark-like creatures were a regular feature in the oceans.

So there were plenty of fish in the seas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic

Jurassic Park Period Part 4

Fauna - Reptiles

During the Jurassic, dinosaurs came to dominate the animal world, but they were not the only type of animals. The first birds appeared, evolving from a branch of theropod (hollow-boned) dinosaurs, to share the skies with pterosaurs, the dominant flying vertebrates. Lizards made an appearance and have been with us ever since. Therian mammals evolved, meaning creatures that gave birth to live young, and that includes marsupials. Crocodylomorphs (which eventually gave rise to modern crocodylia, but not during the Jurassic) transitioned from a terrestrial to an aquatic life. The oceans were inhabited by marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.

This is a lot of ground to cover (so to speak), so I'm going to start in the oceans and work my way to land and sky.

The Triassic/Jurassic extinction event decimated crocodile-like reptilian diversity, with crocodylomorphs (which originated during the last half of the Triassic) being the only group to survive. Even the herbivorous aetosaurs died out. [Can you imagine if they had survived, and we had vegetarian crocodiles raiding our gardens?] The diversity of crocodylomorphs during the Early Jurassic was about the same as those of the Late Triassic, but they occupied different ecological niches.

A group of predominantly marine crocodylomorphs became a prominent part of marine ecosystems. Within that group, some became highly adapted for life in the open ocean, including the transformation of limbs into flippers, the development of a tail fluke, and smooth, scaleless skin.

Turtles - Turtles (Testudinata) diversified during the Jurassic. The Jurassic turtles are believed to have formed 2 more advanced groups, the Mesochelydia (which were aquatic), and the Perichelydia. There are 2 modern groups turtles (the Testudines), which are terrestrial and had diverged by the Middle Jurassic. The Thalassochelydia is a diverse lineage of sea turtles, and is known from the Late Jurassic of Europe and South America.

Lepidosaurs - The tuatara is a reptile native only to New Zealand, and is the sole living representative of the Rhynchocephalians, which had achieved a global distribution by the beginning of the Jurassic. The Rhynchocephalians occupied a wide range of lifestyles, including the aquatic pleurosaurs with long snake-like bodies and reduced limbs, the herbivorous eilenodontines, and the Oenosaurus, which had broad tooth plates indicative that they ate creatures that were hard-shelled or had an exo-skeleton, such as corals, shelled mollusks and crabs. Rhynochocephalians disappeared from Asia after the Early Jurassic. The last common ancestor of living squamates (which includes lizards and snakes) is estimated to have lived around 190 million years ago during the Early Jurassic. Squamates first appear in the fossil record during the Middle Jurassic and included early members of a snake lineage. However, many Jurassic squamates have unclear relationships to living groups. Eichstaettisaurus from the Late Jurassic of Germany has been suggested to be an early relative of geckos and displays adaptations for climbing.

Ichthyosaurs - The Ichthyosaurs suffered an evolutionary bottleneck during the Triassic/Jurassic extinction event, with all but one group of them becoming extinct. Ichthyosaurs reached its apex of species diversity during the Early Jurassic, including the huge apex predator Temnodontosaurus and the swordfish-like Eurhinosaurus. However, Early Jurassic ichthyosaurs were significantly less morphologically diverse than their Triassic counterparts

Plesiosaurs - The Plesiosaurs originated at the end of the Triassic Period. At least 6 lineages of plesiosaur crossed the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, so they were already diverse in the Earliest Jurassic. Early plesiosaurs were generally small-bodied, with body size increasing later. There appears to have been a strong turnover as the middle of the Jurassic Period began, with the extinction of 2 groups that had been widespread, and the first appearance of the Cryptoclididae group, which became the dominant group of the latter half of the Jurassic. During this time, the thalassophonean pliosaurs, which had ancestrally been small-headed and long-necked, evolved short necks and large heads. Some species, such as the Pliosaurus, had skulls up to 2 metres (6 ft) in length, with body lengths estimated around 10-12 meters (30-36 feet), making them the apex predators of Late Jurassic oceans. Small-bodied plesiosaurs also invaded freshwater environments during the Jurassic, as shown by remains found in freshwater sediments from China and Australia.

Pterosaurs - Pterosaurs first appeared in the Late Triassic, but a major group of Jurassic pterosaurs is the Rhamphorhynchidae, which first appeared in the Early Jurassic. They ate fish. Another group, the Anurognathids, first appeared in the Middle Jurassic. They had short heads and densely furred bodies, and were probably insectivores. Short-tailed pterodactyloids first appeared in the at the beginning of the Late Jurassic. These include the ctenochasmatids, which have closely spaced needle-like teeth that were presumably used for filter feeding. The Late Jurassic Cycnorhamphus had a jaw with teeth only at the tips, with bent jaws like those of living openbill storks, that may have been used to hold and crush hard invertebrates.

Some of these animals could be found on land, as indicated in the above paragraphs by what they ate. But I'm fairly confident that they had branches of relatives living in the oceans. I am sorry for the use of huge tongue-twisting names, but there were so many names, I would have gotten completely bogged down trying to describe the various species.

There you have some of the reptiles that lived in the oceans and other waterways. This has been a long post, so I am going to end it here and take up fish next time. Yes, there were fish in the waters, too.

There will not be a quiz on the names used in this blog. Class dismissed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocody...

Jurassic Park Period Part 3

Flora

And now, let's move on to living things, such as plants. There's a lot of ground to cover, so to speak, so let's get to it. There is no evidence of a mass extinction of plants at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary, although some species did decline or even die out in some areas.

Conifers form a dominant component of Jurassic floras, when they underwent a major time of diversification. Most modern conifer groups appeared by the end of the Jurassic.

The oldest definitive record of the cypress family is from the Early Jurassic and were found in Patagonia (the southern area of South America). By the middle of the Jurassic, the cypress were abundant in warm temperate-tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Ancestors of the current pine family were widely distributed across Eurasia during the Jurassic.

The flora of the mid-latitudes of Eastern Asia were dominated during the Early Jurassic by a broad leafed conifer which shed its leaves seasonally, and which is not closely related to any living family of conifer. It extended northwards into polar latitudes of Siberia, and then contracted northward because of increasing aridity of the region.

Evidence of the yew family have been found in Sweden, England and China dating from the Middle Jurassic. They appear to be closely related to modern yew specimens.

Ginkgoales—which today has only one living specie, the Ginkgo biloba—were more diverse during the Jurassic, and were among the most important components of Eurasian Jurassic flora, adapted to a wide variety of climatic conditions.

Bennettitales are a group of seed plants that reached a peak diversity during the Triassic and Jurassic periods. Although they bear some resemblance to cycads, they are not believed to be closely related to them. All Jurassic Bennettitales grew as shrubs and small trees, and were adapted to grow in open habitat with poor soil. They also had flower-like reproductive structures that are thought to have been pollinated by insects.

Cycads reached their apex of diversity during the Jurassic and Cretaceous (which comes next) periods. Although this era is sometimes called the 'Age of Cycads', cycads are thought to have been a relatively minor component of Jurassic flora. Their foliage is often confused with that of Bennettitales and other plants. Cycads are thought to have been mostly confined to tropical and subtropical latitudes.

There are no widely accepted Jurassic records of true flowering plants, and fossil evidence suggests that the group diversified during the period following the Jurassic.

'Seed ferns' is a collective term to refer to fern-like plants that produce seeds but have uncertain affinities to living seed plant groups. One prominent group of seed ferns reached their zenith during the Jurassic and was widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, although records in the Southern Hemisphere are rare.

Another group of seed plants are known from the Late Triassic through the Jurassic to the Cretaceous. They are thought to have been tree- or shrub-like, and formed a conspicuous component of Northern Hemisphere Mesozoic temperate and warm-temperate floras. Another group of seed plants called the Pentoxylales, first appeared during the Jurassic, but appear to have been confined to Gondwana.

Many living families of fern were widespread during the Jurassic period. The Polypodiales ferns, which make up 80% of living fern diversity, have no record from the Jurassic and are thought to have diversified later, during the Cretaceous.

The oldest remains of modern horsetails first appear in the Early Jurassic. I could have sworn I heard mention of horsetails in earlier periods, but those must not have made it to modern times.

The Cyatheales, the group containing most modern tree ferns, appeared during the late Jurassic.

Quillworts that are virtually identical to modern species are known from the Jurassic onwards.

Various mosses have left fossil records from the Jurassic and are believed to be related to modern mosses. Several records of liverwort have also been found from the Middle Jurassic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic

Jurassic Park Period Part 2

Paleoclimate

Climate during the Jurassic was approximately 5-10 degrees C (41-50 degrees F) hotter than present time, with atmospheric carbon dioxide likely 4 times higher. It's likely that forests grew near the poles, where they experienced warm summers and cold, sometimes snowy winters. It is unlikely there were any ice sheets, as the high summer temperatures would have prevented the accumulation of snow, although there may have been mountain glaciers. The ocean depths were likely 8 degrees C (about 46 degrees F) warmer than present, and coral reefs grew further north and south by 10 degrees of latitude There were probably large areas of desert in the lower latitudes.

The beginning of the Jurassic was probably marked by a thermal spike corresponding to the eruption of the Central Atlantic magmatic province. This was followed by the Early Jurassic cool interval between 199 and 183 million years ago. ('Cool', of course, is a relative term.) Then came a spike in global temperatures of around 4-8 degrees C (39-46 degrees F) during the eruption of the Karoo-Ferrar large igneous provinces in southern Gondwana, which lasted from 183 million years ago until 174 million years ago.

During this long temperature spike, the ocean surface temperatures likely exceeded 30°C (86°F) and all the land mass between 30°N to 30°C were likely extremely arid, with temperatures in the interior in excess of 40°C (104°F).

There was an episode of widespread oceanic anoxia that is often attributed to the eruption of the Karoo-Ferrar large igneous provinces and the associated increase of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. This event had significant impact on marine invertebrates, but little effect on marine reptiles. During this time, the Sichuan Basin (of southwestern China) was transformed into a giant lake, 3 times the size of Lake Superior. Seawater pH dropped to its lowest point around the middle of this event.

This was followed by a (relatively) cool period between 174 and 164 million years ago, which was followed by a warm interval between 164 and 150 million years ago. During this warm interval, the land mass interior had less severe seasonal swings than before because the expansion of the Central Atlantic and the western Indian Oceans provided new sources of moisture to moderate the temperature. The end of the Jurassic was marked by another cool interval, which began 150 million years ago and continued beyond the end of the Jurassic.

I recently saw someone on social media poo-pooing concern over the climate changing. As they put it, the climate has been changing for millions of years. And they are right, it has been. What they fail to take into consideration is that mass extinction events have been happening for millions of years, AND the climate changes of the past have not occurred as rapidly as this one. If we want to survive this climate change, we need to use the brains we have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic

Jurassic Park Period Part 1

 

Paleogeography

Everybody knows about dinosaurs, right? And thanks to the Jurassic Park series of movies, we all know the dinosaurs lived during the Jurassic Period. But what else is noteworthy about this geologic period? I'll try to uncover something other than various dinosaurs to study.

However, I am just as fascinated with dinosaurs as any little kid, so I'll spend some time studying some of our favorites while I'm at it.

The Jurassic Period started 201.3 million years ago and ended approximately 145 million years ago. There was, as seems so common with these geological periods, an extinction event at the dividing point between the Triassic and Jurassic Periods.

The Triassic/Jurassic extinction event seemed to be caused by the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, which, as best I can figure out, means a lot of magma and lava was moving around in the areas currently known as northwestern Africa, southwestern Europe, southeastern North America and Northeastern South America.

The articles I read seemed to indicate that this was not just a matter of volcanic activity, that some of it could have been caused by the action of diverging plate tectonics. We are aware of the Atlantic rift, where two tectonic plates are moving away from each, allowing a large volume of magma to flow, but this is not considered a volcano. This magma movement began about 201 million years ago, and continued for about 600,000 years. It was the largest activity of this type known to man, covering roughly 11 million km2.

By the beginning of the Jurassic, the supercontinentPangaeahad begun rifting into two landmasses: Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. The rifting between North America and Africa was the first to happen, in conjunction with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province

By the beginning of the Jurassic, there was flooding in most parts of central and western Europe, transforming it into an archipelago of islands surrounded by shallow sea. Beginning in the Early Jurassic, the proto-Atlantic was expanded by the "Viking Corridor" (or Transcontinental Laurasian Seaway) which stretched between the Baltic Shield and Greenland, and was several hundred kilometers wide. All during the Jurassic, the North Atlantic Ocean remained relatively narrow, while the South Atlantic did not open until later.

At the beginning of the Jurassic, North and South America remained connected, but at some point, they rifted apart to form the Caribbean Seaway, which connected the north Atlantic Ocean with what is now called the Pacific Ocean, although it was much larger back then, taking up over half the globe and was called the Panthalass Ocean.

About 183 million year ago, another magmatic event started, the Karoo-Ferrar event, this one in South Africa and Antarctica. This triggered another extinction event by causing widespread oceanic anoxia, ocean acidification and elevated temperatures. I am uncertain if these types of conditions were responsible for the Triassic/Jurassic extinction event.

Madagascar and Antarctica rifted away from Africa in association with the eruption of the Karoo-Ferrar large igneous provinces, which opened the western Indian Ocean and began the fragmentation of Gondwana.

During the Middle to Late Jurassic, the Sundance Seaway, a shallow inland sea, covered much of northwest North America.

The sea level rose and fell many times during the Jurassic, peaking at one point as high as 140 meters (462 feet) above the present level.

Wow! So much happening! And that's just the geography! This makes me wonder what else was going on!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_i...