Not Geography Geography Lesson 21
Discovering Our Oldest Ancestor and The Misfortune of the Dinosaurs
Apologies that this post is so so so late - I started my full-time work placement as part of my Masters, and that combined with hen do's and birthday parties and sleeping, has meant that I have had very little free time over the last few weeks. Seriously though, how do people with full time jobs and children and houses and dogs find time to do anything..? When do they buy shampoo?!
Anyway... I am back, and I have a new exciting topic or two for this weeks post - the discovery of our oldest ancestor to date, and the slightly related misfortune of the dinosaurs. Everyone loves dinosaurs, so let's get on with it!
Your Great Great Great Great Great Great Great.... Grandma Was A Mouse
This week, researchers working on the Jurassic Coastline of Dorset (clue's in the name really) discovered what they believe to be the oldest fossilized remains of the mammalian ancestor species, which would eventually evolve into modern humans. I imagine it looked something like that Guinness advert. The two types of creatures found were small, furry, rat-like animals with surprisingly strong teeth, and probably lived nocturnally. They have been named Durlstotherium Newmani, and Durlstodon Ensomi - bit of a mouthful but each to their own. The smaller species is assumed to have been a burrower and feasted on insects, whilst the larger animal also dined on plants - Heston Blumenthal eat your heart out.
The teeth of the pretty unpleasant sounding shrew-esque animals, were found to be worn down suggesting that they lived a long life; impressive when you are living in the same neighbourhood as dinosaurs. Through dating the teeth, researchers estimate that the species lived 145 million years ago, which sits right between the end of the Jurassic period, and the beginning of the Cretaceous.
So there you have it, you might think you look like a wreck in the morning, but you still look a damn sight better than your grandma 145 million times removed did!
Better Luck Next Time Dinosaurs
It was also reported in the news this week, that scientists in Japan have uncovered that the series of events which resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs was indeed unfortunate. It has been commonly understood that 66 million years ago, an enormous asteroid thudded into the Earth near Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, creating the gargantuan Chicxulub crater and throwing up to 2300m tons of soot into the atmosphere. The volume of debris was so large that as it sat in the atmosphere, it prevented the sun's radiation from reaching the Earth's surface and the temperature dropped dramatically and everything eventually died. Or nearly everything - our rodent ancestor was still sat in a hole somewhere eating worms, wondering what all the racket was.
So yes, simple math tells us that 'Big Asteroid + Earth = Big Hole + Sun Blockage = Death'. But what has recently been understood, is that only 17% of the entire Earth had the potential to release as much soot (hydrocarbon) as was necessary to cause the 10c cooling and the resultant extinction of the dinosaurs. Or in other words, the asteroid could have struck 83% of the Earth's surface and the dinosaurs might still have been around now. But then of course we probably wouldn't have been because they would have stomped all of our furry ancestors, and even if we did make it this far, anyone who has seen Jurassic Park knows how well that would have ended for us.
It would appear that the supreme dinosaurs had worse luck than Ralph Wiggum, whilst our revolting little rat ancestor stuck it out and lived to evolve into modern humans. There's a moral there somewhere...
I hope you enjoyed this weeks topic, and maybe even learnt something along the way! See you next week (hopefully...)!
