All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Paleontology
Beyond Bones
The forensic analysis of trace fossils such as footprints, nests, burrows, and even coprolites—fossilized feces—reveal subtle clues about ancient species, their behavior, and their environment.
- Paleontology
Early Mammal’s Jaw Lost Its Groove
A tiny fossil skull found in 195-million-year-old Chinese sediments provides evidence that crucial features of mammal anatomy evolved more than 45 million years earlier than previously thought.
- Earth
They’re not briquettes, but they’ll do
Chunks of fossil charcoal found in ancient sediments in north central Pennsylvania suggest that cycles of wildfire plagued Earth more than 360 million years ago.
- Ecosystems
Hurricanes’ full havoc yet to be felt
When Hurricanes Dennis, Floyd, and Irene pummelled North Carolina in the fall of 1999, they delivered a three-punch sequence that may, for years to come, disrupt fishing in the Atlantic Ocean.
- Earth
Pump up a plateau to make a monsoon
Computer models show that the onset and strengthening of Asian monsoons over the past 8 million to 9 million years are strongly linked to various stages in the uplift of the Tibetan plateau.
- Earth
Pacific Northwest stirred, not shaken
Residents of the Pacific Northwest escaped the wrath of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in the summer of 1999 because the ground movement of 20 centimeters along a deep fault occurred over a period of 6 to 15 days, not all at once.
- Earth
Big Bergs Ahoy!
Although the break-up of Antarctica's northernmost ice shelves has been linked to warmer temperatures in the area, the cause of the unusual number of large icebergs calving from the continent's southern ice shelves last year was likely not global warming.
- Paleontology
The Latest Pisces of an Evolutionary Puzzle
The recent discovery of coelacanths off the northeastern coast of South Africa was the first sighting of the rare fish in that country since the first living coelacanth, a type of fish thought to have been extinct for millions of years, was caught there in late 1938.
- Paleontology
Did fibers and filaments become feathers?
A variety of filamentary structures on the fossil of a small theropod dinosaur recently found in China may provide new insight into the evolution of feathers.
- Earth
Big dam in China may warm Japan
Construction of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River in China may lead to warmer temperatures in Japan, because any diversion of water for Chinese agriculture could initiate convection in the Japan Sea that brings warmer water to the surface.
- Paleontology
Rocks yield clues to flower origins
A distinctive organic chemical related to substances produced by modern flowering plants has been found in ancient fossil-bearing sediments, possibly helping to identify the ancestral plants that gave rise to flowers.
- Paleontology
Fake fossil not one but two new species
A supposed missing link between dinosaurs and birds that was first unveiled in 1999, and revealed to be a forgery soon thereafter, was actually cobbled together from parts of animals from two new species.
