Latest news with #Pliocene
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Megalodon Tooth Millions of Years Old Found in Florida (Video)
Call me crazy, uneducated, or what-have-you, but I thought the ancient Megalodon shark was just a myth. A fabled creature, akin to the kraken, trumpeted by Shark Week and other fear-mongering media, to entice viewers with shock and awe into their programming. Alas, I was wrong. Recently, a diver off the Gulf Coast of Florida made the find of a lifetime, discovering a six-inch tooth from the early Miocene to early Pliocene epochs, ranging from 23 to 3.6 million years ago. It was so rare, shark experts called it: 'Like winning the lottery. One chance in a million or more.' 'We were really close to the ground,' said Kristina Scott, who found the tooth while diving off Venice in Sarasota County with her boyfriend. 'I saw just the root of it, covered in barnacle. I knew the shape. And I pulled it out of the dirt, and started freaking out. I pulled his [her boyfriend's] arm. I was trying to yell with the regulator in my mouth. But yeah, we were just stoked.'When compared to other shark teeth, this megalodon fang makes modern sharks look like sardines. But how big, exactly, were these ancient behemoths. Well, there's only fossil records to go off, but scientists have some ideas. According to a Smithsonian report on the carcharocles megalodon: 'Carcharocles megalodon was once the most fearsome predator to reign the seas. This ancient shark lived roughly 23 to 3.6 million years ago in nearly every corner of the ocean. Roughly up to 3 times the length of a modern-day great white shark, it is the largest shark to have ever lived. It had a powerful bite with a jaw full of teeth as large as an adult human's hand. They likely could tear chunks of flesh from even the largest whales of the time. It should come as no surprise that upon discovery in the fossil record, the massive shark was named Carcharocles megalodon or 'big toothed glorious shark.'' As for the rarity (and potential price tag) of such a find from the diver in Florida – as in, could she cash in on it? – the newscasters could only fathom: 'From our understanding, this is, like, museum-quality stuff…it's a big deal.'Megalodon Tooth Millions of Years Old Found in Florida (Video) first appeared on Surfer on Jun 2, 2025
Miami Herald
05-05-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
‘Strange' fossilized teeth found in Caribbean. It's a ‘giant' prehistoric species
A mystery has been building in the Caribbean. Decades ago, fossilized teeth were discovered in Cuba dating to about 18 million years ago. They were small but tapered, sharp and serrated. They were the teeth of an apex predator. Researchers didn't believe there was such an animal in the Caribbean, until they found another tooth in Puerto Rico, this time 29 million years old, according to an April 30 news release from the Florida Museum of Natural History. Still, the teeth alone weren't enough to identify the prehistoric species. Then, along a road in the Dominican Republic in 2023, paleontologists unearthed not only another tooth, but vertebrae to match, the museum said. They had an identity. It was a crocodile-like reptile 'built like a greyhound' and sometimes reaching 20 feet long — a sebecid. Not only did the Caribbean house these 'giant' predators after all, but the animals were living there millions of years after their extinction everywhere else, the museum said. Researchers described the findings and what it might mean in a study published April 30 in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The cervical vertebrae and teeth were found in an embankment along the Juan Pablo II highway when roadcuts revealed sediment from the late Miocene and early Pliocene epochs, according to the study. 'Outcrops don't last too long, so you go there when you can. When they're cutting the road or a few months after that, you find the fossils. If you're looking in a few years, it will be gone,' Lázaro W. Viñola López, a former graduate student at the University of Florida and lead author on the study, said in the release. 'That emotion of finding the fossil and realizing what it is, it's indescribable,' he said. Sebecids belonged to a group of prehistoric crocodilians called Notosuchia, a group that was all but wiped out 66 million years ago, according to the museum. With dinosaurs out of the way, sebecids thrived in South America as the new apex predator, able to move quickly on land and use their teeth to rip apart their prey, the museum said. Sebecids likely wouldn't have been able to swim from mainland South America to the Caribbean islands, researchers said in the study, suggesting the landmasses were once connected by some kind of land bridge millions of years ago. There could have also been a chain of smaller islands, making the swimming distance more manageable, for the sebecids to survive in the Caribbean, the museum said. This idea is called the GAARlandia hypothesis and suggests these connections were present about 34 million years ago. 'You wouldn't have been able to predict this looking at the modern ecosystem,' Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History and co-author on the study, said in the release. 'The presence of a large predator is really different than we imagined before, and it's exciting to think about what might be discovered next in the Caribbean fossil record as we explore further back in time.' The new fossils were found in Sabana Grande De Boya in central Dominican Republic, an island nation in the eastern Caribbean. The research team includes Viñola López, Bloch, Jorge Velez-Juarbe, Philippe Münch, Juan N. Almonte Milan, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, Laurent Marivaux and Osvaldo Jimenez-Vasquez.
Zawya
10-04-2025
- Science
- Zawya
Saudi study uncovers ancient humid periods that shaped Arabia's climate over 8mln years
RIYADH — The Saudi Heritage Commission has unveiled new evidence of recurrent humid periods that shaped the Arabian Peninsula's climate over the past 8 million years, according to a scientific study published in Nature. The research, conducted under the Green Arabia Project, is based on one of the longest and most precisely dated cave records ever collected from central Arabia. The study analyzed 22 speleothems — mineral formations in caves — from seven cave systems in central Saudi Arabia. These deposits, some dating back to 7.44 million years ago, provide direct evidence of ancient episodes of increased rainfall and vegetation, contrasting sharply with the region's current hyperarid conditions. Key findings show that central Arabia experienced multiple phases of elevated water availability, especially during the late Miocene, early Pliocene, and middle Pleistocene. These wetter intervals would have supported rivers, lakes, and rich ecosystems, enabling the movement of water-dependent animals such as crocodiles, hippopotamuses, and elephants—species that once roamed Arabia but are now extinct in the region. The humid episodes also likely created corridors for early human and mammal dispersals between Africa and Eurasia, positioning Arabia as a key crossroads for biogeographic exchange. Fossil evidence from the late Miocene Baynunah Formation and middle Pleistocene Nefud Desert supports this theory. Researchers observed that these wet phases gradually became shorter and less intense over time, marking a trend toward increasing aridity. The transition coincides with global climate changes, including Northern Hemisphere glaciation and weakening monsoon systems. After the mid-Pleistocene transition around 700,000 years ago, evidence suggests only limited precipitation, often insufficient to sustain the lush environments of earlier epochs. Another significant discovery is the shift in the origin of rainfall. Isotopic analysis of ancient cave water trapped in speleothems shows a progressive decline in monsoon-derived moisture from the south, replaced increasingly by winter rainfall from the north. This change reflects a broader shift in global atmospheric circulation patterns. © Copyright 2022 The Saudi Gazette. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Gulf Insider
09-04-2025
- Science
- Gulf Insider
Saudi Study Uncovers Ancient Humid Periods That Shaped Arabia's Climate Over 8 Million Years
The Saudi Heritage Commission has unveiled new evidence of recurrent humid periods that shaped the Arabian Peninsula's climate over the past 8 million years, according to a scientific study published in Nature. The research, conducted under the Green Arabia Project, is based on one of the longest and most precisely dated cave records ever collected from central Arabia. The study analyzed 22 speleothems — mineral formations in caves — from seven cave systems in central Saudi Arabia. These deposits, some dating back to 7.44 million years ago, provide direct evidence of ancient episodes of increased rainfall and vegetation, contrasting sharply with the region's current hyperarid conditions. Key findings show that central Arabia experienced multiple phases of elevated water availability, especially during the late Miocene, early Pliocene, and middle Pleistocene. These wetter intervals would have supported rivers, lakes, and rich ecosystems, enabling the movement of water-dependent animals such as crocodiles, hippopotamuses, and elephants—species that once roamed Arabia but are now extinct in the region. The humid episodes also likely created corridors for early human and mammal dispersals between Africa and Eurasia, positioning Arabia as a key crossroads for biogeographic exchange. Fossil evidence from the late Miocene Baynunah Formation and middle Pleistocene Nefud Desert supports this theory. Researchers observed that these wet phases gradually became shorter and less intense over time, marking a trend toward increasing aridity. The transition coincides with global climate changes, including Northern Hemisphere glaciation and weakening monsoon systems. After the mid-Pleistocene transition around 700,000 years ago, evidence suggests only limited precipitation, often insufficient to sustain the lush environments of earlier epochs. Another significant discovery is the shift in the origin of rainfall. Isotopic analysis of ancient cave water trapped in speleothems shows a progressive decline in monsoon-derived moisture from the south, replaced increasingly by winter rainfall from the north. This change reflects a broader shift in global atmospheric circulation patterns.
Saudi Gazette
09-04-2025
- Science
- Saudi Gazette
Saudi study uncovers ancient humid periods that shaped Arabia's climate over 8 million years
Saudi Gazette report RIYADH — The Saudi Heritage Commission has unveiled new evidence of recurrent humid periods that shaped the Arabian Peninsula's climate over the past 8 million years, according to a scientific study published in Nature. The research, conducted under the Green Arabia Project, is based on one of the longest and most precisely dated cave records ever collected from central Arabia. The study analyzed 22 speleothems — mineral formations in caves — from seven cave systems in central Saudi Arabia. These deposits, some dating back to 7.44 million years ago, provide direct evidence of ancient episodes of increased rainfall and vegetation, contrasting sharply with the region's current hyperarid conditions. Key findings show that central Arabia experienced multiple phases of elevated water availability, especially during the late Miocene, early Pliocene, and middle wetter intervals would have supported rivers, lakes, and rich ecosystems, enabling the movement of water-dependent animals such as crocodiles, hippopotamuses, and elephants—species that once roamed Arabia but are now extinct in the humid episodes also likely created corridors for early human and mammal dispersals between Africa and Eurasia, positioning Arabia as a key crossroads for biogeographic evidence from the late Miocene Baynunah Formation and middle Pleistocene Nefud Desert supports this observed that these wet phases gradually became shorter and less intense over time, marking a trend toward increasing transition coincides with global climate changes, including Northern Hemisphere glaciation and weakening monsoon the mid-Pleistocene transition around 700,000 years ago, evidence suggests only limited precipitation, often insufficient to sustain the lush environments of earlier significant discovery is the shift in the origin of rainfall. Isotopic analysis of ancient cave water trapped in speleothems shows a progressive decline in monsoon-derived moisture from the south, replaced increasingly by winter rainfall from the north. This change reflects a broader shift in global atmospheric circulation patterns.
