Simposio "Istmos y rutas marítimas" - Tercera Circular

Paleobiología de los ungulados de la Formación Santa Cruz

Tenemos el agrado de anunciar la defensa de la tesis doctoral del Lic. Guillermo CASSINI titulada "Paleobiología de ungulados de la Formación Santa Cruz (Mioceno temprano-medio), Patagonia, Argentina. Una aproximación morfométrica y morfofuncional al estudio del aparato masticatorio", la misma se realizará el viernes 25 de febrero de 2011 a las 9 hs en el Auditorio de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo de La Plata, edificio Administrativo, Planta Alta (Avenidas 60 y 122). 

Directores: Dr. Sergio Vizcaino y Dra. Susana Bargo

Jurados: Dr. Edgardo Ortíz Jaureguizar, Dr. Marcelo A. Reguero y Dr. Aldo Vasallo.

Para solicitar más información comunicarse con la Secretaría de Postgrado de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Calle 60 y 122 - (1900) La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: (54-221) 425-8252 int. 17 Fax: int 28. 

email: posgrado@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

Internet: www.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

Musculatura y función en dinosaurios saurópodos

Tenemos el agrado de anunciar la defensa de la tesis doctoral de la Lic. Alejandro OTERO titulada "Saurópodos Saltasaurinae del territorio argentino: reconstrucción de la musculatura y función del esqueleto apendicular", la misma se realizará el Martes 22 de febrero de 2011 a las 12.30 hs. en el Auditorio de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo de La Plata, edificio Administrativo, Planta Alta (Avenidas 60 y 122). 

Directores: Dr. Leonardo Salgado y Dra. Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini

Jurados: Dr. Sergio Vizcaíno (FCNyM – UNLP), Dr. Diego Pol (Museo Paleontológico “Egidio Feruglio”) (ausente con aviso), Dr. Bernardo González Riga (CRICYT)

Para solicitar más información comunicarse con la Secretaría de Postgrado de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Calle 60 y 122 - (1900) La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: (54-221) 425-8252 int. 17 Fax: int 28. email: posgrado@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar
Internet: www.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

Ostracodos Holocenos Continentales - Tesis de Licenciatura

Tenemos el agrado de anunciar la defensa de Tesis de Licenciatura en Paleontología de María Celeste De Micco. La misma se realizará el lunes 21 de febrero del corriente año a las 11 hs en el aula Turner del Departamento de Ciencias Geológicas, FCEN-UBA. El título de la tesis es "Análisis paleoambiental del Holoceno en Laguna Colorada, Puna Catamarqueña". Los esperamos.


Directora: Dra. Cecilia Laprida
Codirector: Dr. Pablo Tchilinguirián

Jurados: Dres. N. Maidana, M. J. Orgeira y D. G. Lazo

La megafauna de Córdoba

Tenemos el agrado de anunciar la defensa de la tesis doctoral de la Lic. Laura Edith CRUZ titulada "La megafauna del Pleistoceno - Holoceno temprano de la provincia de Córdoba y su comparación con la de Buenos Aires. Sistemática, Bioestratigrafía y Dinámica Faunística", la misma se realizará el viernes 25 de febrero de 2011 a las 11.30 hs en el Auditorio de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo de La Plata, edificio Administrativo, Planta Alta (Avenidas 60 y 122). 

Directores: Dr. Eduardo P. Tonni y Dra. Susana Bargo

Jurados: Dr. Claudio Carignano, Dra. Cecilia Deschamps y Dra. Claudia Montalvo. 

Para solicitar más información comunicarse con la Secretaría de Postgrado de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Calle 60 y 122 - (1900) La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: (54-221) 425-8252 int. 17 Fax: int 28. 

email: posgrado@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

Internet: www.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

Paleohistología de los reptiles marinos

Tenemos el agrado de dar difusión a la defensa de Tesis de la Lic. Marianella TALEVI titulada “Estudio paleohistológico de reptiles marinos de Patagonia (Plesiosauria, Mosasauria, Ichtyosauria, Chelonia): aspectos fisiológicos y paleoecológicos implicados.” La misma se realizará el día Viernes 18 de febrero de 2011 a las 9.30 hs. en el Auditorio (Planta Alta) de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Av. 60 y 122.

Director: Dra. Marta Fernández

Codirector: Dr. Leonardo Salgado

Jurados de Tesis:

Dra. Zulma Gasparini (FCNyM – UNLP)

Dr. Marcelo de la Fuente (Museo de Historia Natural San Rafael)

Dr. Rodolfo Coria (Museo Municipal “Carmen Funes”, Neuquén)

Para solicitar más información comunicarse con la Secretaría de Postgrado de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Calle 60 y 122 - (1900) La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: (54-221) 425-8252 int. 17 Fax: int 28. 

email: posgrado@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

Internet: www.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

Simposio sobre Huellas de Dinosaurios - Alemania - Abril 2011

Dinosaur track Symposium Obernkirchen 2011

Dear colleagues,

the Lower Saxonian State Museum Hannover proudly announces a special meeting concerning dinosaur tracks, with a special focus on Jurassic/Cretaceous strata due to new finds within the German "Wealden" of Lower Saxony, containing even Troodontid tracks. The symposium is organized and hosted by the North German foundation "Schaumburger Landschaft" and will take place from

14. - 17. April 2011

in town of Obernkirchen, vicinity of Hannover, Lower Saxony. A brilliant field trip programm accompanies the meeting, which will also host many experts on tracks, dinosaurs, actuopalaeontological aspects of track layers etc.

Please visit our homepage to look at the current program as well as see who is going to give plenary talks:

www.dinosaurtrack.de

Any talks and/or posters about tracks, biomechanical aspects of "walking/running/leaving footprints" or sedimentological constraints of getting fossil record of tracks at all will be welcome.


If you have any questions, please contact me:
  Dr. Annette Richter, Annette.Richter@nlm-h.niedersachsen.de

 Hannover

Artículo en Science sobre la dieta de los amonoideos

Powerful synchrotron scans of Baculites fossils found on American Museum of Natural History expeditions to the Great Plains suggests that the extinct group of marine invertebrates to which they belong, the ammonites, had jaws and teeth adapted for eating small prey floating in the water. One ammonite also provided direct evidence of a planktonic diet because it died with its last meal in its mouth — tiny larval snails and crustacean bits. The detailed description of internal structure of ammonites, published by a Franco-American research team this week in Science, also provides new insights into why ammonites became extinct 65.5 million years ago when an asteroid impact led to the demise of the world’s nonavian dinosaurs and much of the plankton.

“I was astonished when I saw the teeth for the first time, and when I found the tiny plankton in the mouth,” says first author Isabelle Kruta of the Département Histoire de la Terre, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France. Kruta began the project as an Annette Kade fellow at the American Museum of Natural History. “For the first time we could observe these delicate, exceptionally well-preserved structures and obtain information on the ecology of these enigmatic animals.”

Reconstructed radula of the straight shelled ammonite Baculites (70-80 Myr-old) with each color representing a different type of tooth; generated from Synchrotron Radiation microtomographic slices. Image credit: Tafforeau/Kruta.

“When you take into consideration the large lower jaws of ammonites in combination with this new information about their teeth, you realize that these animals must have been feeding in a different way from modern carrion-eating Nautilus,” says Neil Landman, curator in the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. “Ammonites have a surprisingly large lower jaw with slender teeth, but the effect is opposite to that of the wolf threatening to eat Little Red Riding Hood. Here, the bigger mouth facilitates feeding on smaller prey.”

Ammonites are extinct relatives of the squid and octopus; the Nautilus is similar in appearance to many ammonites but is a more distant relative. Ammonites appeared about 400 million years ago (the Early Devonian) and experienced an explosive radiation in the early Jurassic. In fact, ammonites became such an abundant and diverse part of the marine fauna that they are, for paleontologists, classic “index” fossils used to determine the relative ages of rocks.

Until recently, the role of ammonites in the marine food web was unknown, although some previous research by Landman and colleagues on the shape of the jaw, as well as a 1992 paper by Russian scientists that reconstructed some of the internal structures by slicing fossils, provided clues. The current study used synchrotron X-ray microtomography to digitally reconstruct the mouths of three fossils found in South Dakota. The three dimensional reconstructions are so high in quality that the jaws and teeth are revealed in their complete form.

“X-ray synchrotron microtomography is currently the most sensitive technique for non-destructive investigation of the internal structure of fossils,” says Paul Tafforeau of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. “For this study, we tested specimens after an initial fossil preparation and scanning on more conventional machines by Kruta failed to provide enough detail. The synchrotron results were so impressive that we scanned all available samples, discovering nearly each time radula, and, for one of them, plankton.”

“The plankton in the Baculites jaws is the first direct evidence of the trophic habits of the uncoiled ammonites and helps us understand the evolutionary success of these ammonites in the Cretaceous,” says Fabrizio Cecca of the Laboratoire de Paléontologie, Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris.

Drawing of Baculites. Image credit: A. Lethiers, UPMC.

Ammonite jaws lie just inside the body chamber. The research team’s new scans of Baculites, a straight ammonite found worldwide, confirms older research that ammonites had multiple cusps on their radula, a kind of tongue covered by teeth  that is typical of mollusks. The radula can now be seen in exquisite detail: the tallest cusp is 2 mm high, tooth shape varies from saber to comb-like, and teeth are very slender. The jaw is typical of the group of ammonites (the aptychophorans) to whichBaculites belongs. In addition, one specimen has a tiny snail and three tiny crustaceans in its mouth; one of the crustaceans is even cut in two pieces. Because these planktonic fossils are not found anywhere else on the specimen, the team thinks that the specimen died while eating its last meal rather than being scavenged by these organisms after death.

“Our research suggests several things. First, the radiation of aptychophoran ammonites might be associated with the radiation of plankton during the Early Jurassic,” says Landman. “In addition, plankton were severely hit at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, and the loss of their food source probably contributed to the extinction of ammonites. This research also has implications for understanding carbon cycling during this time.”

Isabelle Rouget, Laboratoire de Paléontologie, Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, agrees, adding that “we now realize that ammonites occupied a different niche in the trophic web than we previously thought.”

Fuente: American Museum of Natural History

Cita: The Role of Ammonites in the Mesozoic Marine Food Web Revealed by Jaw Preservation. 
Isabelle Kruta, Neil Landman, Isabelle Rouget, Fabrizio Cecca, and Paul Tafforeau. 
Science 7 January 2011: 70-72. 

Logo IV CLPV - San Juan

Estimados Socios,

En nombre de la Comisión Organizadora del IV Congreso Latinoamericano de Paleontología de Vertebrados les presentamos el logo del Congreso.

Saludos cordiales,
Comisión Directiva

Se busca estudiante de grado o postgrado - Alemania - Depósitos Continentales Carbonífero-Triásico

Estimados colegas: informalmente el Dr. Joerg Schneider (Freiberg, Alemania) me envío el mail que se transcribe más abajo en donde se detalla el interés de conseguir un profesional de la Cs. Geológicas para desarrollar tareas de investigación. Los interesados contactarse con: Joerg.Schneider@geo.tu-freiberg.de , previa visita de las páginas web sugeridas por el Dr. Schneider.

Saludos cordiales,

Oscar Gallego

***********************************************

 Dear Oscar, 

If you or any of your colleagues has a good student, who is interested in palaeontology/biostratigraphy/sedimentology of non-marine deposits, especially Carboniferous/Permian/Triassic ones, we could apply for a grand of the German Academic Exchange Survey DAAD http://www.daad.de/es/index.html). I have good experiences with PhD students from Morocco. Have a look on the homepage of the DAAD for detailed information and the conditions. We could supervise together such student in palentomology (cockroaches, beetles), conchostracans and fresh water sharks as well as isolated fish remains. I by myself are highly interested, to come to South America for cooperation with you, Tania or Rosemarie Rohn. For post-docs it is possible to apply for post-doctoral research by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Please, have a look on their homepage too.

Best regards to all of you!
Your Joerg