exceptional soft tissue preservation in a theropod dinosaur from italy the lower cretaceous pietraroia plattenkalk benevento province southern italy has been known since the eighteenth century for its beautifully preserved fossil fishes during albian time about 113 myr ago1 deposition of fine marly limestone in a shallow lagoonal environment affected by cyclic periods of low oxygen levels2 led to exceptional preservation of soft tissue in a juvenile theropod the specimen diagnosed here as scipionyx samniticus gen et sp nov is the first dinosaur ever to be found in italy the fossil has been mentioned previously in two brief notes3 4 and generally examined in a doctoral thesis5 here we report the full preparation of the specimen which shows details of soft anatomy never seen previously in any dinosaur the preservation is better than in other lagerstatten conservative deposits 6 where theropod soft tissue has been reported such as the santana formation of brazil7 and the yixian formation of china8 despite this there is no evidence of feathers or any other integumentary remnants in the italian specimen scipionyx represents a new maniraptoriform theropod its discovery is remarkable considering also the scarcity of juvenile theropod dinosaurs in the fossil record

estimation of permeable pathways and water content using tomographic radar data near surface environmental investigations often require monitoring of the spatial distribution of water content and identification of preferential fluid flow paths water content estimates are needed for example to model and predict pollutant transport through the vadose zone and to subsequently design an efficient and reliable remediation plan the characteristics of preferential flow paths as well as the location and geometry of these features are necessary to model and predict flow and transport in complex geological media such as fractured or strongly heterogeneous porous systems

a nearly complete skeleton of a new troodontid dinosaur from the early cretaceous of the ordos basin inner mongolia people s republic of china an articulated skeleton of a 1 m long theropod from early cretaceous strata in inner mongolia is clearly referrable to the troodontidae representing the most complete specimen known of this group of small carnivorous dinosaurs the tail and neck of the animal were curled next to its body upon burial the upper surface of the skeleton was badly damaged by erosion previously unknown details of troodont morphology include a quadratic contact with the braincase wall forming part of a channel leading to the lateral depression a presacral vertebral count possibly similar to that of most theropods absence of ossified caudal tendons presence of a rod like clavicle and absence of sternal ossifications a new genus and species sinornithoides youngi n gen n sp is established for the specimen on the basis of its short skull laterally directed orbital rim of the frontal and elongated hind limb a reassessment of character distributions in other small theropods and primitive birds must be completed befor

recent advances in the comprehension of the biogeography of cretaceous european eusuchians abstract within the last two decades a growing interest has emerged with the aim of understanding the structure of the paleocommunities from cretaceous continental deposits of europe conspicuous research efforts have concentrated on outcrops from northern spain southern france italy and romania of special relevance are the researches in romanian outcrops because they considerably extend the sampling eastward providing a wide geographical scope in faunal comparisons across the cretaceous european archipelago excavations have yielded previously unknown vertebrates including members of crocodilia most late cretaceous eusuchians reported so far have been from north america with a few european exceptions hylaeochampsa vectiana owen bernissartia fagesii dollo allodaposuchus precedens nopcsa from valioara romania and crocodilus affuvelensis matheron here the fossil record of european eusuchians is reviewed and peculiarities of the emergence of eusuchia in europe are discussed in light of the faunal turnover that occurred between the early and late cretaceous additionally to biomechanical novelties tied to evolutionary landmarks marking the transition between advanced neosuchians to eusuchians other possible factors are put forward and discussed as such climatic conditions and paleogeographic settings may have permitted faunal exchanges between north america and europe as suggested by the study of other vertebrates further the present review provides a basis for a comparison with other laurasian and gondwanan faunas of the cretaceous

a new carnosaur dinosauria theropoda from the jurassic of xinjiang people s republic of china in 1987 a sino canadian expedition known as the dinosaur project china canada alberta ex terra discovered a large theropod skeleton in the upper jurassic shishugou formation of the junggar

vsp traveltime inversion near surface issues p wave velocity information obtained from vertical seismic profiles vsps can be useful in imaging subsurface structure either by directly detecting changes in the subsurface or as an aid to the interpretation of seismic reflection data in the shallow subsurface p wave velocity can change by nearly an order of magnitude over a short distance so curved rays are needed to accurately model vsp traveltimes we used a curved ray inversion to estimate the velocity profile and the discrepancy principle to estimate the data noise level and to choose the optimum regularization parameter the curved ray routine performed better than a straight ray inversion for synthetic models containing high velocity contrasts the application of the inversion to field data produced a velocity model that agreed well with prior information these results show that curved ray inversion should be used to obtain velocity information from vsps in the shallow subsurface

vadose zone flow model parameterisation using cross borehole radar and resistivity imaging cross borehole geoelectrical imaging in particular electrical resistivity tomography ert and transmission radar tomography can provide high resolution images of hydrogeological structures and in some cases detailed assessment of dynamic processes in the subsurface environment through appropriate petrophysical relationships these tools offer data suitable for parameterising and constraining models of groundwater flow this is demonstrated using cross borehole radar and resistivity measurements collected during a controlled vadose zone tracer test performed at a field site in the uk sherwood sandstone both methods show clearly the vertical migration of the tracer over a 200 h monitoring period by comparing first and second spatial moments of changes in moisture content predicted from a numerical simulation of vadose zone flow with equivalent statistics from two and three dimensional ert and cross borehole radar profiles the effective hydraulic conductivity is estimated to be approximately 0 4 m d such a value is comparable to field estimates from borehole hydraulic tests carried out in the saturated zone at the field site and provides valuable information that may be utilised to parameterise pollutant transport models of the site

skeletal remains of a small theropod dinosaur with associated soft structures from the lower cretaceous santana formation of northeastern brazil associated well preserved uncrushed skeletal remains comprising the pelvic girdle partial sacrum both femora and parts of the right tibia and fibula from the romualdo member of the lower cretaceous santana formation of northeastern brazil record the presence of a previously unknown coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur in that formation the pelvic girdle is noteworthy for the bilaterally asymmetrical development of various bony features the specimen also preserves a segment of lithified intestinal tract while still in the matrix the fossil preserved a vacuity behind the pubic apron that may indicate the existence of a postpubic air sac

theropod teeth from the basalmost cretaceous of anoual morocco and their palaeobiogeographical significance the theropod teeth from the berriasian early cretaceous site of anoual n morocco are described the assemblage is important in that it comes from one of the very few dinosaur sites of this age globally and the only one for the whole of gondwana the theropod teeth from anoual are morphologically diverse most of the material possibly belongs to the clade dromaeosauridae which would be an early occurrence for this taxon the palaeogeographic position of anoual enables it to provide data on the dispersal events that affected terrestrial faunas during mesozoic times a laurasian influence is evidenced by the presence of velociraptorinae and on the whole the theropod fauna from anoual provides support for the existence of a trans tethyan passage allowing terrestrial faunal interchanges during late jurassic and or earliest cretaceous times additionally anoual records the existence of diminutive theropods however it cannot yet be determined whether the small size of the specimens is genetic or ontogenetic

anatomy of sinosauropteryx prima from liaoning northeastern china a spectacular pair of sinosauropteryx skeletons from jurassic cretaceous strata of liaoning in northeastern china attracted worldwide notoriety in 1996 as the first dinosaurs covered with feather l

a new terrestrial plant rich fossil lagerstatte from the middle cenomanian late cretaceous of the apennine carbonate platform magliano vetere southern italy depositional and palaeoenvironmental settings abstract we describe a new terrestrial plant rich fossil lagerstatte discovered at magliano vetere campania region s italy in the middle cenomanian of the apennine carbonate platform the deposit 1 42 m thick is made up of a thin bedded interlayering of evenly laminated dolomicrites lenticular dolorudites and carbonaceous seams which contain well preserved remains of terrestrial plants yielding cuticles and minor fishes this study focuses on plant remains to provide systematical taphonomical and palaeoenvironmental considerations nevertheless a preliminary analysis carried out on fossil fishes has led to the identification of pycnodontids and teleosts the fossil lagerstatte retains sterile foliage bearing shoots with epidermal features belonging to the genus frenelopsis of the extinct conifer family of the cheirolepidiaceae plant remains possibly represent a stable biotope as floral composition displays no variation along the deposit nevertheless episodes of harsh environmental conditions occurred as demonstrated by a fish mortality event and ca sulphate evaporite precipitation taphonomical considerations and sedimentological evidence from the encasing sediments suggest a parautochthonous deposition of fossil plants in a supratidal intertidal mudflat including a salt marsh that was characterised by a restricted sea water circulation deposition of primary dolomite and episodical wildfires the presence of xeromorphic features in frenelopsis from magliano vetere could represent an adaptation to haline environment which was subjected to microtephra supply from a distant orogenic volcanism the facies evolution of the studied fossil lagerstatte records a rapid regressive and a following slower transgressive trend and constitutes the lowermost portion of a 20 m thick interval characterised by several dolomitic plattenkalk up to 1 50 m thick which are separated by cyclically stacked peritidal limestones we infer that 1 the 20 m thick plattenkalk bearing interval represents a sequence boundary zone in the stratigraphical record of the middle cenomanian apcp 2 frenelopsis thrived at the verge of an arid semiarid climatical phase during a major pulse of relative sea level fall

an ontogenetic perspective on locomotion in the late cretaceous dinosaur maiasaura peeblesorum ornithischia hadrosauridae ontogenetic growth in the forelimb and hindlimb of the dinosaur maiasaura peeblesorum ornithischia hadrosauridae from the upper cretaceous campanian maastrichtian two medicine formation of montana is investigated by multivariate and bivariate morphometrics and the biomechanics of beam theory results support a hypothesis of an age dependent selection of stance juveniles walked primarily as bipeds as an individual matured its predominant stance shifted to quadrupedality within the forelimb morphometric results show a probable allometric enlargement of postural muscles an allometric increase in the lever arms of protractor muscles and an increased robustness of the humerus to enhance its resistance to bending stresses in contrast the hindlimb is characterized by a relative decrease in the resistance of the femur and tibia to bending stresses in addition there is an allometric enlargement of the femoral fourth trochanter and positive allometry of the lengths of metatarsals iii and iv the mos

smooth inversion of vsp traveltime data vertical seismic profile vsp direct arrivals provide an insitu measurement of traveltime with depth into the earth in this note we describe a weighted damped least squares inversion of vsp traveltimes for a smooth velocity depth function that inherently reveals the resolution of the data smooth velocity depth profiles of this type are suitable for migration or as a starting models for waveform inversion or tomography the application of this inversion is particularly simple requiring only the value of the damping parameter to be determined and this value is determined from residual statistics

subglacial bedforms of the zemgale ice lobe south eastern baltic abstract presented in this paper are the results of the mapping of 6600 subglacial bedforms of the zemgale ice lobe zil their composition and internal structure in the south eastern baltic region topographic maps at scale 1 10 000 were mainly used to map bedforms in latvia while a digital elevation model with cell size of 5 m was used for north central lithuania the zil operated during the deglaciation of the late weichselian scandinavian ice sheet sis at least in the middle lithuanian and north lithuanian glacial phases and created a subglacial landform assemblage consisting of glacial lineations such as drumlins mega flutings mega scale glacial lineations msgls and transversal morphologies such as ribbed moraines it is observed that lineations of different scales co exist suggesting subglacial bedform transition and possibly a continuum of bedforms highly elongated lineations with a length of up to 24 km and an elongation ratio of up to 1 50 interpreted as msgls are observed in the ne part of the middle lithuanian plain in the so called zemgale drumlin field 20 of lineations have elongation ratios 10 1 indicating the fastest ice flow in the central part of the main body of the lobe based on test surveys and investigated outcrops the drumlin cores consist of sorted sediments with different levels and depths of glaciotectonic deformation overlain by subglacial till the main drumlin forming ice stress was mostly parallel to the crests of drumlins while some ice stress from inter drumlin depressions acted during the final episodes of their formation the observed sediment structures indicate multiple episodes of the basal ice bed coupling and decoupling which can best be explained by the mosaic ice bed deformation model ribbed moraines are characterized by a complicated structure of multiple till units interbedded with sorted sediments that have been formed by repeated subglacial overthrusting

multivariate analysis of cross hole georadar velocity and attenuation tomograms for aquifer zonation 1 we have investigated the potential of combining cross hole georadar velocity and attenuation tomography as a method for characterizing heterogeneous alluvial aquifers a multivariate statistical technique known as k means cluster analysis is used to correlate and integrate information contained in velocity and attenuation tomograms cluster analysis allows us to identify objectively the major common trends in the tomographic data and thus to reduce the information to a limited number of characteristic parameter combinations the application of this procedure to two synthetic data sets indicates that it is a powerful tool for converting the complex relationships between the tomographically derived velocity and attenuation structures into a lithologically and hydrologically meaningful zonation of the probed region in addition these synthetic examples allow us to evaluate the reliability of further petrophysical parameter estimates we find that although absolute values of the tomographically inferred petrophysical parameters often differ significantly from the actual parameters the clustering approach enables us to reliably identify the major trends in the petrophysical properties finally we have applied the approach to a cross hole georadar data set collected in a well studied alluvial aquifer a comparison of the clustered tomographic section with well log data demonstrates that our approach delineates the hydrostratigraphic zonation

traveltime inversion of vertical radar profiles traveltimes of direct arrivals in vertical radar profiles vrps are tomographically inverted to estimate the earth s electromagnetic em velocity between a surface transmitter and a downhole receiver we determine the 1d interval velocity model that best fits the first arrival traveltimes by using a weighted damped least squares inversion scheme we assess the accuracy of the velocity model using synthetic traveltimes from a known velocity distribution model simulating an unconfined aquifer the inverted velocity profile closely matched the velocity profile of the input model in the synthetic examples using vertical radar profile data from an unconfined aquifer near boise idaho we inverted traveltimes to obtain velocity estimates at the well location the velocity change at a depth of 2 0 m corresponds well with the measured depth to the water table of 1 95 m and at depths between 2 and 18 m the velocities ranged between 0 06 and 0 1 m ns our estimates approximately match the velocity distribution determined from neutron derived porosity logs at depths greater than about 2 m an important function of inverse methods is to assess quantitatively and qualitatively the uncertainty of inverted velocity estimates we note that the velocity values in the upper and lower parts of the inverted model are not as well constrained compared to those between the depths of 4 and 13 m from the model resolution and model covariance matrices of the real data inversion we determine theuncertainty in ourvelocity model leading to more reliable interpretations of the subsurface

vertical radar profiling combined analysis of traveltimes amplitudes and reflections abstractvertical radar profiling vrp is a single borehole geophysical technique in which the receiver antenna is located within a borehole and the transmitter antenna is placed at one or various offsets from the borehole today vrp surveying is primarily used to derive 1d velocity models by inverting the arrival times of direct waves using field data collected at a well constrained test site in germany we evaluated a vrp workflow relying on the analysis of direct arrival traveltimes and amplitudes as well as on imaging reflection events to invert our vrp traveltime data we used a global inversion strategy resulting in an ensemble of acceptable velocity models and thus it allowed us to appraise uncertainty issues in the estimated velocities as well as in porosity models derived via petrophysical translations in addition to traveltime inversion the analysis of direct wave amplitudes and reflection events provided further valuable information regarding subsurface properties and architecture the

aptian dinosaur footprints from the apulian platform bisceglie southern italy in the framework of periadriatic ichnosites abstract new dinosaur tracks have been found near bisceglie bari apulia on loose blocks ascribed to the corato member late bedoulian to early gargasian of the calcare di bari fm the material consists of isolated footprints as well as of short trackways of quadrupedal and bipedal dinosaurs the new tracksite has yielded a quite differentiated dinosaur ichnocoenosis including theropod sauropod thyreophoran and ornithopod footprints the discovery of early aptian dinosaur footprints in the limestone of the carbonate platform of southern italy gives new insights on dinosaur distribution and new palaeontological constraints for the palaeogeographic reconstruction of the mediterranean tethys during the cretaceous the analysis of this and others ichnosites of the periadriatic carbonate platforms gives evidence of repeated emersions and of widespread land vertebrates dwelling the characteristics of the associations suggest that the trackmakers did not constitute a real coevolved association but the occasional co occurrence of taxa after migration the results emphasize the need of both structural and environmental continuity and walking ways between a southern continent and the periadriatic carbonate platforms during the early cretaceous

sharp spatially constrained inversion with applications to transient electromagnetic data time domain electromagnetic data are conveniently inverted by using smoothly varying 1d models with fixed vertical discretization the vertical smoothness of the obtained models stems from the application of occam type regularization constraints which are meant to address the ill posedness of the problem an important side effect of such regularization however is that horizontal layer boundaries can no longer be accurately reproduced as the model is required to be smooth this issue can be overcome by inverting for fewer layers with variable thicknesses nevertheless to decide on a particular and constant number of layers for the parameterization of a large survey inversion can be equally problematic here we present a focusing regularization technique to obtain the best of both methodologies the new focusing approach allows for accurate reconstruction of resistivity distributions using a fixed vertical discretization while preserving the capability to reproduce horizontal boundaries the formulation is flexible and can be coupled with traditional lateral spatial smoothness constraints in order to resolve interfaces in stratified soils with no additional hypothesis about the number of layers the method relies on minimizing the number of layers of non vanishing resistivity gradient instead of minimizing the norm of the model variation itself this approach ensures that the results are consistent with the measured data while favouring at the same time the retrieval of horizontal abrupt changes in addition the focusing regularization can also be applied in the horizontal direction in order to promote the reconstruction of lateral boundaries such as faults we present the theoretical framework of our regularization methodology and illustrate its capabilities by means of both synthetic and field data sets we further demonstrate how the concept has been integrated in our existing spatially constrained inversion formalism and show its application to large scale time domain electromagnetic data inversions

ground penetrating radar for high resolution mapping of soil and rock stratigraphy ground penetrating radar is a technique which offers a new way of viewing shallow soil and rock conditions the need to better understanding overburden conditions for activities such as geochemical sampling geotechnical investigations and placer exploration as well as the factors controlling groundwater flow has generated an increasing demand for techniques which can image the subsurface with higher resolution than previously possible the areas of application for ground penetrating radar are diverse the method has been used successfully to map ice thickness water depth in lakes bedrock depth soil stratigraphy and water table depth it is also used to delineate rock fabric detect voids and identify karst features the effective application of the radar for the high resolution definition of soil stratigraphy and fractures in bedrock is highlighted the basic principles and practices involved in acquiring high quality radar data in the field are illustrated by selected case histories one example demonstrates how radar has been used to map the bedrock and delineate soil horizons to a depth of more than 20 m two case histories show how radar has been used to map fractures and changes of rock type to 40 m range from inside a mine another case history demonstrates how radar has also been used to detect and map the extent of groundwater contamination the corroboration of the radar results by borehole investigations demonstrates the power and utility of the high resolution radar method as an aid for interpolation and extrapolation of the information obtained with conventional coring programmes with the advent of new instrumentation and field procedures the routine application of the radar method is becoming economically viable and the method will see expanded use in the future

estimation of spatio temporal variability of soil water content in agricultural fields with ground penetrating radar summary efficient water management crop yield variability estimation and prediction of contaminant transport require some measurement of soil water content variation through time and space this study focused on the estimation of spatio temporal variability of volumetric soil water content v in raised bed agricultural fields using ground penetrating radar gpr comparison of gpr method with gravimetric sampling data and development of 2d maps of v the gpr system pulse ekko pro with 200 mhz antennas was used to collect data on approximately 1 0 m wide and 13 0 m long raised beds of about 0 1 m height cultivated with vegetables transillumination zero offset profile trans zop and transillumination multiple offset gather trans mog gpr survey modes which are classically used as borehole gpr method were employed as a surface gpr method in each of these survey modes the direct ground wave travel time was measured the v at each trans zop and trans mog location was calculated by first converting the electromagnetic em wave velocity into soil dielectric permittivity and then to v using a standard empirical relationship the results revealed that the spatio temporal variability of v in raised bed agricultural fields could be estimated using the trans zop and trans mog gpr survey modes the gpr estimated v and gravimetrically measured soil water content g were not significantly different p 0 272 the correlation coefficient was 0 87 the root mean square error was 0 0184 m 3 m 3 and the average error was 0 20 between the two methods the trans mog survey data allowed us to create plan view maps 2d of the v variation which could not be obtained from the trans zop data no statistical difference p 0 053 was found between the trans zop and average trans mog values

focused inversion of vertical radar profile vrp traveltime data the reconstruction of the gpr velocity vertical profile from vertical radar profile vrp traveltime data is a problem with a finite number of measurements and imprecise data analogous to similar seismic techniques such as the shallow down hole test used for s wave velocity profiling or the vertical seismic profiling vsp commonly used in deeper exploration the uncertainty in data accuracy and the error amplification inherent in deriving velocity estimates from gradients of arrival times make this an example of an ill posed inverse problem in the framework of tikhonov regularization theory ill posedness can be tackled by introducing a regularizing functional stabilizer the role of this functional is to stabilize the numerical solution by incorporating the appropriate a priori assumptions about the geometrical and or physical properties of the solution one of these assumptions could be the existence of sharp boundaries separating rocks with different physical properties we apply a method based o

multilayer ground penetrating radar guided waves in shallow soil layers for estimating soil water content the knowledge of moisture content changes in shallow soil layers has important environmental implications and ground penetrating radar gpr used in surface to surface configuration has been used increasingly to quickly image soil moisture content over large areas the technique is based on measuring direct gpr wave velocity in the ground however in the presence of shallow and thin low velocity soil layers dispersive guided gpr waves are generated and the direct ground wave is not identifiable as a simple arrival under such conditions the dispersion relation of guided waves can be estimated from field data and then inverted to obtain the properties of the guiding layers this approach is applied to a mountain slope with a 1 m soil cover where repeated measurements over time inverted by conceptualizing the soil as a single guiding layer lead to estimates of velocity andthickness varying over time varying soil thickness clearly is not a plausible physical process to remove this problem we develop

vertical seismic profiling vertical seismic profiling is one of the rapidly developing areas of geophysical technology for exploring in mature basins the measurement basically involves recording the total upgoing and downgoing seismic wave fields propagating through a stratigraphic section by means of geophones clamped to the wall of a drilled well

velocity variations and water content estimated from multi offset ground penetrating radar the common midpoint cmp processing technique has been shown to be effective in improving the results of ground penetrating radar gpr profiling when radar data are collected with the cmp multioffset geometry stacking increases the signal to noise ratio of subsurface radar reflections and results in an improved subsurface image an important aspect of cmp processing is normal moveout velocity analysis our objectives are to show the effect of multiple velocity analyses on the stacked radar image and particularly to demonstrate that this velocity information can also be used to determine subsurface water content most gpr surveys are very limited in spatial extent and assume that within the survey range radar velocity structure in the shallow subsurface can be adequately approximated by a single velocity function in data processing in this study we show that variation in radar velocity can be quite significant and that the stacked profile improves as the number of velocity analysis locations is increased interval velocities can be calculated from the normal moveout velocities derived in the cmp velocity analysis with some reasonable assumptions about subsurface conditions necessary for radar propagation interval velocity can be converted to an estimate of volumetric water content therefore by collecting gpr data in the multioffset cmp geometry not only is the radar profile improved but it also allows for an interpretation of subsurface variation in water content we show the application of these techniques to multioffset gpr data from the chalk river test area operated by atomic energy of canada limited

a possible bridge between adria and africa new palaeobiogeographic and stratigraphic constraints on the mesozoic palaeogeography of the central mediterranean area abstract dinosaur records in central and southern italy testify to the occurrence of a diverse dinosaur fauna on the apennine and apulian carbonate platforms at least from the tithonian to the santonian most of the palaeogeographic reconstructions show these domains as topographically isolated areas separated by deep pelagic basins and far from emerged continental areas thus they hardly justify the long lasting occurrence of these terrestrial vertebrates recent studies on the mesozoic panormide carbonate platform western sicily yielded important stratigraphical and palaeontological data which provide evidence for a convincing explanation of this unresolved problem the recent discovery of a theropod bone in mid cretaceous peritidal levels of the panormide platform as well as the anomalous subsidence of this palaeogeographic domain strongly support the existence of a crustal sector filtering bridge which connected africa to adria