U-M Team Recovers Ancient Whale in Egyptian Desert

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http://www.biologynews.net/archives...ecovers_ancient_whale_in_egyptian_desert.html
"University of Michigan palentologist Philip D. Gingerich and colleagues at the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) announced April 10 the successful excavation of an unusually complete and well-preserved skeleton of the 40-million-year-old fossil whale Basilosaurus isis..."
 

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Wow... interesting!

In Egypt? Whoa! I wonder if this whale was actually brought over by the Goa'ulds. ;)
 
RedFox said:
Egypt used to be underwater. That's where the bodies of marine organisms made the limestone that the pyramids are made of.
Some of those pictures show Egypt when it was underwater.
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/paleogeographic_alps.html
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Interesting. That shows that earth is older than it is. Makes me wonder about how old history really is... not what the Bible says.
 
Wow! :eek: It's very interesting! I love anicent history especially Egypt. And I just like to learn about ancient animals who don't exist here anymore, also. :)
 
yeah. i saw that info. my sis is a geologist. she sends me links. it is interesting!
 
The great flood of Noah's time left lots of sea fossils on deserts and mountain tops.

On what do they base the age of the whale fossil? I didn't read anything in the article that explained how they determined the age.
 
Reba said:
The great flood of Noah's time left lots of sea fossils on deserts and mountain tops.

On what do they base the age of the whale fossil? I didn't read anything in the article that explained how they determined the age.
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Various methods of dating fossils are shown on this page. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinofossils/Fossildating.html

Using those dating methods, the rocks those sea fossils are in were found to be millions of years old. Millions of years is long enough for the sea and land levels to change a lot. The evidence suggests that the deserts of Egypt were covered by sea. And the fossils on the mountain tops like the Himayas are there because India used to be separate from Asia with ocean in between. Over millions of years, due to plate tectonics, India moved north into Asia, making the rock fold up. The fossils from the sea floor were carried up to what became the top of the Himaya mountains.

Maybe the flood stories came from when the ice age ended and places got flooded by melting ice. :shock: The Nile river and the rivers Iraq also flooded each year, renewing farmers' fields. Maybe there was a bad flood once.
 
RedFox said:
...Maybe the flood stories came from when the ice age ended and places got flooded by melting ice. :shock: The Nile river and the rivers Iraq also flooded each year, renewing farmers' fields. Maybe there was a bad flood once.
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The Biblical flood of Noah covered the entire earth, mountaintops and all, every continent. It was more than just the annual rivers flooding or ice melting. The rain came down from the sky, and water came up from the fountains of the earth. :)

You are right about one thing; it was a bad flood!
 
RedFox said:
Various methods of dating fossils are shown on this page.
Click to expand...
Yes, I am familiar with those methods. I just didn't read anything in that particular story about the whale that specified how they came to the conclusion that was the age for that fossil.

Using those dating methods, the rocks those sea fossils are in were found to be millions of years old.
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So they say this week. :)

Millions of years is long enough for the sea and land levels to change a lot.
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Much more time than really required.
 
Reba said:
Yes, I am familiar with those methods. I just didn't read anything in that particular story about the whale that specified how they came to the conclusion that was the age for that fossil.


So they say this week. :)


Much more time than really required.
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I think that they would publish papers in journals like Nature about stuff they find and what methods they use and the popular press doesn't always say everything.
They improve our picture of what happened back then when they find more fossils and about how they fit into earth's history.
Oh yes, sea levels can change more quickly. I read that it rose 120 meters since the end of the glacial maximum 18,000 years ago and if all of the ice on earth now melted, it would add another 70 meters. :-o If that water gets warmed, the seas would rise higher than that due to water expanding when it warms up. Maybe if the mid ocean ridges get active and bunged up, it would displace the ocean onto continents like what happened to central North America in the Cretaceous period when there was lots of rifting action at the ridges.

The whale in the story is from the Eocene epoch when the world and oceans were warm. So I wasn't surprised that Egypt was underwater back then. Towards the end of that time, the cooling that led to the ice age began when Australia rifted off of Antarctica, allowing the latter to get totally surrounded by cold water currents, leading to ice buildup. Having big pieces of land like North America and Europe near the poles also helps with providing places for ice to pile up. ;)
 
It seems that you also have an interest in this sort of thing, RedFox. Pomeranian has a boy who is a dinosaur freak and he keeps me on my toes with the latest updates, lol.
This is fascinating stuff, I think. This find was located about a hundred kilometers soth of Ciaro, specifically in Foyoum. "Wadi Hitan" literally means "Valley of the Whales", so it's not on a city you would find on a map (I tried). It used to be called "Wadi Zeuglodon", but they changed it. The coordinates are N 29 17'49.2" E 30 3'31.9"
That whole area would have been quite different during the span of the last glaciation as well. Climates shifts and rain falls in places where they don't today, and it quite a bit wetter in the MidEast at that time, though ocean levels were lower and the mediterranean was pretty much cut off from any reasonable water exchange with the Altlantic ocean. Also, recall that the southwestern US would have had a climate very similar to what is now found in Washington, Oregon, and BC---wet and warm--not the arid landscapes that we find there today.
And as for the fabled "flood"...I dunno .No one was there, lol. Asia has an extensive recorded history and there is no mention of any "flood" of this magnitude.
Anyway, RefFox, it is neat that you seem knowledgeable about this matter and if you find any cool dinosaur site for a certain eight year old boy, post it!
 
Reba said:
Much more time than really required.
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Oh I forget to say which things took millions of years to happen. I meant that plate tectonics take millions of years to move around pieces of crusts, including continents and do things like mountain building and rifting. Other things like sea levels can change more quickly, within thousands to tens of thousands of years, depending on how much of earth's water is part of ice sheets.
 

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one more.... enjoy!

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