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Harrington's Mountain Goat
Harrington's mountain goat (''Oreamnos harringtoni'') was a species of North American Goat-antelope, caprine that resided in the Southwest of the continent during the Pleistocene epoch. A relative of the modern mountain goat, which is the only existing species in the genus ''Oreamnos'', ''O. harringtoni'' became extinct around 11,000 B.C. Fossil record Harrington's mountain goat was first described in the 1930s by paleontologist Chester Stock. Stock based his initial description on finds of skull fragments and metapodial bones from Smith Creek Cave in the Great Basin of Nevada. In 1937 he authored a ''Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences'' article titled "A new mountain goat from the Quaternary of Smith Creek Cave, Nevada". Later finds in Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and the Grand Canyon have included intact skulls, metapodials, keratinous horn sheaths, dung, hair, muscle and ligament. Characteristics Harrington's mountain goat was smaller than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chester Stock
Chester Stock (28 January 1892 – 7 December 1950) was an American paleontologist who specialized in the Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the Rancho La Brea tar pits. He served as a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Stock was born in San Francisco to John Englebert Stock and Maria Henriette Meyer, both German immigrants. He grew up in a poor neighborhood, selling newspapers to earn some money. He was educated at Starr King Primary School and Franklin Grammar School, spending weekends at a gymnasium studying German, and learned to play tuba at a local Lutheran Church. He also took an interest in science, attending the annual mechanics fair and the museum of the California Academy of Sciences. His family home was destroyed by fires caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, after which he joined the California National Guard. He was forced by circumstances to leave school and seek employment in the Union Iron Works, at which time his health ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the preservation of the Grand Canyon area and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery. Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene Even-toed Ungulates
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek grc, label=none, πλεῖστος, pleīstos, most and grc, label=none, καινός, kainós (latinized as ), 'new'. At the end of the preceding Pliocene, the previously isolated North and South American continents were joined by the Isthmus of Panama, causing a faunal interchange between the two r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Caprids
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guns, Germs, Steel
''Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies'' (subtitled ''A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years'' in Britain) is a 1997 transdisciplinary non-fiction book by Jared Diamond. In 1998, it won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. A documentary based on the book, and produced by the National Geographic Society, was broadcast on PBS in July 2005. The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example, written language or the development among Eurasians of resis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clovis Culture
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 and 1937 (though Paleoindian artifacts had been found at the site since the 1920s). It appears around 11,500–11,000 uncalibrated years before present (YBP)"Clovis Culture" entry in the ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology'': "9,500–9,000 BC". at the end of the last glacial period and is characterized by the manufacture of " Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools. Archaeologists' most precise determinations at present suggest this radiocarbon age is equal to roughly 13,200 to 12,900 calendar years ago. The only human burial that has been directly associated with tools from the Clovis culture included the remains of an infant boy researchers named Anzick-1. Paleogenetic analyses of Anzick-1's ancient nuclear, mitoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shasta Ground Sloth
''Nothrotheriops'' is a genus of Pleistocene ground sloth found in North America, from what is now central Mexico to the southern United States. This genus of bear-sized xenarthran was related to the much larger, and far more famous ''Megatherium'', although it has recently been placed in a different family, Nothrotheriidae. The best known species, ''N. shastensis'', is also called the Shasta ground sloth. Taxonomy, history, and etymology ''Nothrotheriops'' fossils were first collected by the University of California's Anthropology Department during an exploration of caves at Potter Creek Cave in Shasta County, California, the fossils dating to the late Quaternary period.Sinclair, W. J. (1905). ''New mammalia from the Quaternary caves of California''. University of California Press.McDonald, H. G. (1995). Gravigrade xenarthrans from the early Pleistocene Leisey Shell Pit lA, Hillsborough County, Florida. ''Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History'', ''37''(11), 245-373 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Birch
''Betula occidentalis'', the water birch or red birch, is a species of birch native to western North America, in Canada from Yukon east to Northwestern Ontario and southwards, and in the United States from eastern Washington east to western North Dakota, and south to eastern California, northern Arizona and northern New Mexico, and southwestern Alaska. It typically occurs along streams in mountainous regions,Flora of North America''Betula occidentalis''/ref> sometimes at elevations of and in drier areas than paper birch. It is a deciduous shrub or small tree growing to high, up to thick. It tends toward epicormic growth, with many small limbs sprouting from the trunk and causing the wood to be full of small knots. The bark is dark red-brown to blackish, and smooth but not exfoliating. The twigs are glabrous or thinly hairy, and odorless when scraped. The leaves are alternate, ovate to rhombic, long and broad, with a serrated margin and two to six pairs of veins, and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limber Pine
''Pinus flexilis'', the limber pine, is a species of pine tree-the family Pinaceae that occurs in the mountains of the Western United States, Mexico, and Canada. It is also called Rocky Mountain white pine. A limber pine in Eagle Cap Wilderness, Oregon, has been documented as over 2,000 years old, and another one was confirmed at 1,140 years old. Another candidate for the oldest limber pine was identified in 2006 near the Alta Ski Area in Utah; called "Twister", the tree was confirmed to be at least 1,700 years old and thought to be even older. Description Its pliant branches gives it the common name "limber" and specific epithet ''flexilis''. Its needles are about long and a dark, blueish green. Its bark is heavily creased and dark grey. Its pale wood is lightweight and soft. ''Pinus flexilis'' is typically a high-elevation pine, often marking the tree line either on its own, or with whitebark pine (''Pinus albicaulis''), either of the bristlecone pines, or lodgepole pine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Fir
The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three varieties: coast Douglas-fir (''P. menziesii'' var. ''menziesii''), Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir (''P. menziesii'' var. ''glauca'') and Mexican Douglas-fir (''P. menziesii'' var. ''lindleyana''). Despite its common names, it is not a true fir (genus ''Abies''), spruce (genus '' Picea''), or pine (genus ''Pinus''). It is also not a hemlock; the genus name ''Pseudotsuga'' means "false hemlock". Description Douglas-firs are medium-size to extremely large evergreen trees, tall (although only ''Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii'', common name coast Douglas-firs, reach heights near 100 m) and commonly reach in diameter, although trees with diameters of almost exist. The largest coast Douglas-firs regularly live over 500 years, with the old ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Piceoideae. Spruces are large trees, from about 20 to 60 m (about 60–200 ft) tall when mature, and have whorled branches and conical form. They can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by their needles (leaves), which are four-sided and attached singly to small persistent peg-like structures (pulvini or sterigmata) on the branches, and by their cones (without any protruding bracts), which hang downwards after they are pollinated. The needles are shed when 4–10 years old, leaving the branches rough with the retained pegs. In other similar genera, the branches are fairly smooth. Spruce are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (moth and butterfly) species, such as the eastern spruce budwo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conifers
Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant conifers are perennial woody plants with secondary growth. The great majority are trees, though a few are shrubs. Examples include cedars, Douglas-firs, cypresses, firs, junipers, kauri, larches, pines, hemlocks, redwoods, spruces, and yews.Campbell, Reece, "Phylum Coniferophyta". Biology. 7th. 2005. Print. P. 595 As of 1998, the division Pinophyta was estimated to contain eight families, 68 genera, and 629 living species. Although the total number of species is relatively small, conifers are ecologically important. They are the dominant plants over large areas of land, most notably the taiga of the Northern Hemisphere, but also in similar cool climates in mountains further south. Boreal conifers have many wintertime adaptations. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
