Friday Headlines, March 14, 2014
THE LATEST IN THE GEOSCIENCES
Today’s round-up:
Holy collapsing crater!
Haboob. That it all.
The littlest tyrannosaur.
Crater Filled with Lava Collapses
Because you just need to watch this. This happened on March 5th in Hawaii.
High Plains Haboob Blows Across Five States
Betcha can’t guess why this caught my eye. Ok, maybe you can.
A Haboob is a type of dust storm commonly seen in arid areas. The word itself is Arabic.
Specifically, a haboob is a dust storm that happens where there is a density difference in air that flows across the land. It’s a density current that carries with it a bunch of dust.
It doesn’t look like much, but you can see the dust in this satellite image, flowing from North to South.
Closer to the ground, haboobs are a little more striking:
@JimCantore Haboob NW of Amarillo, TX yesterday from 38,000ft pic.twitter.com/scwlYl9FU1
— Chris (@RaiderTex52) March 12, 2014
Diminutive Dinosaur Stalked the Arctic
Bigger isn’t always better. We like to think of massive predators such as Tyrannosaurus rex as being the best there is. But being big isn’t always an advantage, especially if you live very far to the north.
Paleontologists have just discovered and described a new little tyrannosaur that lived above the Arctic Circle. This new species has been dubbed Nanuqsaurus hoglundi and is a mere 7 meters long from nose to tail.
One could say, it’s adorable!
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 