Friday Headlines: September 16, 2016

Friday Headlines, September 9, 2016

THE LATEST IN THE GEOSCIENCES

Today’s round-up:

An Earthquake in Korea

That Sinking Feeling in San Francisco

The Perfect Dinosaur Reconstruction

M5.4 – 8km S of Kyonju, South Korea

On September 12, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake rattled parts of South Korea.

SF’s landmark tower for rich and famous is sinking and tilting

The Milennium Tower in San Francisco is a symbol of the city’s upscale lifestyle. In 2008, residents began to move into this 58-story building. Since then, the building has settled 16 inches into the ground and is even tilting slightly.

One might ask why that is.

Part of it may be geological. It was built on mud-fill, nat far from San Francisco Bay’s original shoreline. Additionally, supporting concrete piles were only driven about 80 feet down, anchoring the building only into dense sand, rather than being driving all the way down to solid bedrock which is about 200 feet down.

Part of the problem could also be engineering. The materials used, in this case concrete, are much heavier than other options such as steel.

Another possibility is new construction of a new bus and rail station adjacent to the Millennium Tower.

An exquisite specimen of Psittacosaurus from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of northeastern China (133 to 120 million years ago) was described in a new open access paper by Jakob Vinther and others.

This specimen is particularly amazing because it preserves skin impressions, patterns of pigmentation, and tail filaments.

I’d post pictures, but it would be an infringement of copyright. Please follow the links above to see these amazing reconstructions!