land snails ?
In the middle of a desert?
Where does the water come from?
[;)]
I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
51–60 of 127 posts
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#52It's interesting that saying the Earth is more than 10,000 years old is not haram in Saudi Arabia. I thought it would be, since they are so religious, but it turns out the Koran doesn't make any claims about the age of the Earth, so you are free to say that the Earth is billions of years old and not be accused of blasphemy.
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#53Thank you for a great write up. Concise, to the point and really interesting.
It would be nice if your local detractors noticed your steely insistence on remarking where you are coming from.
I think it would be superb if some ... experts ... in most spaces learned about the beauty of brevity.
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#54St. Stephens cathedral in Vienna was built with sandstone that contains seashells. It's hundreds of kilometers away from the shore, but ~15 million years ago the area where it stands now was a seabed.
The stones are not from the exact location where it was built, but from close by. The quarry where the stones came from hundreds of years ago is still active, and you can find tons of fossils there. It's practically impossible to get a piece of rock from there without visible seashells.
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#55St. Stephens cathedral in Vienna was built with sandstone that contains seashells. It's hundreds of kilometers away from the shore, but ~15 million years ago the area where it stands now was a seabed. The stones are not from the exact location where it was built, but from close by. The quarry where the stones came from hundreds of years ago is still active, and you can find tons of fossils there. It's practically imp…
Was the land lower, the seas higher, or some combination, way back when?
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe. But I don’t see anything in this piece that says that it’s a fossil, rather than something that resembles this person’s idea of a fossil. It doesn’t look like a fossil to me. It looks like a piece of rock that’s been bashed about a bit. And given the whole premise of the piece is “this should not be here!” I don’t really understand the point you’re making. The author says it’s a strange find in that area - so…
It says right there it’s a seashell hard as a rock. Guess why, Sherlock.
No it doesn’t. It says “ I found a fully solid rock that eerily resembles a seashell”.
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe. But I don’t see anything in this piece that says that it’s a fossil, rather than something that resembles this person’s idea of a fossil. It doesn’t look like a fossil to me. It looks like a piece of rock that’s been bashed about a bit. And given the whole premise of the piece is “this should not be here!” I don’t really understand the point you’re making. The author says it’s a strange find in that area - so…
Author points out themselves, in the second paragraph, that its not a strange find. The strangeness of the find is his personal experience. Not that its a strange find geologically.
And then the author takes a massive leap from “I found a fully solid rock that eerily resembles a seashell” to doing an analysis that treats it as though it actually is a fossil.
And that analysis finds out that the shell the assumed fossil most resembles is completely out of period.
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guy? And I think you’re arguing yourself into a hole here. What makes you think I know nothing about the topic? I have donated - at their request - three fossils to national museums. But I’m not an expert by any stretch.
It’s obvious you’re not an expert at the topic because we can all read the original article and then read your posts in this thread…
I’m really not sure what you mean. Did you actually read the article? There is nothing in there that confirms this is a fossil. One moment the author says “I found a fully solid rock that eerily resembles a seashell” and the next minute they treat it as though it is a fossil but their analysis shows that the shell the piece of rock most resembles is from a completely different geological period.
Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#59Re: I found a seashell in the middle of the desert
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a little confused about how significant of information can be derived from a 2d projection of the shell. This sort of mathematical modeling looks like phrenology.
Using PCA on 3d shapes is a proven method for identification. It's nothing like phrenology aside from both involving morphology. Former actually works, latter does not.
(I upvoted, seems a little weird that you were downvoted) So, I spent a little time looking up "Principal Component Analysis" and yeah, this method works well with these forms, and my comment comparing it to phrenology was definitely more out of ignorance!
I was most surprised that you could flatten a 3d structure down to 2d and not lose so much information that it would cause a very high rate of error. Someone else was skeptical enough to do a study as a critique on it, only to have it retracted. (funny in light of this post)