Dinosaurs With Chinese Characteristics: Meet the Zizhongosaurus

Check out this article from the Wall Street Journal about the Zizhongosaurus

 Here are the first few paragraphs:

Tyrannosaurus rex, meet your Chinese cousin.

Researchers recently said that the remains of a long-nose tyrannosaurid species, the Qianzhousaurus sinensis, were found in southern China near the city of Ganzhou in Jiangxi province. The carnivore was probably alive during the late Cretaceous period, scientists say, some 66 million years ago.
The news has captured global headlines, especially given the vividness of the new critter’s nickname, the Pinocchio Rex, after its big nose. The news also raised hope among scientists that it might help them better understand the history of Asia’s predatory, long-snouted dinosaurs.

According to University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno, the world is in the middle of a “renaissance” in dinosaur discovery, with China helping lead that charge. By some estimates in recent years, a new dinosaur is named on average every two weeks.

Epochs and ages?

I've just uploaded a PDF featuring the Geologic Time Periods of the earth, from the earliest, the Hadean (when the earth was still a molten ball of rock) to the present day, the Quaternary Period.

http://volcanoseven.com/DinosaurDiggersClub/Downloads/GeologicTimePeriods.pdf

The Quaternary Period, our period, is divided into two epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene.

In the science of geochronology, an epoch is a subdivision of the geologic timescale.  It is longer than an "age" and shorter than a "period".

We are currently living in the Holocene Epoch of the Quaternary Period.

Rock layers deposited during an epoch are called a "series". "Series" are subdivisions of the stratigraphic column that, like epochs, are subdivisions of the geologic timescale. 

"Series" are futher subdivided into "stages."

Epochs are normally separated by, and usually named referring to the y significant changes in the rock layers to which they correspond.

Epochs are most commonly used for the younger Cenozoic Era. This is because this era has a great collection of fossils has been found and paleontologists have more detailed knowledge of the events that occurred during those times.

Since less fossil evidence exists for the other eras and eons, it is difficult to form a clearer view of those time periods, and the term epoch is therefore not used.

More on dinosaurs in the news

Today I did another search on Dinosaurs, at 10:36 am mountain time, and saw that all of the entries on the top of the page were the old ones from yesterday, about the dinosaurs shrinking to become birds.

Not to worry...simply scroll down, or go "beneath the fold," as the old term has it (above the fold is what you can see of a website without having to scroll anywhere, and "below the fold" or "beneath the fold" is what you see when you scroll down.  A lot of people never bother to scroll down...

So, here's a screen cap of what was "below the fold" this morning...

A dinosaur a day

Tools needed:
A 3 ring binder
Scotch tape
Lined or unlined 3-hole paper
3-hole punch 
Divider tabs - several sets of five or twelve

Steps
At a specific time each day, sit your child in front of your computer, take him or her to Google.com/News,  have them type in the word "Dinosaur" in the search box, and hit enter.

Below is an example of what turned up today, May 8, 2014.

On page 1 of the Search results you see that there are 3 specific subjects -
1. "Researchers discover new Pinocchio Rex" (six entries),
2. Scientists crown world heavyweight of dinosaurs (one entry) and
3. "dinosaurs shrunk to become birds to survive", (six entries).

Depending on how old your child is, read to them, or have them read each entry. Whenever several online papers or websites cover the same topic, chances are that they are working with a Press Release.  It can be interesting to compare the stories and see how each paper worked with the Press Release to write their own article - or if they just printed the Press Release verbatim.

Print out an article on each subject, and have your child place it in the binder in the appropriate spot behind the appropriate divider tap.

What would be appropriate topics for the above articles?

1. Researchers discover new Pinocchio Rex could be placed in the topic: New dinosaurs found
2. Scientists crown world heavyweight of dinosaurs could be placed in the topic: General dinosaur information
3. Dinosaurs shrunk to become birds to survive could be placed in the topic: Evolution, or Dinosaurs/birds

If you find the article online, print it, 3-hole punch the paper and insert it in the proper spot. If your child finds the article in your print newspaper, cut it out, paste it on lined or unlined paper, 3-hole punch it and place it in the notebook.

Then, start an index page and write down the title of all articles and the date when they were found.

 

 

Manifesto

This blog is designed to help parents who want to help their young kids embrace learning.

Young children are eager to learn, and if a love of education can be instilled into them when they are 5, 6 or 7, there will be a better chance that they will continue to love to learn as they make their way through additional grades, and continue to want to learn once they finish their schooling.

Young kids, both boys and girls, love dinosaurs. With the Dinosaur Diggers Club, we use dinosaurs as the springboard to learn about everything else - from spelling to math to geography.

Check out our website at: DinosaurDiggersClub.com