PaleoJim

Classic!

China’s New Weapon in US Trade Talks: Batteries The US is heavily reliant on Chinese batteries as it seeks to stabilize the grid and support explosive data center demand for power.

In the first seven months of 2025, Chinese grid-scale lithium-ion batteries accounted for about 65% of US imports, according to the most recent data available from BNEF.

Interview with Brian Davis loves small Jurassic mammals from his site near Cisco, Utah, Morrison Fm correlating to nearby site south of Fruita, CO. (90.1 FM & kzmu.org)
Listen at sciencemoab.org/radio
FUNDED by Canyonlands Natural History Association. cnha.org/discovery-po...

Renewable energy outpaces coal for electricity generation in historic first, report says For the first time on record, renewable energy generated more electricity for the planet than coal, a new report says.

For the first time on record, renewable energy generated more electricity for the planet than coal, a new report says. n.pr/47hcegr

Great new paper by Mannion & Moore 2025 on diplodocoid sauropods for #FossilFriday I love their latest phylogeny as it certainly supports the mass extinction of sauropods at the end of the Jurassic that is so well documented in eastern Utah. www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

Had the amazing privilege earlier in the year to watch a lithographic limestone plate be made by one last plate makers in Germany. Each plate is cut and then hammered by hand into shape - and after having a go it's very skilled work. Currently they have no apprentices, so a truly dying art.

So yesterday a reporter asked Donald Trump about the writ of habeas corpus, and he had no idea what it was.

"I don't know," he said. "I'd rather leave that to Kristi."

Well, It turns out Sen. Hassan asked Kristi Noem about it in May, and this was Noem's response:

DITTO!

A newly minted name for Utah's largest dinosaur, Utetitan! Given the amount of time these latest Cret sauropods span, more than one taxon likely. I did not review this manuscript, so let the sauropod researchers weigh in.
giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.ph...
@paleontologizing.bsky.social

Speaking on "The End of the Real Jurassic Park in Eastern Utah" UFOP meeting on Thurs, Oct. 16, 2025, 7:00 PM MT, Utah DNR building, at 1594 W North Temple St, Salt Lake City. @utahgeological bookstore will be selling the latest paleo and geo books. Online meet.google.com/qpk-ngzh-xkn

#FossilFriday
To see Dr. Zanno and her team posts and updates!
www.expeditionlive.org

The now Critically Endangered Manjuarí (Cuban gar, /Atractosteus tristoechus/) as painted in La Habana by Antonio Parra around 1787
@solomonrdavid.bsky.social

YouTube video by The Fossil Files Podcast Fossil Fails: The tiny dino with a massive flaw

New episode @thefossilfiles.bsky.social ky.social out today "Fossil Fails: The tiny dino with a massive flaw". Available on YouTube or whereever you get your podcasts 2/2
youtu.be/wioBaI8Tcl8?...

The fabulous SGDS is starting a weekend paleoprogram to supplement the great work they are doing in southwestern Utah. Fossil Discoveries offers the unique opportunity to learn, explore, and make real contributions to science. Running until mid Dec. utahdinosaurs.org/fossil-disco...

Actually Sphenoceramus; Utah's Platyceramus cycloides in the Blue Gat Shale might get nearly this big. @utahpaleo-ufop.bsky.social

Image of an X post from @realDonaldTrump (Donald J. Trump) at 7:26 PM on October 3, 2025, with 2.54K ReTruths and 8.83K Likes. The post reads: "To ICE, Border Patrol, Law Enforcement, and all U.S. Military: As per my August 25, 2025 Executive Order, please be advised that, from this point forward, anybody burning the American Flag will be subject to one year in prison. You will be immediately arrested. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Last I checked, Congress makes the laws, not the White House.

Opinion | Why Young Men Are Losing Faith in Science

Men Are Losing Faith in Science www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/o... @adamfrank4.bsky.social🙏

"Framing science as a debate to be won makes it easy to paint established scientists as opponents..."

Manosphere BS "based on profound ignorance & a disinterest in even the most basic scientific principles..."

Replace "the Cosmos" with "the History of the Earth and its Biological History." To specifically define how paleontologists must operate!

Sharing for @Rebecca Hunt-Foster; "Happy Establishment day Dinosaur National Monument! On this date in 1915, President Woodrow Wilson established the original 80-acre national monument to protect the Carnegie Dinosaur Quarry." @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social @palaeontosoc.bsky.social

We need a constitutional amendment that individuals own their own personage!!

We need a constitutional amendment that individuals own their own !

Structure, Orientation and Finite Element Analysis of the Tail Club of Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis The structure and orientation of the posterior extremity (tail club) of the caudal vertebrae of Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis Young and Chao, 1972 from the Upper Jurassic Shangshaximiao Formation has b...

Xing et al. proposed an interesting hypothesis of the club in Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis as a sensory apparatus, which makes sense to me considering the particular shape (thin, almost plate like) & the gigantic proportions of this animal onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Stable isotopes and predation marks shed new light on ammonoid habitat depth preferences - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Stable isotopes and predation marks shed new light on ammonoid habitat depth preferences

18th chapter by Lukeneder constrained #Ammonoid #Habitats and #Life History: rdcu.be/eJqnW

This remains tricky and only doable with a multi-proxy approaches combining #morphology, #geochemistry, #modelling and facies analysis:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org/10.1080/0311...
doi.org/10.1007/978-...

For #FossilFriday a chance to shake hands with the #IsleofWight dinosaur Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis.

Gray to light brown fossilized (petrified) wood with interconnected spaces between the wood filled with sand-sized coprolites (fossil feces); the spaces are interpreted as a nest, and the coprolites are also attributed to termites. A few black spots on the surface are of modern marine mussels, with a marine snail and barnacle in the upper left, which were living there because the fossil tree was on a rocky marine platform on the coast of Victoria, Australia.

For #FossilFriday, an ichnological 2-for-1 special in a body fossil: a termite nest packed with termite coprolites (feces) in an araucarian tree trunk, from the Early Cretaceous (~125 mya) of Victoria, Australia; oldest termite nest in Australia & largest wood nest from this time. 🧪🪵🪨⚒️ #ichnology

Been to that site (ridiculous number of fossil frogs mixed in with that skeleton) and I have visited that museum in 2013. They have a Gastonia and a Falcarius mount. Nice facility.

Group selfie on an Idaho beach: wide sandy expanse and blue skies. Sloth vertebra in the foreground!

#FossilFriday and the Peecook lab is out in the Pleistocene of Idaho making some new friends!
🦬🐪🦥 @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social @imnh208.bsky.social @idahostateucose.bsky.social

It is about time, #FossilFriday that I promoted Christa Sadler's wonderful book on the globally unique Lower Cretaceous of eastern Utah again. Someday, I hope it leads to a Dawn of the Cretaceous Fossil Beds Nat. Monu. managed like John Day Fossil Beds NM in Oregon. this-earth.com/dinosaur-fro...