科学家发现原祖恐龙化石

地球在2．52亿年前曾发生过一次最大规模的灭绝事件,地球上的生命几乎消失殆尽。但科学家们近日发现了生存在灭绝事件过后1000万年时期的恐龙祖先化石。科学家在坦桑尼亚、赞比亚和南极洲进行了7次考察,发现了一些最早的前恐龙生物的化石。这些化石或许可以告诉我们,草食性生物是如何最终演化成为恐龙,又是如何在2．52亿年前的大灭绝事件之后与其他动物展开竞争的答案。     

南极发现罕见白色变种企鹅

具有相同羽毛的鸟儿往往喜欢聚集在一起,但是一只非常罕见的"白色"变种企鹅并非如此,人们在南极洲的一个企鹅群里发现它。林德布劳德远征邮轮公司的博物学家大卫·斯蒂芬斯在他的博客上写道,这只在南设得兰群岛一座小岛边发现的"金发"企鹅,令前往南极旅行的《国家地理》杂志的游客们"倍感吃惊"。     

英国拟在南极建球型生态房夏季接待游客

<正>英国白沙旅行社近日宣,将为前往南极洲旅行的游提供豪华舒适的球形生态套房。该旅行社设在南极洲内陆毛德皇后地的生态营地可以在每年夏季的7、8月份接待游客,使游客们能够在营地的生态套房里享受惬意的假期。这种球形房间从远处看很像高尔夫球,其外壁为玻璃纤维材料,室内装饰风格犹如非洲奢华的游猎酒店套房,不仅有单双人床、卫生间和写字台,还有餐厅、图书室、厨房和通信室以及"     

A 780-year record of explosive volcanism from DT263 ice core in east Antarctica

Ice cores recovered from polar ice sheet received and preserved sulfuric acid fallout from explosive volcanic eruptions. DT263 ice core was retrieved from an east Antarctic location. The ice core is dated using a combination of annual layer counting and volcanic time stratigraphic horizon as 780 years (1215-1996 A.D.). The ice core record demonstrates that during the period of approximately 1460-1800 A.D., the accumulation is sharply lower than the levels prior to and after this period. This period coincides with the most recent neoglacial climatic episode, the "Little Ice Age (LIA)", that has been found in numerous Northern Hemisphere proxy and historic records. The non-sea-salt SO42- concentrations indicate seventeen volcanic events in DT263 ice core. Compared with those from previous Antarctic ice cores, significant discrepancies are found between these records in relative volcanic flux of several well-known events. The discrepancies among these records may be explained by the differences in surface topography, accumulation rate, snow drift and distribution which highlight the potential impact of local glaci-ology on ice core volcanic records, analytical techniques used for sulfate measurement, etc. Volcanic eruptions in middle and high southern latitudes affect volcanic records in Antarctic snow more intensively than those in the low latitudes.     

巨型帝王蟹入侵南极大陆架

比利时根特大学的科学家派遣的一艘遥控潜艇在位于南极洲近海大陆架下850米处的泥床盆地PalmerDeep发现了超过100万只巨型帝王蟹。这种外来的大型食肉动物的出现,可能成为南极洲近海大陆架上一场生态浩劫的最初迹象。这艘遥控潜艇对这种足展长达1米的巨蟹生活和繁殖情况进行了观察,该船还把一只怀孕     

A new interpolation method for Antarctic surface temperature

We propose a new methodology for the spatial interpolation of annual mean temperature into a regular grid with a geographic resolution of 0.01° for Antarctica by applying a recent compilation of the Antarctic temperature data.A multiple linear regression model of the dependence of temperature on some geographic parameters (i.e.,latitude,longitude,and elevation) is proposed empirically,and the kriging method is used to determine the spatial distribution of regional and local deviations from the temperature calculated from the multiple linear regression model.The modeled value and residual grids are combined to derive a high-resolution map of surface air temperature.The performance of our new methodology is superior to a variety of benchmark methods (e.g.,inverse distance weighting,kriging,and spline methods) via cross-validation techniques.Our simulation resembles well with those distinct spatial features of surface temperature,such as the decrease in annual mean surface temperature with increasing latitude and the distance away from the coast line;and it also reveals the complex topographic effects on the spatial distribution of surface temperature.