Paleontologists from Tomsk University and the Institute of Earth's Crust of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch, found in the Irkutsk Province deposits containing fossils of plants and animals from the Jurassic period.
Scientists point out that the Irkutsk coal region is a continental depression containing sediments from the Jurassic period. Therefore, dinosaur remains can be found there. In 2020, scientists found the remains of two fish from the Jurassic period in this area, and in 2022 the remains of 25 species of fish.
This year, according to the university’s statement, the scientific mission discovered many fingerprints of plants and animals from the Jurassic period, including rare specimens.
Stepan Ivantsev, associate professor at the Department of Paleontology and Historical Geology at the Faculty of Geology and Geography at the university, says: “We discovered a “fern paradise” and a group of different species, including very rare ones. At the end of the expedition’s work, we found the remains of a vertebrate from the Jurassic period: the remains of fish, the remains of beetles and the shells of phyllopods. And the larvae of aquatic insects such as stoneflies or mayflies.
With this discovery, paleontologists have found another site with vertebrate animals, increasing the possibility of finding remains of dinosaurs and other Jurassic vertebrates in the Irkutsk Basin. The information they obtained will also allow to reconstruct the totality of the types of organisms in the Irkutsk Basin at the beginning of the Early Middle Jurassic period (about 180-175 million years ago).
Russia : A scientist shows how earthquakes can be predicted
Gennady Negmetov, chief researcher at the Russian Institute for Civil Defense and Emergency Research, confirmed that no country in the world has the technology to predict an earthquake days before it occurs.
The expert pointed out in an interview with the Russian Novosti News Agency that there is no technology that allows predicting the occurrence of an earthquake after a few days, despite the presence of more than 600 stations warning of earthquakes.
He says, "No country in the world has the technology to predict the time, strength, and coordinates of earthquakes," noting that work in this direction continues without interruption.
According to him, the probability of earthquakes can at present be predicted with a high degree of accuracy during a medium period (several months) or in the long term (a year and more) but only in known seismic zones on Earth.
He points out that there are several cases of short-term predictions of strong earthquakes. For example, one of them occurred with a strength of more than 7 degrees in 1975 in northeastern China, when a short-term forecast was announced, and accordingly the residents were asked to leave their homes and stay in tents, which helped, according to estimates, to reduce the number of victims to five.
He says: “There are currently more than 600 short-range warning stations, but not all of them warn of the imminence of a disaster. Therefore, it is not possible to rely and trust the warning of some stations about the possibility of an earthquake occurring soon.”
The expert adds that in order to evaluate seismic activity in an area, it must be subjected to comprehensive and continuous monitoring and the initial indicators should be evaluated according to criteria that allow determining the degree of danger. Of course, this is an expensive and time-consuming process. But generally it can be achieved by using special computer software to analyze the recorded data.