The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year, making the ROM the most-visited museum in Canada. The museum is north of Queen's Park, in the University of Toronto district, with its main entrance on Bloor Street West. Museum subway station is named after the ROM and, since a 2008 renovation, is decorated to resemble the institution's collection.Established on April 16, 1912, and opened on March 19, 1914, the museum has maintained close relations with the University of Toronto throughout its history, often sharing expertise and resources. The museum was under the direct control and management of the University of Toronto until 1968, when it became an independent Crown agency of the Government of Ontario. Today, the museum is Canada's largest field-research institution, with research and conservation activities around the world.With more than 6,000,000 items and 40 galleries, the museum's diverse collections of world culture and natural history contribute to its international reputation. The museum contains a collection of dinosaurs, minerals and meteorites; Canadian, and European historical artifacts; as well as African, Near Eastern, and East Asian art. It houses the world's largest collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale with more than 150,000 specimens. The museum also contains an extensive collection of design and fine art, including clothing, interior, and product design, especially Art Deco.
Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034 and its paired meteorites represent polymict regolith breccias derived from the ancient Martian crust. We employed micro-X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy to quantitatively assess impact-induced metamorphism in plagioclase and alkali feldspar. Strain-related mosaicity (SRM) was measured via full width at half maximum in the Debye ring or chi (chi) dimension (FWHM chi) from 2D XRD images. A total of 149 plagioclase and 21 alkali feldspar grains were analyzed. Plagioclase exhibits FWHM chi values from 0.5 degrees to 10.9 degrees, and alkali feldspar shows a range of 2.1 degrees-9.7 degrees. Plagioclase grains record peak shock pressures from 0 GPa (unshocked) to 28-30 GPa based on calibrations for experimentally shocked andesine. Approximately 26% of grains show no detectable shock deformation (<1.0 GPa), while similar to 4% preserve evidence of severe shock (>21.0 GPa), indicative of exposure to at least moderate shock metamorphism prior to ejection from Mars. Alkali feldspar records higher apparent peak pressures, possibly spanning 4.7-28.5 GPa. Martian crustal minerals experienced highly heterogeneous shock effects, which highlights the complex and varied impact histories of feldspar minerals during the impact-induced brecciation process. Pressure differences between plagioclase and alkali feldspar may reflect distinct source regions, pre-lithification shock events, or differing shock responses. This study highlights the importance of multi-mineral analytical approaches to enhance the accuracy of shock pressure quantification in Martian regolith breccias and to reconstruct the planet's impact processes. This methodology should also be applied to other extraterrestrial samples to characterize shock effects across planetary bodies in the solar system.
Many inland waters are shrinking due to shifts in climate and water diversion for human uses. As they dry out, their exposed sediments emit large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. However, current global estimates of CO2 emissions from dry inland waters are derived exclusively from bare sediment dark-chamber measurements that do not account for the colonization of desiccated areas by vegetation. To understand the impact of vegetation on CO2 emissions from dry sediments, we analyzed 164 dry inland water bodies across five climatic regions and five inland water body types (lakes, ponds, reservoirs, streams and wetlands). On average, within vegetated zones, vegetation occupied 47 +/- 35% in measured biomass quadrants. Light-induced decreases in instantaneous CO2 emissions in vegetated dry sediments were lower (mean +/- SD = -3.7 +/- 12.9 mmol CO2 m-2 hr-1) than increases during dark conditions (14.7 +/- 20.1 mmol CO2 m-2 hr-1). Diel (24-hr) CO2 emissions from dry, vegetated sediments (mean +/- SD = 100 +/- 261 mmol CO2 m-2 d-1) were 25% lower than in bare sediments (133 +/- 245 mmol CO2 m-2 d-1). These results indicate that vegetation can partially off-set sediment respiration, although the magnitude of this effect is insufficient to switch dry beds from net sources to net sinks of carbon.
Sloths (Folivora) display remarkable morphological diversity yet share a highly conserved dental formula, whose occasional deviations offer key insights into their evolutionary history. Among nothrotheriids, Neogene species retained upper and lower caniniforms, whereas these teeth were lost in Pleistocene genera. Here we describe, for the first time, a poorly developed alveolus interpreted as an atavistic upper caniniform alveolus in an individual of Nothrotherium maquinense from the Late Pleistocene of Bahia, Brazil. Computed tomography and X-ray imaging confirm its internal anatomy and rule out taphonomic or pathological origins. The alveolus occupies the precise position of the caniniform in Neogene nothrotheriids and exhibits similar morphology, suggesting a partial re-expression of a lost ancestral trait. Beyond its developmental implications, this observation may offer additional context for interpreting the taxonomy of Nothropus, traditionally defined based on the presence of a lower caniniform alveolus. The occurrence of similar atavistic structures in related taxa indicates that this feature alone may be insufficient for diagnosis and warrants reevaluation within a broader evolutionary framework.
Although the holotype of Chasmosaurus russelli Sternberg, 1940, from the upper Dinosaur Park Formation of southern Alberta, shares features with other Chasmosaurus Lambe, 1914 specimens from Dinosaur Provincial Park as well as various chasmosaurine taxa from the southwest United States, it also possesses unique features of the premaxilla and frill epiossifications. An iterative phylogenetic analysis, scoring only the holotype (CMNFV 8800), produces three consensus topologies, one of which places CMNFV 8800 closer to Chasmosaurus than to Pentaceratops, another in which CMNFV 8800 is closer to Pentaceratops than to Chasmosaurus, and a final topology in which these relationships are unresolved. Under current definitions, CMNFV 8800 cannot be accommodated within Chasmosaurus or any other known chasmosaurine genus. Consequently, we erect Cryptarcus gen. nov. to receive it. Cryptarcus russelli comb. nov. may represent a migrant originating from the southern “Pentaceratops clade”, but it may also be part of a lineage more closely related to Chasmosaurus in which Pentaceratops-like features (e.g., frill wider anteriorly than posteriorly, deep parietal embayment, and first epiparietals nearly touch at the midline) evolved convergently. None of our phylogenetic topologies support an anagenetic trend from Cryptarcus russelli through Pentaceratops to produce Terminocavus Fowler and Freedman Fowler, 2020, as has been recently hypothesized.
The site of Antimpampa is a large Late Formative (800-200 BCE) ceremonial center in the highlands of Arequipa in southern Peru. This paper discusses our recent mapping and surface survey of the site, placing Antimpampa within changing interpretations of long-distance interaction and culture change in the Late Formative central and southern Andes. Our preliminary results suggest that Antimpampa was a large Late Formative center organized around thirteen tiered platform mounds integrated into mound courtyard groups. Chav & iacute;n, Yaya-Mama/Pukara, South Coast, Painted Tablet, and local traditions co-mingle at the site. El sitio de Antimpampa es un gran centro ceremonial del formativo tard & iacute;o (800-200 a. C.) en la sierra de Arequipa, al sur del Per & uacute;. Este art & iacute;culo analiza nuestro reciente mapeo y estudio de superficie del sitio, situando a Antimpampa dentro de las cambiantes interpretaciones de la interacci & oacute;n a larga distancia y el cambio cultural en los Andes centrales y meridionales del Formativo Tard & iacute;o. Nuestros resultados preliminares sugieren que Antimpampa fue un gran centro del Formativo Tard & iacute;o organizado alrededor de trece mont & iacute;culos de plataforma escalonados integrados en grupos de patios y mont & iacute;culos. Las tradiciones Chav & iacute;n, Yaya-Mama/Pukara, Costa Sur, Placa Pintada, y local se mezclan en el sitio.
