Monday, August 23, 2021

Unifor condemns injunction against striking

De Havilland workers

NEWS PROVIDED BY Unifor
Aug 20, 2021, 12:33 ET

TORONTO, Aug. 20, 2021 /CNW/ - An overreaching injunction issued by Justice Fred Myers against Unifor members who are on strike and picketing at De Havilland Aircraft of Canada is an affront to workers' rights, says Canada's largest private sector union.

The injunction issued by the Ontario Superior Court on August 17, 2021 imposes conditions on union members that Unifor believes are extreme and unfair and orders an end to the union's protest activities.

Unifor condemns injunction against striking De Havilland workers (CNW Group/Unifor)

"Justice Myers had a great deal of discretion yet chose to side with the interests of wealthy corporate owners over those of the community, the 700 workers and their families," said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “This injunction silences our members and stops workers from picketing peacefully against De Havilland.”

De Havilland workers have been on strike since August 1, 2021. The labour dispute concerns the future location of De Havilland's manufacturing of the Dash 8 program.

After the company bargained in bad faith, reneged on an agreement to continue negotiations, and began using scabs at the Downsview plant, the union launched a peaceful protest to pressure the company to commit that Dash 8 manufacturing would remain within a reasonable radius of the current Downsview site, if and when De Havilland resumes assembly of the Dash 8. Unifor members have been building the Dash 8 aircraft for nearly 40 years.

"To call this injunction an abomination is an understatement. This is a new low for workers' rights in this province," Dias added. "Limiting our members' picketing activities to just one person walking the line for sixty seconds every five minutes is preposterous and in my experience this has to be one of the worst injunctions I have seen."

"This injunction adds insult to injury. This dispute with De Havilland and its parent company Longview Aviation Capital can only be resolved at the bargaining table, not by the courts or police. Losing 700 good jobs in Ontario is on Judge Myer's head," said Dias.

The union continues to urge De Havilland to work with the union to save jobs and secure a new location for the Dash 8 platform to stop union members' jobs from leaving the province.

Unifor is Canada's largest union in the private sector and represents 315,000 workers in every major area of the economy. The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future.

SOURCE Unifor

For further information: For media inquiries, or to arrange Facetime, Zoom, Skype, phone, or in person interviews following the event, contact National Communications Representative David Molenhuis: David.Molenhuis@Unifor.org

TOLL DRIVERS TO GO ON STRIKE FRIDAY

The TWU says thousands of truck drivers will strike for 24 hours this Friday after crisis talks with Toll over rights and entitlements collapsed today

Toll workers to strike this week

The TWU again appealed to Toll to provide workers with job security provisions and abandon plans to engage an underclass of lower paid truck drivers, but Toll refused to budge, triggering mass strikes and disrupting food and fuel supplies this weekend.

The union says on Thursday, workers voted 94% in favour of taking action to fight for their jobs. The successful ballot gives around 7000 transport workers protection under the Fair Work Act to walk off the job.

The TWU purports that in a bid to compete with exploitative business models like AmazonFlex, Toll is aiming to drive down labour costs by scrapping overtime entitlements and engaging outside drivers on minimal pay and with fewer rights.

Read about other transport workers considering strike action, here

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine says it is disappointing Toll is forging ahead with its attack on jobs, leaving workers no choice but to withdraw their labour after months of failed talks.

"Toll workers have been forced to take the last resort option to go on strike this week because their jobs are being smashed. To do nothing would be to wait like sitting ducks for the jobs they’ve skilfully done for decades to be given away to the lowest common denominator. If workers had accepted this today, their jobs could have been contracted out moments after signing on the dotted line," Kaine says.

"It is an abomination that billionaire retailers like Amazon are smashing profit records while ripping off transport supply chains and crushing the jobs of the truck drivers who’ve risked the health of their families to deliver parcels and keep shelves stocked.

"Toll workers need guarantees that they won’t be sliced and diced Qantas-style and replaced by a cut-price, underemployed workforce. They don’t want to go on strike, especially during a pandemic, but they must because they have everything to lose," he says.

TWU NSW/Qld secretary and lead Toll negotiator Richard Olsen says Toll management made no effort to prevent strikes and refused to provide workers the job security they need.

"Toll’s behaviour is reprehensible. The transport giant is responsible for two crises at the same time: a cruel attack on good, safe transport jobs, and mass disruption to food and fuel supplies. Both of these disasters would have been fixed today if Toll had taken a reasonable approach and backed down on plans to trash jobs and drag down standards in Australia’s deadliest industry.

"While we implore Toll to fix this, none of it would be happening if the Federal Government had the right regulation in place to ensure transport supply chains are adequately funded by wealthy retailers, manufacturers and oil companies at the top," Olsen says.

Attacks on job security are widespread in the transport industry, with a further 6,000 transport workers due to vote on strike action at StarTrack and FedEx this week and next.

The TWU says strike action has never and will never disrupt medical supplies or vaccines.

Other key facts:

TWU NSW is suing Toll in the NSW Supreme Court for more than 5,000 late payments to owner truck drivers which could result in penalties of up to almost $52 million.
Toll recently reported a huge jump in revenues during the pandemic, $6.3 billion from $4.7 billion in 2020. But its transport costs also ballooned highlighting the tight margins transport companies are forced to operate under by major retailers, manufacturers and oil companies through their low-cost contracts. Worker wages and benefits at Toll decreased this year also while the company has been forced to write down the sale of Toll Express to Allegro.
Retailers globally have boomed since the pandemic hit with Amazon announcing profits up 224% to $US8 billion in just the last quarter. Bunnings’ revenue grew 24.4% to $9 billion in the six months to December 2020.
The TWU has filed claims on 50 retailers operating in Australia demanding that they lift standards to ensure fairness and safety in transport.
The Federal Government tore down an independent tribunal five years ago which was investigating risks to safety in road transport caused by a financial squeeze on transport by wealthy retailers like Amazon and Aldi. Since then, 205 truck drivers have been killed.

Residents rally to ‘save the northwest’ amidst Rio Tinto Kitimat strike

The event was a call out to both parties involved in the dispute – Rio Tinto and Unifor 2301 representing over 900 smelter workers – to get back to the table and iron out a collective agreement.

Aug 7, 2021 10:58 AM By: Binny Paul

Residents gathered at Centennial Park in Kitimat ahead of a rally dubbed ‘save the northwest’ on August 5, 2021. People at the gathering called for Rio Tinto and Unifor Local 2301 to resume negotiations to resolve the labour disputes that led to a strike at the smelting facility. Binny Paul/Terrace Standard

Hundreds of northwest B.C. residents took to the streets in Kitimat, Thursday afternoon amidst stalled labour dispute negotiations between Rio Tinto and its unionized aluminum smelter workers.

Prior to the rally – dubbed ‘save the northwest’ – a gathering took place at Centennial Park where employees of Rio Tinto, members from the local union and small business owners addressed people that had gathered.

The event was also a call out to both parties involved in the dispute – Rio Tinto and Unifor 2301 representing over 900 smelter workers – to get back to the table and iron out a collective agreement before the strike brings about large scale economic repercussions for Kitimat and surrounding northwest communities.

“What we wanted to achieve today was to come together so that people could get a better understanding of what could potential happen to the town if negotiations don’t continue,” said Kitimat resident Jeremy Morden, who was one of the rally organizers.

Morden and fellow organizer Liberal Botelho are worried the trickle down economic effect of the strike is going to hurt not just families of Rio Tinto employees, but also ancillary businesses and Kitimat’s economy.

“It’s a small town and people rely on each other, so in a short period things could go bad for a lot of businesses,” said Morden.

Botelho, who works at the Kitimat smelter along with four other family members fears “long term ramifications” for the whole northwest community if both parties don’t get back to the table to resolve the dispute.

“If [Rio Tinto and Unifor 2301] think their strategy is to outweigh each other by holding out, then it’s going to affect communities and merchants,” said Botello.

A strike which began on July 25 in Kitimat after seven weeks of failed negotiations between Rio Tinto and Unifor Local 2301 is now in its second week.

After 900 employees from the Kitimat smelter walked-out on strike, Rio Tinto reduced the production of aluminum to 25 per cent of its 432,000 tonne annual capacity by taking majority of its smelting pots offline. With the labour dispute unresolved, only 96 pots out of 400 were running as of Aug. 4 at the smelter, according to a Rio Tinto spokesperson.

Once taken offline, restarting the pots and getting them back to full capacity can take anywhere between nine months to a year – which further fuels employment worries of the 900 odd striking smelter workers.

While the industrial hub of the northwest – home to multi billion dollar projects like LNG Canada, Rio Tinto Modernization project and Kemano T2 project – has witnessed labour strikes before, residents and workers say the current one is “worrisome.”

“There hasn’t been any negotiations between both parties for 12 days,” said Morden.

“In the past there were strikes in Kitimat, when Alcan was running the smelter (Rio Tinto acquired Alcan in 2007) but at that time there were still negotiations happening,” added Morden.

Rio Tinto employs approximately 1,050 people at the BC Works smelter and Kemano powerhouse, including around 900 employees represented by Unifor Local 2301. The company contributed C$780 million to the economy of British Columbia in 2020.

Along with residents, local leaders including Skeena BC Liberal MLA Ellis Ross and NDP MP Taylor Bachrach have also called for the dispute to be resolved. Local governments of Kitimat, Terrace and Haisla First Nation have also sent letters to Rio Tinto and the union urging them to return to the bargaining table and reach an “amicable agreement.”

— Terrace Standard/Local Journalism Initiative

Human Rights Watch says Israeli strike on Gaza high-rise broke international law

NY-based group accuses IDF of damaging neighboring buildings, leaving dozens homeless and destroying scores of businesses; Israel has said building was Hamas military asset

By AGENCIES and TOI STAFF

Today,

Fire and smoke rise from the al-Jalaa Tower as it is destroyed in an Israeli airstrike after the IDF warned the occupants to leave, Gaza City, May 15, 2021. (MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)

Israeli airstrikes that demolished four high-rise buildings in the Gaza Strip during the war in May apparently violated international laws of war, a leading international human rights group said Monday, calling on the Israeli military to produce evidence justifying the attacks.

Human Rights Watch noted that although no one was harmed in the airstrikes, the attacks damaged neighboring buildings, left dozens of people homeless and destroyed scores of businesses.

“The apparently unlawful Israeli strikes on four high-rise towers in Gaza City caused serious, lasting harm for countless Palestinians who lived, worked, shopped or benefited from businesses based there,” said Richard Weir, crisis and conflict researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military should publicly produce the evidence that it says it relies on to carry out these attacks.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the report. But it has accused the Hamas terror group of using the buildings for military purposes and turning their occupants into human shields.

It was the New York-based group’s third report on the 11-day war. It has previously accused Israel of apparent war crimes for attacks that it said had no clear military targets but killed dozens of civilians. It also has said that Hamas’ rockets were fired indiscriminately at Israeli cities, constituting a war crime. Both sides denied the accusations.

The war erupted on May 10 after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israeli policing at the Temple Mount and against the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, May 10, 2021.

(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

In all, some 260 people were killed in Gaza, including at least 66 children and 41 women, according to UN figures. Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of 80 terrorists, though Israel says that number is much higher.

Twelve civilians, including two children, were killed in Israel, along with one soldier.

Israel’s destruction of Palestinian high-rises was one of its most controversial wartime tactics. Among the targets was the 12-story al-Jalaa building, which housed the local offices of The Associated Press. The building was also home to dozens of families.

Israel has said the buildings were used by Hamas for military purposes, and in all cases, it ordered occupants to evacuate before the structures were destroyed in what it says was a step to avoid civilian casualties.

The AP has called on Israel to make public the evidence it used to justify the demolition of the al-Jalaa building. Israel has said Hamas terrorists were using the building for a sophisticated effort aimed at disrupting Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defense system. But it has refused to share its intelligence, saying it did not want to reveal its sources of information.

HRW said it interviewed 18 Palestinians who were either witnesses or victims of the airstrikes. It said it also reviewed video footage and photos after the attacks, as well as statements by Israeli and Palestinian officials and terror groups.

People gather to view the rubble of the al-Jalaa building in Gaza City, Friday, May 21, 2021. The building housed The Associated Press bureau in Gaza City for 15 years. (AP/John Minchillo)

It said it found no evidence that terrorists involved in military operations had a current or long-term presence in the buildings when they were attacked. It also said that even if terrorists were using the buildings, making them legitimate targets, Israel is obligated to avoid disproportionate harm to civilians.

“The proportionality of the attack is even more questionable because Israeli forces have previously demonstrated the capacity to strike specific floors or parts of structures,” it said.

The May conflict was the fourth war between Israel and Hamas since the Islamic terror group, which opposes Israel’s existence, seized control of Gaza in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian elections there. Human Rights Watch, other rights groups and UN officials have accused both sides of committing war crimes in all of the conflicts.

Earlier this year, HRW accused Israel of international crimes of apartheid because of discriminatory policies toward Palestinians, both inside Israel as well as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel has rejected the accusations.

HRW also has called on the International Criminal Court to include the recent Gaza war in its ongoing investigation into possible war crimes by Israel and Palestinian terror groups. Israel does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and says it is capable of investigating any possible wrongdoing by its army. It says the ICC probe is unfair and politically motivated.

Mackenthun: Texas fishing trip includes chasing dinosaur fish

By Scott Mackenthun Special to The Free Press
Aug 22, 2021

Columnist Scott Mackenthun shows the 5 1/2-foot alligator gar caught on the Trinity River in Texas.
Photos by Scott Mackenthun, special to the Free Press

Covered in tough, armor-like ganoid scales, alligator gar are incredible to behold in person.
Scott Mackenthun, special to The Free Press

A random game of chance brought about last week’s first encounter with an alligator gar.

While I get outdoors as much as possible, there still was a rut forming through the familiarity of time spent homebound during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I started getting the itch to travel a couple months ago, and I dared to dream about a destination fishing trip.

Alligator gar came to my mind, and I spent idle time googling the giant fish and following Texas gar fishing guides on social media. Whether it was browser cookies or social media algorithms, I came across a lot of alligator gar content that got the angling juices flowing.

One night, I saw a post from one of the Texas gar guides that his outfit would raffle a guided fishing trip. Entries were $10 with 20 spots available.

I figured that the entry fee was a ticket to daydream, just like a lot of people buy a Powerball ticket when the jackpot runs large. If I didn’t win, and the odds were against me, it hadn’t cost me much and it permitted me to imagine a getaway trip.

A week went by and I forgot about the raffle. One night, I took my brother-in-law fishing on the Mississippi River and was flipping through my phone when I came across the raffle being conducted live. I turned it on just in time to see my number and name get called. I’d won the trip!

Carlos Guerrero of Trinity River Gar Fishing got me on the schedule for a mid-August date, and I booked my airfare. I managed to schedule some other fishing and exploring while in Dallas.

On the eve of the big trip, I waited out a torrential downpour inside the Texas Parks and Wildlife Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. Guerrero messaged me that the rain had hit Dallas hard, ending with just under two inches. The Trinity River rose four or five feet.

Being a river angler, I knew what it meant — the river would run high and dirty, throwing off the fish and fishing until things settled down.

The day started with a 25% chance of storms and ended in a deluge. Had my luck turned? Would my trip be cancelled or a bust? Guerrero had an idea — there was a spot he could take me, not in his boat but walking in, where we’d have a chance at some gar on a part of the river that may have missed much of the rain.

Not one to be afraid of a little hike, I was ready to give it a try and, at the very least, go down swinging.

Alligator gar have had a persecuted existence in the post-settlement United States. Long misunderstood as a nuisance or trash fish, they were wiped out of a large part of their native range by indiscriminate killing recommended by state or federal natural resource authorities, as well as habitat loss.

In the early 20th century, anglers would catch alligator gar via hook and line while another in the boat would shoot the fish with a bow or rifle when it jumped.

Today, a segment of the angling public targets the giant fish for catch-and-release fishing, and management agencies have taken steps to protect and preserve the predator, recognizing it as a valuable member of the native ecosystem.

A number of states value the alligator gar for its potential role in helping control invasive carp. Alligator gar are euryhaline, meaning they can adapt to various levels of salinity in marshes, swamps, brackish estuaries and bays in the Gulf of Mexico.

Alligator gar have ganoid scales, a specialized scale that is nearly impenetrable and tough like a covering of hard armor. These gar are living dinosaurs, an earned title since the fish is relatively unchanged in the fossil record dating back over 100 million years.

As with other primitive fishes, they have retained many ancient characteristics, like the ability to breathe atmospheric air through their swim bladder. Alligator gar is the largest species in the gar family, can grow up to 10 feet long and are estimated to live up to 100 years.

Guerrero came to north Dallas from Mexico at the age of 3. He learned English, holds a work visa for residency and has plans to pursue full citizenship.

Fishing was always in his blood. Once he became smitten with alligator gar, he didn’t want to fish for anything else.

Alligator gar anglers run in small circles, and he kept bumping into a friend that wanted to learn more. Over time, he came to trust Walter Murga, and together, the pair guides anglers through Trinity River Gar Fishing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Murga came to Irving, Texas, from El Salvador at the age of 6. Like Guerrero, he learned English as a second language and plans to turned his visa into citizenship.

The sun has just risen as Guerrero and Murga met me on a nondescript road beyond the outlying southern suburbs of Dallas. It was steamy and hot, a product of the rain the evening before.

A half-mile walk took us along an isolated stretch of the Trinity River. There was just enough light to make out dark shapes just below the river’s lazily flowing, olive-drab surface — the black outlines of schools of buffalo fish.

Rebar mounted rod holders were pushed into the viscous Texas mud on the stream’s banks at openings in the treeline that gave us a good view upstream and down. Long, heavy action rods with 100-pound braided line cast huge chunks of cut up carp on small treble hooks on wire leaders, loosely equivalent to northerners using quick strike rigs for northern pike on tip-ups.

“Now we wait,” Carlos said as the last rod is cast.

Texas has no limits on fishing rods used, but to keep things from getting tangled, we launched six baits into the river at equally spaced intervals. Guerrero and Murga watched line and rod tips carefully, the mark of good live and dead bait anglers.

The baits were bumped frequently, but it’s often being played with by softshell turtles. The turtles have telltale behavioral signs, like constant pecking or swimming off short distances with the bait.

After an hour and a half, we moved to a clearing further downstream, hoping to be rid of the pesky turtles.

Throughout the morning, alligator gar are rising to the surface, rolling around or gulping air before descending into the river’s murkiness. One large individual takes away Guerrero’s and my breath.

“That was a seven-footer for sure,” Carlos said.

After seven years of guiding, he’s still in awe of these fish. The river is teeming with gar, but we can’t seem to convince any to take our bait.

Another hour passed when suddenly one of the lines shot out. We scrambled to the rod and pull line of the spinning reel arbor, hoping the fish didn’t detect any resistance and drop the bait.

Alligator gar must be given time to carry the bait off in their mouth. For four or five minutes, we gave the fish line as it started to cut upstream.

We neared the end of the spool, when Carlos announced that even though the fish hadn’t stopped running with the bait, we had no choice but to set the hook.

I reeled up the slack, felt the weight, then swung the rod tip backward while reeling in an attempt to drive the hook into the fish’s bony mouth.

The line tightened and began running out. I added a couple more hard pulls to ensure a set hook.

The fish kept moving upriver, unabated. Eventually, I stopped the fish and began gaining line, but it came close to the nearshore bank.

I worried that it will find some unseen snag. I worked to guide the fish toward deeper water and suddenly, she jumped out of the water and gnashed her teeth.

Fearful she’d thrown the hook, I was relieved to find her still attached.

The fish pushed out to the main current and the fight continued, with Guerrero and Murga reminding me to keep the rod tip down so I don’t encourage another jump.

Because alligator gar have such incredibly sharp teeth, guides don’t carry landing nets as the fish would simply tear holes through them.

Instead, everyone relies on the most Texas thing you can think of — a rope is used to “lasso” the fish around it’s hard, bony head and haul it to shore.

Guerrero worked the rope around my fishing line as we brought in the gar.

The tensest moments of the entire battle was trying to attach the rope. On three occasions, as Guerrero slid the rope over the rostrum, the tired fish found the energy to dart back into the river, pulling drag each time and making our hearts race.

We spotted the treble hook in the bony corner of the mouth and feared it would pull out. Finally, we got the 5 1/2-foot gar ashore and took a few pictures.

Despite the appearance of hanging precariously, we found the treble hook was well-seated. Because gar can breathe atmospheric air, the fish can be kept out of water far longer than other sport fish.

I took a few pictures of the incredible fish’s head and back, then Guerrero picked up the fish to hand it to me.

While Guerrero picked up the fish, the gar opened its mouth and a fold of Guerrero’s T-shirt fell inside just as the fish closed its mouth. After waiting a second, the fish opened its mouth again and the shirt fell out with several fresh holes.

You wouldn’t want your hand in that girl’s mouth!

After a couple quick pictures, the fish was released to fight another day.

Eventually the humidity broke as well as the overcast skies, and the hot Texas sun came out of hiding to warm and dry the muddy ground and usher in the conclusion of the day’s trip.

Two more bait pickups happened, but each time, the gar dropped the bait. Such is life for alligator gar anglers — you battle turtles, you hope the gar keep the bait long enough to get hooked up, and you get snubbed by many fish.

All for a chance to reel in an incredible fish in an incredible place.

Scott Mackenthun is an outdoors enthusiast who has been writing about hunting and fishing since 2005. He resides in New Prague and may be contacted at scott.mackenthun@gmail.com.

Alberta paleontology students need help getting dinosaur bones from remote location

By Heide Pearson Global News
Updated August 12, 2021

University of Alberta students dig out the skeleton of a hadrosaur in the Badlands. Courtesy: Mark Powers

A group of paleontology students with the University of Alberta are hoping that by air or water they’ll get a hadrosaur moving across the southern Alberta Badlands once again.

Mark Powers and his team of students are working hard to excavate the skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur first located in 2018, as part of a student-led dig that started in 2015.

READ MORE: Little girl finds unique fossil at Alberta lake

The skeleton is embedded in a hill in a remote location between the Tolman Bridge and Drumheller, near the Morrin Bridge along the Red Deer River.

Unlike most skeletons found, which are typically lying down, this dinosaur fossil is in a top-down position, Powers said, meaning it’s a unique excavation.

“It’s a very interesting challenge to excavate,” he said.

“But it also leads to a lot of interesting sort of concepts of taxonomy, or the burial process, and how it was buried and what happened at the end of its life.”

View image in full screen

Part of a harosaur skeleton being excavated by University of Alberta students in the Badlands. Courtesy: Mark Powers

However, that’s not the only challenge these students are facing when it comes to unearthing this particular prehistoric creature.

First of all, it’s a three-kilometre hike to and from the site from their campsite near Starland, taking them roughly an hour and a half.

Last year, they were unable to make any progress on the dig because of COVID-19.

Now a smaller crew has fewer days to complete its work and while it’s great to be digging up more pieces of the ancient herbivore, the specimen pieces are so large and heavy, the students are struggling to get them out.

“If we could get it onto a boat, even if we don’t drive the boat, we could literally just walk it along the river, back to the camp and then load it into a truck,” Powers said.

“So that would be the cheapest and most ideal scenario.”

View image in full screen

University of Alberta students dig out the skeleton of a hadrosaur in the Badlands. Courtesy: Mark Powers

Typically, specimen pieces, called jackets, can be carried out if they’re under 70 pounds, but these are much larger, weighing in at about 120 pounds each.

Powers said the students are hoping to find people who will donate their time and resources to help get the fossils out along the river.

READ MORE: 12-year-old Nathan finds rare dinosaur fossil ‘of great significance’ in southern Alberta

“It is great when there’s volunteers involved, just because there’s a lot of hurdles as a student and a researcher to try and go through the insurance and all those sorts of things to actually acquire a boat,” he said.

“And then there’s extra funding in terms of renting the boat, which exceeds our budget because our budget primarily covers our staying costs.”

Powers can be reached at powers1@ualberta.ca.

Scientists locate likely origin for the dinosaur-killing asteroid

By Ailsa Harvey

The impactor traveled further than previously predicted, before colliding with Earth.

A large asteroid caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.

(Image credit: Getty)

The asteroid credited with the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is likely to have originated from the outer half of the solar system’s main asteroid belt, according to new research by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI)

Known as the Chicxulub impactor, this large object has an estimated width of 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) and produced a crater in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula that spans 90 miles (145 kilometers). After its sudden contact with Earth, the asteroid wiped out not only the dinosaurs, but around 75 percent of the planet’s animal species. It is widely accepted that this explosive force created was responsible for the mass extinction that ended the Mesozoic era.

Researchers used computer models to analyse how asteroids are pulled from their orbit in different areas of the asteroid belt and drawn towards planets. The observations of 130,000 model asteroids, along with data and behaviour seen in other known impactors, found that objects are 10 times more likely to reach Earth from the outer asteroid belt than previously thought.

Prior to crashing into Earth, the extinction-causing asteroid orbited the sun with others, in the main asteroid belt. This concentrated band lies between planets Mars and Jupiter, with its contents usually kept in place by the forces of gravity. Before this study was released, scientists thought that very few of Earth’s impactors escaped from the belt’s outer half. But, researchers at SwRI discovered that “escape hatches” could be created by thermal forces, which pull more distant asteroids out of orbit and in the direction of Earth.

The objects found in these outermost parts of the asteroid belt include many carbonaceous chondrite impactors. These are dark, porous and carbon-containing rocks which can also be found on Earth. Leading up to this research, other scientists have attempted to learn more about the object that doomed the dinosaurs. This included examinations of 66-million-year-old rocks. By doing this, geologists discovered that the Chicxulub asteroid had a similar composition to today’s carbonaceous chondrites.

In the solar system, many objects surrounding Earth share similar composition to this impactor, however they are all much smaller, with widths around one mile. Researchers at SwRI used NASA’s Pleiades Supercomputer to analyse how asteroids furthest from the sun would have evolved over hundreds of millions of years. One aim was to see where the bigger asteroids lie today.

“To explain their absence, several past groups have simulated large asteroid and comet breakups in the inner solar system, looking at surges of impacts on Earth with the largest one producing Chicxulub crater,” one of the study’s researchers, Dr. William Bottke, said.

“While many of these models had interesting properties, none provided a satisfying match to what we know about asteroids and comets. It seemed like we were still missing something important.”

By looking at wide timescales of the Chicxulub asteroid, the scientists could predict that a 6-mile asteroid is likely to come into contact with Earth once every 250 million years. Their model showed almost 50 percent of these significant impactors to be of the same carbonaceous chondrite composition.

Details of the new study will be published in the November 2021 issue of the journal Icarus. One of its authors, Dr Simone Marchi, described the findings as “intriguing.”

“The team’s simulations can, for the first time, reproduce the orbits of large asteroids on the verge of approaching Earth,” said Marchi. “Our explanation for the source of the Chicxulub impactor fits in beautifully with what we already know about how asteroids evolve.”

According to co-author Dr. David Nesvorný, the new findings can teach us about other sizable asteroids. “This work will help us better understand the nature of the Chicxulub impact,” he said, “while also telling us where other large impactors from Earth’s deep past might have originated.”

Origin of dinosaur-ending asteroid possibly found. And it's dark.

By Mara Johnson-Groh

About 66 million years ago, an estimated 6-mile-wide (9.6 kilometers) object slammed into Earth, triggering a cataclysmic series of events that resulted in the demise of non-avian dinosaurs.

Now, scientists think they know where that object came from.

According to new research, the impact was caused by a giant dark primitive asteroid from the outer reaches of the solar system's main asteroid belt, situated between Mars and Jupiter. This region is home to many dark asteroids — space rocks with a chemical makeup that makes them appear darker (reflecting very little light) compared with other types of asteroids

Related: The 5 mass extinction events that shaped the history of Earth

"I had a suspicion that the outer half of the asteroid belt — that's where the dark primitive
asteroids are — may be an important source of terrestrial impactors," said David Nesvorný, a researcher from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, who led the new study. "But I did not expect that the results [would] be so definitive," adding that this might not be true for smaller impactors.

Clues about the object that ended the reign of non-avian dinosaurs have previously been found buried in the Chicxulub crater, a 90-mile-wide (145 km) circular scar in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula left by the object's collision. Geochemical analysis of the crater has suggested that the impacting object was part of a class of carbonaceous chondrites — a primitive group of meteorites that have a relatively high ratio of carbon and were likely made very early on in the solar system's history.

Based on this knowledge, scientists have previously tried to pinpoint the impactor's origin, but many theories have crumbled over time. Researchers have previously suggested the impactor came from a family of asteroids from the inner part of the main asteroid belt, but follow-up observations of those asteroids found they didn't have the right composition. Another study, this one published in February in the journal Scientific Reports, suggested the impact was caused by a long-period comet, Live Science reported. But that research has since come under criticism, according to a June paper published in the journal Astronomy & Geophysics.

In the new study, published in the November 2021 issue of the journal Icarus, researchers developed a computer model to see how often main belt asteroids escape toward Earth and if such escapees could be responsible for the dinosaur-ending crash.

Simulating over hundreds of millions of years, the model showed thermal forces and gravitational tugs from planets periodically slingshotting large asteroids out of the belt. On average, an asteroid more than 6 miles wide from the outer edge of the belt was flung into a collision course with Earth once every 250 million years, the researchers found. This calculation makes such an event five times more common than previously thought and consistent with the Chicxulub crater created just 66 million years ago, which is the only known impact crater thought to have been produced by such a large asteroid in the last 250 million years. Furthermore, the model looked at the distribution of "dark" and "light" impactors in the asteroid belt and showed half of the expelled asteroids were the dark carbonaceous chondrites, which matches the type thought to have caused Chicxulub crater.

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"This is just an excellent paper," said Jessica Noviello, NASA fellow in the postdoctoral management program at the Universities Space Research Association at Goddard Space Flight Center, who was not involved with the new research. "I think they make a good argument for why [the Chicxulub impactor] could have come from that part of the solar system."

In addition to possibly explaining the origin of the Chicxulub crater impactor, the findings also help scientists understand the origins of other asteroids that have struck Earth further in the past. Neither of the other two largest impact craters on Earth, the Vredefort crater in South Africa and the Sudbury Basin in Canada, have known impactor origins. The results could also help scientists predict where future large impactors might originate..

"We find in the study that some 60% of large terrestrial impactors come from the outer half of the asteroid belt ... and most asteroids in that zone are dark/primitive," Nesvorný told Live Science. "So there is a 60% — 3 in 5 — probability that the next one will come from the same region."

Originally published on Live Science.

Where did the asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs come from?

20 Aug 2021

GETTY IMAGES

Scientists have worked out where the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and most of life on Earth came from.

This asteroid is officially known as the Chicxulub impactor and smashed into the planet 66 million years ago.

The space rock itself was six miles wide, but it hit the surface of the Earth with so much force that it left a crater that is 90-miles wide. Today the impact crater is buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula on the coast of Mexico.

Scientists have been trying to work out the origin of this asteroid for several years, but a new study by the Southwest Research Institute based in Texas suggests that the dinosaur-destroying rock came from the outer half of the asteroid belt in our own solar system.

More space stories like this:

Car-sized asteroid has near-miss with Earth!

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The asteroid belt

GETTY IMAGES

The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter and is the left over bits of rock from when the planets in our solar system formed over four billion years ago.

Scientists used computer models to analyse how asteroids in that region of space are pulled from their orbit around the sun into different parts of the solar system.

It included a number of factors such as bumping into other asteroids, getting knocked out of the belt and into space.

The team also discovered "escape hatches", which are essentially where an asteroid can move out of the belt over time. Radiation in space can nudge the position of asteroids and eventually, combined with the gravitational pull of planets, the asteroids can slip out of the belt and into space, moving toward Earth or anywhere else really.

What is radiation?

Radiation is energy that moves from one thing to another.

What's the connection?

So how did the team connect the dinosaur-destroying asteroid with those found in the asteroid belt? Well, the scientists examined what the asteroids are made of.

"We decided to look for where the siblings of the Chicxulub impactor might be hiding," said David Nesvorný, lead author of the research.

GETTY IMAGES

By analysing 66-million-year-old rocks on Earth, the team worked out that the Chicxulub impactor asteroid had a similar make-up to space rock called "carbonaceous chondrite impactors" found in the asteroid belt.

Carbonaceous chondrite impactors contain carbon in the form of graphite - that's the same stuff that's inside your school pencils!
So could this happen again?

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WATCH: How Nasa plans to stop asteroids hitting Earth in the future (2017)

The short answer is yes - but you don't need to worry!

The team tracked 130,000 asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. They discovered that similar rocks to the one that caused the dinosaurs' extinction were hard to find, and were generally much smaller. The biggest was about one mile in length.

However, the research did reveal that bigger asteroids were at least 10 times more likely to hit the Earth than previously thought.

But, any collision with large asteroids will happen once every 250 million years or so on average, so there's still another 184 million years to go until another asteroid similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs heads for our planet.

Ground-breaking Bristol research has found that the dinosaurs were in decline for 10 million years before an asteroid collided with earth

By Alex Lawrence, MSc Palaeobiology

Ground-breaking Bristol research has found that the dinosaurs were in decline for 10 million years before an asteroid collided with earth leading to their eventual demise. This could help explain why some animal groups survived the asteroid strike while dinosaurs and other groups perished.

When people hear the term ‘mass extinction’ the first thing that comes to mind is likely to be the dinosaurs. The idea of a dramatic asteroid impact powerful enough to wipe out these giant animals has captured the imaginations of many, and although the asteroid impact is widely accepted by scientists as the reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs, questions still remain. How exactly did the impact result in extinction, and why did some groups survive while others disappeared?

University of Bristol’s Professor Mike Benton, working alongside researchers from the University of Montpellier in France and the University of Alberta in Canada, appears to have found the answer

The time of the dinosaurs may already have been coming to a close before the fated asteroid strike | Unsplash / Vitor Fontes

In a five-year effort researchers compiled over 1,600 fossil samples from the Cretaceous period, the last of the three geological periods during which dinosaurs roamed the earth. They used the presence and absence of species in the fossil record to look at rates of speciation (when new species appear) and extinction. Combining these rates gave the researchers the diversification rate, allowing them to see changes in dinosaur biodiversity.

The researchers looked at the diversity trends of 6 dinosaur families which contain a host of beloved species including triceratops, velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus rex. These families cover the most well-represented species in the fossil record from the Cretaceous period.

Professor Benton and his team examined the diversity trends of all dinosaurs together, and of each family individually. Additionally, they split the families into herbivores and carnivores to see if the trends differed based on diet and lifestyle. Using a sophisticated statistical modelling technique called Bayesian analysis they were able to account for bias from uncertainties in the fossil record.

An exhibit at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery shows how some groups survived the asteroid strike while others went extinct | Epigram / Alex Lawrence

The results showed that all dinosaur groups were successful throughout the Cretaceous period until a drop in speciation rates and a great increase in extinction rates occurred in the last 10 million years prior to the asteroid strike. This means there was a steep decline in dinosaur diversity before the final blow. Professor Benton said ‘we were surprised to find this clear result of dinosaur decline for all the major groups that we looked at, even the hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, which were the most successful plant-eaters of the time.’

The scientists then went on to look for clues as to why diversity changed. They studied potential drivers of diversity trends, including temperature, sea level, and the diversity of different plant families that were around in the Cretaceous period.

Results found that two major drivers seemed to have caused the diversity declines. Firstly, a drop in temperatures as climates became cooler, likely due to dinosaurs finding it harder to cope with cold temperatures than groups like mammals. When asked about novel findings from the study regarding only some animal groups going extinct Professor Benton said “the second part of the study, where we tested all kinds of possible explanations for the decline helped because it identified, for the first time, that declining global temperatures are a plausible explanatory variable.”

The only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, birds became highly successful | Epigram / Alex Lawrence

Secondly, herbivores started to decline before carnivores. This is likely because the loss of herbivores has knock-on effects on ecosystems leading to instability and a greater chance of other extinctions or even total ecosystem collapse.

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Although the study uses the most recent fossil data and analytical methods there are always new fossils to be found. When asked about the next steps for the research Professor Benton stated that: ‘It would be good to extend the work to other continents – we just looked at North America, which has the best fossil record. We had also done global-scale studies earlier which also showed the decline, but it needs more detailed exploration in other parts of the world.’

Feautured image: Unsplash / Jon Butterworth

If the asteroid strike didn't happen, do you think that dinosaurs might still be around today?

Beat-up duck-billed dinosaur had cracked tailbones and 'cauliflower' tumor. But it just wouldn't die.

By Mindy Weisberger

The tenacious hadrosaur lived for some time after it was injured.

Signs of damage in the hadrosaur's fossilized tail and foot bones revealed that it had been gravely injured in life. (Image credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC))

A dinosaur that lived about 70 million years ago suffered from fractured tailbones and a "cauliflower-like" foot tumor, a new fossil analysis shows.

But despite these painful maladies, the dinosaur survived for some time after it was hurt.

When late paleontologist Jaime Eduardo Powell discovered the skeleton in Argentina's Río Negro Province in the 1980s, he observed that one of the feet was injured, and he described the injury as a possible fracture. However, when researchers recently reexamined the fossil, they found that the foot deformity was instead caused by a large, possibly cancerous tumor.

Using computed X-ray tomography (CT) scans and microscopic analysis of bone samples, the researchers also identified fractures in two vertebrae in the middle of the dinosaur's tail, and there were erosions in the bone around the fractures that may have been caused by infections. As the fractures were partially healed, they likely weren't directly responsible for the dinosaur's death, scientists reported in a new study, published in the August 2021 issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.

"We cannot quantify how long it lived afterwards, which means that it could have lived for months or years," lead study author Penélope Cruzado-Caballero, a scientist in the Research Institute of Paleobiology and Geology for Argentina's National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), said in a statement.

Who was this beat-up dinosaur? Bonapartesaurus rionegrensis was a 30-foot-long (9-meters) hadrosaur — plant-eating dinosaurs known for their broad, ducklike mouths. Hadrosaurs were large and mostly bipedal ornithischians, or bird-hipped dinosaurs, that lived during the latter part of the Cretaceous period (about 145.5 million to 65.5 million years ago) in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Analysis of the hadrosaur's skeleton showed how injuries would have plagued this unfortunate dinosaur. (Image credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC))

Some hadrosaur species sported ornate crests on their skulls, which may have been used for communication. Paleontologists don't know if Bonapartesaurus had a crest (the skeleton was missing its skull), but what attracted their attention was the dinosaur's left hind limb, where a large, bony overgrowth gave the foot "a cauliflower-like appearance," Cruzado-Caballero said in the statement.

The study authors found no fracture when they examined the bulging bone lump, but CT scans showed reduced bone density and ravaged bone tissue in surrounding areas, suggesting that the lump was a tumor. Dinosaurs in this group walked with most of their weight on their toes, and they had a high foot pad. This pad could have cushioned Bonapartesaurus' foot, and the injury — as dire as it appeared — might not have caused a limp, the researchers reported.

Their scans also revealed a first hint of cracks in two tail bones and subsequent infections in the surrounding bone. Fractures such as these could have happened because the hadrosaur was trampled, struck by an object, attacked by a predator, "or simply due to running stress," the scientists wrote in the study. "These are all good hypotheses, but we cannot determine which one is more likely."

Originally published on Live Science.

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