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NJ Governor Phil Murphy announces that he is convening the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created by the Legislature, to examine racial and ethnic disparities in the state’s criminal justice system on Sunday, February 11th, 2018. Carol McKenna/OIT/Governor’s Office.
These are my personal notes taken during a geology presentation. I give them here because they may be of some interest. Do not expect the notes to always be in complete sentences, etc.
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Recognizing Eolian (i.e., Wind Blown) Deposits on San Salvador Island & Beyond
Presented by: Mario Caputo (retired from: Earth Sciences and Astronomy Department, Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut, California, USA)
23 June 2010
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How does wind interact with sediments? Sediments can be moved by wind, water, and glaciers. Wind is a turbulent transport agent.
What makes eolian deposits? Wind moves bedforms (dunes). Dunes make eolian deposits.
Example: erg (sand sea), Namib Desert, southwestern Africa.
(blogs.britannica.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/namib3sma...)
Example: Kelso Dunes, eastern Mojave Desert, California - has linear dunes (aka seif dunes; aka longitudinal dunes) - the wind runs parallel to crest of dunes.
(www.nps.gov/moja/planyourvisit/images/walking-kelso-dunes...)
Eolianite - rock formed by wind-transported sand of carbonate grains, not quartz & feldspar sand grains. [Eolianites are varieties of limestone.]
Given a steady supply of sand and a good, persistent wind, dunes will form.
Example: Michigan - reworked glacial sediments.
Example: Great Sand Dunes, Colorado - reworked Medano River sediments, derived from the Sangre de Cristo Range.
(www.nature.nps.gov/geology/geologic_wonders/images/star_d...)
Example: Barchan dunes of Utah - sediments are reworked from wind-blown sands of the Entrada Sandstone.
Sand can withstand several cycles of formation, deposition, lithification, and erosion. A famous exception is at White Sands, New Mexico, which has gypsum sand - it is quite soft (H=2) - it doesn’t survive like quartz, so it doesn’t travel far.
(feel-planet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/white-sands-na...)
Basic eolian processes & resulting strata:
Wind ripple strata - “topset” strata and “foreset” strata or cross-bedding (sloping/slanting units).
Wind ripples, grainflow (sandflow), and grainfall make cross-bedding.
Bahamian limestones consist of aragonite (CaCO3) sand grains.
Utah sandstones have quartz (SiO2) sand grains. The Navajo Sandsone, Page Sandstone, and Entrada Sandstone are all siliciclastic eolian units there.
How sand is transported:
Wind creates a shearing effect above a sand grain. Get lift (Bernoulli Effect), like an airplane. Wind-blown (lifted or pushed along) sediment populations consist of fine sand - 1/16 mm to 1/2 mm.
Sand moves by: 1) sand slides; 2) rolling; 3) saltation (bouncing), triggered by the impact/strike of another grain. Saltation trajectories can be high. Example: sand stinging your legs during windy times.
Wind “impact” ripples: ripple length (spacing) = saltation length (trajectory controlled by wind speed & bounce height).
Forming wind ripple strata:
Ralph Hunter, now a retired USGS geologist, liked to dig out beautiful trenches & smooth the walls to see wind-blown sand deposits. (Need moist sand to trench & carve with a machete.) Such trenches show that wind ripples move up as they move laterally - climbing ripples (myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/talbot/cdgeol/Sediment/StratSed/75...). This is the result of horizontal & vertical vectors. These control the angle of climb. Ripples climb. Sediment deposits look horizontal, but they do have angular discordance. There wouldn’t be a deposit if the ripples didn’t climb.
In the Page Sandstone (~140 million years old, Paria Wilderness, southwestern Utah), you can see the angle of climb.
At the front of each ripple is a zone of erosion. If bedforms are moving horizontally, previous ripples get chewed up - don’t get a deposit. If ripples climb, you get a deposit.
On San Salvador Island in the Bahamas, wind ripple marks are rare, but they occur at French Bay in the Grotto Beach Formation. Wind ripple marks are well exposed in the Jurassic Page Sandstone of southwestern Utah’s Paria Wilderness. In both units, the ripple marks match up.
There is an index of width-to-height that only wind ripples have.
Pinstripe bedding - white stripes are microledges - seen in the the Rice Bay Formation at North Point on San Salvador. Darker bands/gray bands are recesses. So, see alternating light-dark ledges-recesses.
(www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/16223972926)
Can see the same thing in the Moab Sandstone Member of the Entrada Sandstone of Utah.
In thin section, can see that some layers are cemented and other layers are not cemented. This is the result of differential packing. The more closely packed layers end up being better cemented. The closely packed, better cemented portions are in the basal part - they form white stripes - little ledges.
The upper portions are coarser-grained, not as well packed, are darker, end up being not as well cemented, and form recesses.
The overall result is small-scale reverse grading. This happens even though wind-blown sand is well-sorted. Wind is the most efficient sorter of sediments.
Grainflow Processes:
Ex: Silver Lake State Park, western coast of Michigan.
(www.flickr.com/photos/richardthompson/3496551579)
Grains at the summit of ripples fall down at the brink point - get avalanching down the lee side.
Grainflows in the eolianite limestones at North Point Peninsula on San Salvador Island are thin to nonexistent. So, the original North Point dunes were small.
Sandflows in cross-bedding form recesses in San Salvador’s Rice Bay Formation and in the Jurassic Page Sandstone at Lake Powell (Monkey Wrench Gang country).
(www.flickr.com/photos/sara10041966/4076923585)
(upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/EdwardAbbey_TheMon...)
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Recess (Sandflow)
(not well cemented)
_________________________________
Ledge (Grainfall) (well cemented)
_________________________________
Grainfall Process:
Sand is conveyed up the windward side of a dune. The finer sand grains of wind ripples get swept beyond the brink point and form grainfall deposits - smooth, unrippled surfaces without evidence of flowage.
Grainfalls are difficult to identify in the rock record. They are relatively easy to see in modern settings.
Can identify grainfalls encasing sandflow lenses in the Jurassic Page Sandstone & in the Grotto Beach Formation of San Salvador.
Grainfall deposits in the rock record are recognized by looking for sandflow lenses encased in thin ledges (= finer-grained than sandflow lens).
San Salvador eolianites - grains are marine in origin - marine framework grains - ooids, bioclastic grains, algal fragments - they get washed up on beaches by waves and tidal currents. Then winds blow the sediments into dunes. Sediments get reworked by wind & vegetation - vegedunes.
Whole dune-form preservation occurs by plant stabilization and early cementation. You don’t see that in quartz-rich dunes.
Topset strata, brinkset strata, foreset strata are also seen on Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas.
Reactivation surfaces represent pauses in dune movement and sand movement.
Can see updip pinchout in carbonate eolianites in the Bahamas - you never see that in quartz dunes preserved in the rock record.
San Salvador's North Point Peninsula outcrops have sandflow lenses (recesses) in grainfall deposits (ledges).
Quartz can be frosted in any environment. Frosted grains are no longer a reliable indicator of wind-blown origin.
Water ripples have higher amplitudes than wind-blown ripples.
Symmetrical ripples - can watch them form in the shallow waters around San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. Sediments get swept back-n-forth in ripple troughs, resulting in the buildup of sediments at the edges of troughs - the result is symmetrical ripples.
(www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/15046816692)
Rolling & sliding mechanism of grain movement - creep.
Black basalt sand dunes occur in Hawaii. Basalt sand dunes also occur on Mars.
Bedding is only visible is there’s slight differences in grain sizes and/or grain mineralogies.
Swash laminations form in high flow regime conditions. A sheet of sand gets deposited. Swash has a higher velocity than backwash - get a two-fold lamination (swash-backwash).
Won’t see ripple forms in swash deposits. Will see parting lineations.
Can also get ripples migrating up the lee side (downwind) of dunes due to the presence of an air eddy in the trough between dunes.
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Former Peruvian president (1990-2000) Alberto Fujimori waves upon his arrival at the Supreme Court's Special Court 11 December, 2007 in Lima. Fujimori was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison for ordering an illegal search of an apartment belonging to the wife of his corrupt spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos in November 2000. On Wednesday, Fujimori is scheduled to be back in court for the continuation of the separate trial, in which he is accused of ordering a death squad to kill 25 suspected rebel sympathisers in the early 1990s, the kidnapping of an opposition journalist and a businessman, and several counts of corruption. AFP PHOTO/Eitan ABRAMOVICH (Photo credit should read EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images)
Driver arrested in connection with crash that killed 2 teens
Jared Berggren, 19, is booked after being released from hospital.
By DENISSE SALAZAR
The Orange County Register
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FULLERTON – The driver of a speeding pickup truck who lost control and crashed into a tree, killing two teenage passengers, has been released from the hospital and arrested.
Jared Berggren, 19, of Fullerton, was released Monday night from UCI Medical Center in Orange after being treated for head injuries, police said. Berggren was booked at the Orange County Jail on suspicion of two felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter and one count of felony drunken driving, with a sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury. He is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.
Jacquelyn A. Ardalan, 19, of La Habra, and Miles A. Christensen, 19, of Fullerton were ejected from the 2006 Toyota Tacoma that Berggren was driving, authorities said. They were pronounced dead at the scene.
The accident occurred around 2:30 a.m. Monday as the blue pickup truck was speeding eastbound on Coyote Hills Drive, west of Gilbert Street, and lost control, said Fullerton police Sgt. Mike MacDonald.
After losing control, the pickup started to skid, went off the road, flew up a hill and struck a Eucalyptus tree, which sheared off the top of the truck, MacDonald said.
It appears the teens were drinking in a cul-de-sac on Coyote Hills Drive where officers later found beer cans, MacDonald said.
Police are investigating where the teens got the alcohol.
“Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence.”
Bobby Charlton
Sentencing of Paul Manafort in Virginia, by Judge Ellis. Reporters run out with news, but it isn't yet news of the sentencing term.
In NYC, the day after Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years for releasing evidence of US war crimes.
Irish Penal Reform Trust Open Forum 2010: 'Exploding Prisoner Numbers'. Main contributing guest speakers included Tom O'Malley NUI Galway; Inspector of Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly (Chairperson); Dr Mary Rogan, IPRT; Vivian Geiran, Director of Operations, The Probation Service; Louis Harkin, Assistant Commissioner, An Garda Síochána. Photo by Derek Speirs.
another exprimental magazine i designed the end of last year.
The mag contains a short text from Roland Barthes' "Camera Lucida" and deals with the affect of camera and photography on out lives.
I decided to concentrate the text into a mini-magazine attached to the middle of the mag. The rest of the magazine is a collection of small "posters" based on sentences that made their effect on me.
This nifty, mid-century modern ("Googie") four-plus-one burned during Memorial Day weekend last year. I left for Michigan and returned to find it partially burned.
This morning, while walking to the Red Line, I witnessed a city employee affixing the red-X to its facade, indicating that it is slated for demolition.
I can see this building from my condo, and used to like the snowflake Christmas decorations which used to hang from its zig-zag overhang in winter.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013.
MTA New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow and EAGLE Team Special Inspector Patrick Daley at Brooklyn Supreme Court on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 where Samuel White was sentenced to 15 years in prison for shooting Daley while on the job in 2023.
(Marc A. Hermann / MTA)
Miika Juhana Tenkula (6. maaliskuuta 1974 Oulu – 18. helmikuuta 2009 Muhos) oli suomalainen muusikko, joka tunnetaan vuosina 1989–2005 toimineen Sentenced-yhtyeen soolokitaristina.
Hän kuoli perinnöllisen sydänvian aiheuttamaan äkilliseen sydänkohtaukseen kotonaan Muhoksella 18. helmikuuta 2009. Hänet haudattiin Kirkkosaaren hautausmaalle Muhokselle
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Miika Tenkula (6 March 1974 – 18 February 2009) was a Finnish heavy metal musician. He was the lead guitarist and the main songwriter for the band Sentenced until it disbanded. He was also the band's original vocalist from 1989 to late 1992.
After Sentenced disbanded, Tenkula withdrew from publicity. He died of a sudden heart attack caused by genetic heart disease at his home in the town of Muhos 18 February 2009. His former band members remembered him by publishing an obituary in the official Sentenced webpage on 22 February 2009.
Sentenced mourned the loss of Miika Tenkula, "a dear friend, a truly remarkable artist and musician, and the very soul of what used to be Sentenced. Rest now, brother – in your music and our hearts you will live forever".
An open memorial was held in the Club Teatria in the city of Oulu on 18 April 2009. In the music containing ceremony was also show Buried Alive - concert movie, that was filmed in the same location in 2005, where Miika Tenkula and the Sentenced held their last concert before disbanding. In the ceremony, music from Miika Tenkula's favourite artists was heard, but also cover versions from the Sentenced songs performed by various Finnish artists and bands.
Finnish melodic death metal band Insomnium's song "Weighed Down with Sorrow" from their 2009 album Across the Dark is dedicated to Tenkula. (Wikipedia)
I came up with this idea just as I was falling asleep the other night. After that I couldn't get back to sleep because it was all I could think about! I made the background and sign last night for today's photoshoot.
Mr. Ghassemi-Shall faces imminent execution in Iran. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy issued a joint statement asking Iran to release and halt the execution of Hamid Ghassemi-Shall.
Hamid Ghassemi-Shall was arrested in late May 2008 while visiting his mother in Iran. This arrest took place approximately two weeks after the arrest of his brother, Alborz Ghassemi-Shall.
In November 2009 Hamid’s wife in Canada received reports that both Hamid and Alborz were convicted of espionage and sentenced to death. The legal proceedings were deeply unfair and neither Hamid or Alborz had a meaningful opportunity to defend themselves. His conviction appears to be based on a document of an alleged email exchange between Hamid and Alborz. Hamid has unequivocally stated that the document is a complete fabrication and that he never sent any such message. Testing and analysis by his lawyer reportedly confirm that to be the case.
Hamid and Alborz were in solitary confinement for 18 months until the end of November 2009 when they were transferred to a general population section in Tehran's Evin prison. On 20 January 2010 Alborz died in prison, reportedly of stomach cancer. Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall reported that both he and Alborz were subject to “extreme pressure” during their detention.
Hamid Ghassemi-Shall was sentenced to death. His case has undergone a number of reviews, but the family confirmed in March 2012 that the death sentance has not been lifted.
Take Action
Write the Iranian authorities. Request that they:
Guarantee that Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall will not be executed.
Release Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall immediately unless he is promptly brought to trial on recognizably criminal charges in legal proceedings that fully conform to international fair trial standards.
Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street – End of Shahid
Keshvar Doust Street
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Salutation: Your Excellency
Email: info_leader@leader.ir AND tweet @khamenei_ir
Copies to:
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur Street, Vali Asr Avenue, south of
Serah-e Jomhouri
Tehran, 1316814737
Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: bia.judi@yahoo.com or info@dadiran.ir (In the subject line, write FAO Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Copies to:
Mr Kambiz Sheikh Hassani
Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy for the Islamic Republic of Iran
245 Metcalfe Street
Ottawa, Ontario K2P 2K2
Fax: (613) 232-5712
Email: executive@iranembassy.ca
More Background
The Canadian government has sponsored a resolution censuring Iran at the United Nations General Assembly human rights committee, every year since the 2003 torture and death while in custody, of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi in Iran. The resolution has expressed deep concern at serious ongoing human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The violations include torture, flogging, amputations, stoning, and "pervasive gender inequality and violence against women." Canada has also "particular concern" with the Iranian government's failure to launch a thorough investigation of alleged human rights violations in the wake of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contested re-election in 2009.
In a new year’s statement on January 1, 2011 the Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, expressed deep concern for the “deteriorating human rights situation in Iran.” He expressed particular concern for the uncertain fate of two Canadians of dual nationality who remain in prison in Iran. (Hamid Ghassemi- Shall and Hossein Derakhshan). He further referred to reports that Saeed Malekpour, a Canadian permanent resident, has been condemned to death and that his sentence could be carried out at any time. Minister Cannon encouraged the Iranian authorities to show mercy and compassion to those who are in Iran’s prisons without just cause, and called on Iran to respect its international human rights obligations in law and in practice and to foster a more open dialogue with the international community.
خواهر حمید قاسمی: شما را به خدا نگذارید برادرم را اعدام کنند، حمید حتی فعال سیاسی هم نیست
soundcloud.com/frl-journalist/hamidghasemi
■■■■■ www.persianicons.org/human-right/iranian-canadian-facing-... ■■■■■
These are my personal notes taken during a geology presentation. I give them here because they may be of some interest. Do not expect the notes to always be in complete sentences, etc.
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Mammals and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Mass Extinction
Presented by: John Hunter (Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University at Newark, Newark, Ohio, USA) (newark.osu.edu/directory/hunter-john.html)
22 May 2012
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There are 3 groups of mammals today: monotremes, marsupials, and placentals.
The monotremes are the duck-billed platypus and the echidna. They were widespread across Gondwana in the past. They are now restricted to Australasia.
Marsupials are in Australasia and in North America today.
There are 20 or so orders of placental mammals, living and extinct.
Placentals include primates, which turn out to be related to bats and flying lemurs. Placentals also include the ungulates - the hoofed mammals. The ungulates are an artificial group - they consist of 3 separate groups, actually.
Whales turn out to be in the Artiodactyla.
Mammals have been around since the Late Triassic. A Middle Triassic busted-up mammal braincase has been found in southwestern USA. Well-preserved mammal fossils start in the Late Triassic. Mammals diversify after the Cretaceous. Modern placental orders go to near the base of the Paleocene. Marsupials and monotremes do go into the Cretaceous.
Early mammals include:
Morganucodonts (Late Triassic to Early Jurassic) - they are stem mammals. They have teeth with cusps that slide past each other. These mammals were likely insectivores (insect eaters).
Docodonts (Late Triassic-Late Jurassic) - they have broad, crushing teeth and were likely frugivores (fruit eaters). Their bodies ranged from small & shrew-like to beaver-sized.
Australosphenids (stem monotremes) - they are known from across Gondwana - Australia, Madagascar, South America.
Eutriconodonts (Jurassic-Cretaceous) - bigger & badder mammals, up to ~possum-sized.
Multituberculates (Jurassic-Eocene) - “rodents” of the Mesozoic, although they wouldn’t be mistaken for living rodents. These mammals had cheek teeth with cusps in multiple rows, like a modern rodent molar. Multituberculate mammals had splayed-out-to-the-side limbs. They could reverse their hind feet to hang from tress, like squirrels today.
Stem eutherians (Jurassic-Cretaceous)
Mammals in the Mesozoic were not ecologically dominant - they were small-bodied, nocturnal, and had a small biomass compared with the archosaurs/dinosaurs.
After the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, there was a survivorship period in the mammals.
Survivors of the extinction included marsupials (they were in & are still in North America) and multituberculates. The multituberculate mammals persisted until the Eocene, when rodents migrated into North America from Asia. The rodents probably outcompeted the multituberculates.
Mammals diversified in the Paleogene-Neogene.
The Cretaceous-Tertiary transition (K-T) had the greatest number of originations per unit species and the greatest number of extinctions per unit species - lots of turnover.
Mammal body sizes increased through time. The largest single increase occurred at the Cretaceous-Tertiary. After that, there was continued increase in mammal body sizes through the Cenozoic.
See Schulte et al. (2010) - Science 327(1214).
There was a large impact in the Gulf of Mexico, at the Yucatan Peninsula, at 65.5 million years ago - now the Chicxulub Impact Crater. The timing of the impact corresponds with extinction of Cretaceous-only species of plants and animals, and corresponds with a sudden spike in iridium (Ir) in Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary sediments, and also corresponds with a δ13C excursion.
The iridium spike and extinction event also correspond with periods of volcanism in India - the Deccan Traps. Imagine an area the size of Texas suddenly being filled with lava, with lots of poison gases being released. There were multiple episodes of Deccan Traps volcanism - not all of them correspond with the extinction horizon.
Deccan Traps volcanism could have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiay mass extinction, some say.
Others say Deccan Traps volcanism did not cause the mass extinction.
Close to Chicxulub, boundary sections have dozens of meters thick tsunami deposits - very coarse grained sediments - formed quickly and dewatered quickly.
Far away from Chicxulub, for example at Agost, Spain, the boundary section is quite thin.
See Archibald et al. (2010) - Science 328 (21 May 2010). This paper says that the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction had multiple causes - impact + volcanism + marine regression + climate change.
Early Paleocene first appearances of mammals include Purgatorius (Plesiadapiformes) - a primate that possibly goes into the Cretaceous (based on one tooth in a probably-contaminated fossil washing screen) - and Protungulatum (Condylarthra) - now known in the Cretaceous.
John Hunter does mammal fossil field work in southwestern North Dakota, in the Williston Basin. The area has Paleocene- and Cretaceous-aged sedimentary rocks. The contact in the area potentially has Cretaceous-Tertiary fossil records. The area is mostly rangelands/grasslands. It’s usually only the river valleys that have adequate rock exposures, such as along the Yellowstone River and the Little Missouri River, etc. Going north in this field area, one encounters younger sites. Going south in this field area, one encounters older sites.
The area has outcrops of Hell Creek Formation (upper Upper Cretaceous) - it contains dinosaurs + lots of mammal sites. Above that is the Fort Union Group (Paleocene) - its has lots of mammal sites.
Marine rocks occur below the Hell Creek Fm. Marine rocks also come in from the east during the Paleocene - there’s a regression to Hudson Bay in the Middle Paleocene.
In the field, the Hell Creek Fm. outcrops have drab gray colors. Above that, the Fort Union Group outcrops are colored tan + gray.
The Pioneer Trails Region Museum in Bowman, North Dakota has a paleontology curator, Dean Pearson. John Hunter works with him, plus Joe Hartman (works on invertebrate fossils), Dan Peppe (works on fossil plants & paleomagnetic analysis), Antoine Bercovici (works on fossil pollen), and others.
The asteroid layer is a tonstein at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary in some sections - iridium has been identified in these sections. A good K-T section occurs at Mud Buttes, North Dakota - it has shocked quartz + a pollen change + an iridium spike + spherules.
Sandstone channels can cut out parts of these sections, including the K-T transition. So, the K-T asteroid layer is not found everywhere.
Mammal fossils: mostly isolated teeth + jaw fragments.
See Hunter (1999) - North Dakota Academy of Science.
See Pearson et al. (2002) - Geological Society of America Special Paper 361.
There is very little ecological change in Hell Creek Formation fossils through time. There is no evidence of dinosaurs (or other groups) declining.
At one locality, <1 meter above the K-T boundary, lenses of sediments have the earliest mammals and plants recovered from the post-Cretaceous - these are “day after” biotas. They are the closest-to-the-Cretaceous biotas of Paleocene age identified so far.
The Hell Creek Fm.-Fort Union Group contact is arbitrary - it’s placed at a mappable coal bed. This is somewhat correlative with the Z Coal. “Z Coal” is a term used in eastern Montana - the coal bed splits and joins. The formation contact (= coal bed) is within 1 to 0.5 meters of the iridium spike. So, the “Z Coal” and the iridium spike are pretty close.
Bercovici et al. (2009) - Cretaceous Research.
Floras have been also recovered in these close-to-the-Cretaceous sands.
The fossil record looked at just above the K-T is environmentally sensitive.
Wilkening locality - 5341 fossil vertebrate specimens were recovered (mostly fish, but some mammals, too). The fossils were retrieved by screening/sieving. A freshwater ponding event occurred after K-T at this locality. Found a new species of Mesodma, a multituberculate mammal. Got archaic placental mammals and archaic ungulates. The site is dominated by one species of multituberculate - Mesodma. This animal was 80% of the mammal fauna at the Wilkening locality.
Seeing a surge in multituberculate mammals in the transitional period between the Late Cretaceous and the Early Paleocene. The multituberculates were an opportunistic group following the K-T extinction event. Also seeing a fern spore spike just above K-T. This is the first time a spike in mammals has been found after the K-T.
At other sites, reports of increased numbers of mammals after K-T were dubious - there was often evidence of reworking - hundreds or thousands of years of time may have been compressed, including through the boundary. This will disproportionately represent forms that go extinct.
The Wilkening locality is the first confident occurrence of a multituberculate mammal site after the K-T boundary.
Also looked at Merle’s Mecca locality - dates to ~100,000 years after the K-T (= Eary Paleocene). It is more diverse that the Wilkening locality, in terms of mammal fossils. The mammals at Merle’s Mecca are also more derived.
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A Chinese man who set his ex-wife on fire as she livestreamed to her online followers was sentenced to death on Thursday, concluding a murder case that received nationwide notoriety.
The victim, 30-year-old Lhamo, was a farmer and livestreamer in a Tibetan autonomous prefecture in southwestern Sichuan province. She was streaming a video of herself last September when a man burst in, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. She died two weeks later.
Her ex-husband, Tang Lu, was arrested soon after. On Thursday in court, he was found guilty of homicide, sentenced to death and ordered to pay compensation, according to state-run broadcaster CCTV.
The court found his crime "was extremely cruel" and "deserves severe punishment," CCTV reported.
Tang had a history of physical abuse toward Lhamo, reportedly beating her many times before they divorced in June 2020, according to CCTV. In the following months, he repeatedly sought her out and asked to remarry, but was turned away -- leading to the murder.
The case was widely covered in national and international media, drawing attention for the gruesome nature of Lhamo's death -- as well as raising discussion on the larger problems surrounding women and violence in China. On Chinese social media, there was heated debate over how the country's legal system often fails to protect victims while easily pardoning perpetrators of abuse.
Heavy "finish the job" figther, more pics later !
Inspired a little by the Steppenwulf01 (peterlmorris)
A Doha Criminal Court has sentenced in absentia a Kenyan maid to one year in jail for stealing her employer’s jewellery, local Arabic daily Arrayah has reported.
The maid’s employer, a lady, had deported her earlier as she did not find her trustworthy. But later she saw the ...
goqatar.co/maid-sentenced-in-absentia-for-stealing-employ...
Willie Mays Aikens (b: October 14, 1954) is a former MLB first baseman. He had established himself as one of the top sluggers in the game before drugs derailed his career. In 1994, Aikens was sentenced to twenty years in prison on four counts of crack cocaine distribution and one count of use of a firearm during drug trafficking. He was released on June 4, 2008 after changes in federal drug laws, and is sometimes cited as an example of the results of mandatory minimum sentencing in drug-related crimes.
He batted over .300 for the first time in his career in 1983, only to see his career rapidly began to decline afterwards. Toward the end of the 1983 season, Aikens and several of his Royals teammates were questioned by U.S. Attorney Jim Marquez in connection with a federal cocaine probe. Following the season, Aikens, Jerry Martin and Willie Wilson pleaded guilty to attempting to purchase cocaine, while former teammate Vida Blue pleaded guilty to possession of three grams of cocaine. Aikens, Blue, Martin and Wilson were all sentenced to three months in prison.
Shortly after Aikens' November 17 sentencing, he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for designated hitter Jorge Orta. Aikens was originally suspended by Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn for a year. Following a May 15, 1984 review, he was reinstated, and joined his Toronto teammates in Minnesota the next day. In 93 games, Aikens hit eleven home runs and drove in just 26.
The Jays released Aikens a month into the 1985 season, and resigned him to a minor league contract. Despite a healthy .311 batting average and sixteen home runs with the Syracuse Chiefs, he never returned to the majors. He played four games for the New York Mets' triple A affiliate, the Tidewater Tides in 1986 before heading to Mexico to join the Mexican Pacific League's Yaquis de Obregón. Aikens played for six years in the Mexican League, where he was regularly among the league's top hitters.
Police officer with students and civil rights attorneys, March 28, 1960. Photo by Jimmy Ellis, The Tennessean.
"The district of Yass, different from all other districts in the colony, has for the last four months been visited with continual rain and sleet... the district is thriving and bids to become one of no small importance in this rising colony" - The Sydney Gazette, 1837
Then - yet - it never really did.
Located three hours out of Sydney on the road towards Melbourne - on the Hume Highway which sees a disproportionate number of accidents, I'm told - and one hour north of Canberra, Yass remains dwarfed and overshadowed not only by these larger cities but even Goulburn. It has a population of about 5,000; a small main road of shops. Hamilton Hume and William Hovell passed through and explored this place while searching for a great inland sea, though in truth Hume found it a few years earlier when looking for new grazing ground, and in truth beyond that the very name Yass is said to derive from Yharr, the Aboriginal word Yharr, which means running water (for the river that curls through) and this just shows that it was a discovery in the most colonial sort of sense, by which nothing has been found unless a white man found it. (Convicts didn't count either. I was reading something about that.)
Like most this continent (as I am beginning to see) this is a place of extremes. In 1837 it rained for four months; in more recent times it didn't rain a drop for seven years. At the moment it is green across the plains and the hemming hills, but I am promised that within a couple months it will be a dustbowl, the grass dried and the earth cracked and the snakes will begin to reappear. Walking by the river I heard movement in the dry grasses by the side of the path and imagined a snake, though it was probably just a rat. Funny, 'just a rat' is not a sentence I would ever use in New Zealand. A rat was generally the worst thing. Here it seems like every dark corner might be hiding something latently poisonous; around the gardens of the house I am told there are spiders - I forget the name of them, I keep forgetting what they're called - whose venom is so lethal you will only have ten minutes. (I have taken to checking my bed before climbing into it.)
I think this sounds almost mythical - the town that never saw rain for seven years - but reducing things to sentences like that often has that effect.
The first night I arrived here there were gale winds and rain. It was all quite gothic. When I woke in the middle of the night and listened to the window rattling against its frame I half expected to see Cathy Earnshaw at my window, pressing her ghostly hands against the glass and mouthing words like: let me in. When I went for a walk the next day I could see where branches had fractured from trees and fallen to the ground, wrough iron railings buckling softly in the middle like they were made of some soft and malleable material.
Irish Penal Reform Trust Open Forum 2010: 'Exploding Prisoner Numbers'. Main contributing guest speakers included Tom O'Malley NUI Galway; Inspector of Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly (Chairperson); Dr Mary Rogan, IPRT; Vivian Geiran, Director of Operations, The Probation Service; Louis Harkin, Assistant Commissioner, An Garda Síochána. Photo by Derek Speirs.
Jorge Luis Jimenez of Chicago, shown in a November 1954 photograph, was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Luis Jimenez was sentenced in 1954 to six years in prison for sedition.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.