Drunk on Paleontology - Tricerahops Double IPA

The next Drunk on Geology is for Tricerahops Double IPA from the Ninkasi Brewing Company out of Eugene, OR.

Although, obviously named for the dinosaur Triceratops, the Ninkasi website also states that this beer, along with three others, are part of a comic series produced by Dark Horse Comics called Legend of Ninkasi: Rise of Craft.

And according to their comic lore:

Legend has it that Tricerahops, loyal companion to the goddess Ninkasi, acquires his abilities from the goddess’ mystical hops. While our brewery is working on propagating these hops for the good of all, we brewed this Double IPA to showcase all that’s possible. Its floral aromas collide with a splendor of resinous hop notes to create a beer suitable for a magical beast like Tricerahops himself.

Triceratops horridus skeleton and cast from the Field Museum in Chicago, IL. 

The first discovery of  material attributed to Triceratops, was in 1887 by George Lyman Cannon near Denver, Colorado, who had found a set of the brow horns attached to a skull roof. He sent the material to O.C. Marsh who, assuming the rock dates were Pliocene, determined that it was from a prehistoric bison, which he named Bison alticornis. However after a more complete specimen was discovered in 1888 from Wyoming's Lance Formation by John Bell Hatcher, as well as a couple of other discoveries, Marsh reevaluated the initial find and eventually added all the finds under a new species, Triceratops, which he named in 1889, meaning "three-horned face". 

The side of the Tricerahops box notes:

This is our monument to the big and beautiful beasts that came before us. Tricerahops is an ancient field of floral hops with a deep, earthy taste and a balanced finish.

Triceratops belongs to a group of animals known as ceratopsians.

Ceratopsian wall at the Natural History Museum of Utah. Triceratops is the one located in the far right at the top.

Ceratopsians were prolific during the Cretaceous, with many different varieties evolving with various numbers of horns and frill adornments. Triceratops was one of the last ceratopsians to have evolved with remains having been found in rocks dating from ~69 million years ago to the end of the dinosaurs ~66 million years ago. It is estimated that Triceratops could grow up to 30 feet in length and weigh 12,000-16,000 pounds. There are currently two recognized species of Triceratops, T. horridus (pictured above in Chicago) and T. prorsus. 

The skull of Triceratops is one of the largest skulls ever discovered, approaching 10 feet in length in some individuals and not only had the three primary horns (one above each eye and one on the snout), it also had a series of spikes along the edge of the frill known as epoccipitals, and hornlike projects on the jugals (cheekbones). The horns are thought to serve multiple functions, such as defense from predators as well mating display structures. 

References
https://ninkasibrewing.com/
https://www.gbif.org/species/113684498
https://www.britannica.com/animal/Triceratops

Drunk on Paleontology - Soul Rex Double IPA

 

The next Drunk on Geology post is for Soul Rex Double IPA by Level Crossing Brewing Company out of Salt Lake City, UT. 

The Soul Rex is clearly an homage to one of the mightiest of dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus rex. As pictured on the can, the logo presents a stylized version of the T. rex in shades, a jazz type hat, and holding a bass. I had previously done a couple of T. rex inspired beers before for the Pseudo Sue Pale Ale and the Tooth and Claw Dry Hopped Lager. Both of those beers focused on one specific T. rex skeleton, SUE, located at Chicago's Field Museum. So for this one I will look at the T. rex in general.

The first Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was discovered in 1902 by Barnum Brown, the then assistant curator for the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. The bones, discovered in the Hell Creek Formation near Hell Creek, Montana, were identified by a local land owner who then told Brown. The skeleton, only 10% complete, took 3 years to excavate and was then transported to the AMNH where the paleontology curator of the museum, Henry Fairfield Osborn, named the fossil in 1905 Tyrannosaurus rex, meaning "Tyrant Lizard King". 

All fossils of the T. rex have since been found in western North America, ranging from southern Canada down into southern New Mexico and Texas. The T. rex was also one of the last living non-avian dinosaurs, having lived during the late Cretaceous period from about 68 to 66 million years ago, which is when the meteorite struck the Earth, wiping out those non-avian dinosaurs.

Although the skeleton discovered initially by Brown was only a partial skeleton, an even more complete skeleton was discovered by Brown 6 years later that became the basis for the skeleton seen above, mounted at the AMNH. It is this mount that went on to influence pop-culture for most of the next hundred years, where the T. rex was almost always portrayed in a vertical pose. Unfortunately this pose was set up mostly because of the steel armature could not do a more dynamic pose. Many of the tail vertebrae even needed to be broken in order to get the T. rex to be standing like this. 

It wasn't until 1993's Jurassic Park, that movie and tv makers really started to take a look at the advancing science behind the dinosaurs and adjusted their models accordingly. For the movie, the T. rex is presented in a much more accurate model, where the body of the beast is balanced over the legs, with the tail acting as a counterweight, forming a giant see-saw. This remodeled T. rex also gives us a much more accurate depiction of its size, where an adult can grow up to ~12 feet tall at the hip and ~40 feet long from tip of the tail to snout. But one of the most notable features of a T. rex were its teeth, that ranged in size up to 12 inches long, which included the root, still leaving approximately a 6 inch tooth exposed.

Text from the back of the can:

Soul Rex Double IPA - A hefty but cultured pint. Sweet notes bellow from a cellar cabaret... you're unwavering to behold who's onstage... as your eyes come into focus in the dark dank chamber... just so you know, he's got soul! This badass beer has a deep golden hue exposing a sophisticated world of tropical fruit whiffs with melon and citrus as the opening act. For the encore, stone fruit and juicy hop bitterness steal the show. This beet performs as intended, a highly drinkable brew to enjoy again and again.

Since the release of Jurassic Park, the science of T. rex has continued to advance. With the discovery that birds are descendants of dinosaurs, and many dinosaurs discovered with feathers, it is now believed that even the T. rex likely sported some variety of plumage, although it is currently unclear how much plumage a T. rex  may have had at any given point in its life. 

It is unclear how much this current model of the T. rex will change as more fossils are discovered and analyzed, but as one of the most famous dinosaurs, there are sure to be many people hunting for the next big breakthrough. Will those future discoveries include that T. rexes liked to hang out in jazz clubs and play the bass? The world may never know.  

References
https://www.fossilguy.com/gallery/vert/dinosaur/tyrannosaurus/trex-discovery.htm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/barnum-brown-the-man-who-discovered-tyrannosaurus-rex-70758588/
https://www.amnh.org/dinosaurs/tyrannosaurus-rex
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/606903/how-t-rex-american-museum-natural-history-became-icon

https://www.businessinsider.com/t-rex-discoveries-hunted-walked-growth-2021-4

https://tulsaworld.com/location-of-t-rex-fossil-discoveries/image_e1f73009-69c9-5b57-87b8-f616d47a9950.html

Drunk on Paleontology - Pearadactyl Pear Apple Wine

For my next Drunk on Geology we have Pearadactyl - Pear Apple Wine by the Carlson Vineyards in Palisade, Colorado. 

Clearly named after the word Pterodactyl, the name of the wine takes advantage of the similar sounds between the the "Pter" (pronounced like tear) and the rhyming "pear". But the word Pterodactyl was first coined in 1809 by Georges Cuvier. This was based on a fossil of an unknown creature first identified in 1784 by Italian scientist Cosimo Collini, who though this must be a marine organism of some kind. Cuvier correctly discerned later that this was a flying animal and coined the phrase "Petro-dactyl" meaning "winged finger":

"Sur le squelette fossile d'un REPTILE VOLANT des environe d'AICHSTEDT, que quelques naturalistes ont pris pour un oiseau, et dont nous formons un genre de SAURIENS, sous le nom de PETRO-DACTYLE."

"On the fossil skeleton of a FLYING REPTILE from the environe of AICHSTEDT, which some naturalists have taken for a bird, and of which we form a genus of SAURIANS, under the name of PETRO-DACTYL."

Cuvier's 1812 drawing of the first "Petro-Dactyl" specimen. Image from Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles de quadrupèdes. t. 4 (1812). https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40032094#page/677/mode/1up.

A Latinized version of Cuvier's descriptive term for the animal was then used by Lorenz Oken in 1818 to name the animal with the official species name of Pterodactylus. Since that time, the term "pterodactyl" is not actually a scientifically valid name. The group of flying reptiles is collectively known as "pterosaurs", which are all the animals that belong to the taxonomic order Pterosauria. Within the order of Pterosauria, there are individual animals such as the Pterodactylus and the Pteranodon, but nothing that would be referred to simply as a "Pterodactyl". 

Reconstruction of the Pterodactylus. Image courtesy of the the Dinopedia Wiki Page.

But despite the misnomer, the name lives on, as anyone who has tried to Google the animal can attest to. Overall, pterosaurs are a group of flying reptiles. They are NOT dinosaurs, having branched off of the reptile family tree before dinosaurs had truly evolved. You can think of them as the cousins of dinosaurs. These flying reptiles were the first vertebrates to have evolved powered flight with some species having grown to tremendous sizes. The largest pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus northropi, stood 16 feet tall and had a wing span of 33 feet, which is the size some airplanes. They flew using a skin and muscle membrane that stretched across the first three fingers of their hands as well as between their shoulders and wrists to their hind limbs, creating their wings. Some pterosaurs also had the membranes between their legs.  

Life sized reconstruction of a Quetzalcoatlus northropi at Chicago's Field Museum from the Late Cretaceous

The group of Pterosaurs lived from 228 to 66 million years ago, going extinct at the end of the Cretaceous along with the non-avian dinosaurs when the asteroid hit the Earth. It is theorized that these animals were possibly warm-blooded with some (possibly all?) having a furry coating of hair-like filaments over their bodies. 

Trackway of a small pterosaur showing both the fore- and hind-limbs of the animal. Image courtesy of Scientific American. 

As pictured in the reconstruction above, pterosaurs are also known to have walked on all four limbs. Scientists know this from, not only reconstructions of the skeletons, but also fossilized trackways that preserved the hand imprints along with the feet.

Text from the back of the bottle:

"Carlson Vineyard's Pearadactyl is a 100% western Colorado grown, semi-sweet pear-apple wine best served chilled with light foods and good friends. If you close your eyes real tight and think very hard about the way it was 160 million years ago, you just might see a Pearadactyl gliding by with a delectable pear in its beak."

Looking that the Pterodactylus itself, this species of pterosaur lived during the Late Jurassic period, approximately 150 million years ago. This matches fairly closely with the wine's listing of "160 million years ago". 

The bottle also mentions that the Pearadactyl would have been gliding by with a "delectable pear" in its beak. Pears, and pear tree in particular, belong to a group of plants known as angiosperms. Angiosperms include all of the flowering (and fruiting) plants that we know of today. Early angiosperms are thought to have evolved in the Early Cretaceous or the Late Jurassic, ~140-250 million years ago (Nature). Along with the evolution of the flowering plants, is the evolution of the fruit that they bear. 

The pear fruit is a result of the domestication by humans of the pear tree and the cultivation over human history. The plant itself belongs to the Pyrus genus, which is estimated to have evolved only a few 10's of millions of years ago. However, it belongs to the larger group of the Rosaceae family of fruit trees. The Rosaceae family evolved ~100 million years ago, with several ancestral fruit bearing trees having existed alongside the dinosaurs and pterosaurs during the Cretaceous period. This means that although the "pear" would not have been present alongside the "Pearadactyl", perhaps an ancestral fruit would have been.

References

https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2015/10/identifying-first-flying-reptile.html
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/29092318#page/423/mode/1up
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40032094#page/677/mode/1up
https://www.livescience.com/24071-pterodactyl-pteranodon-flying-dinosaurs.html
https://dinopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Pterodactylus
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/footprint-find-could-be-a-holy-grail-of-pterosaur-research/
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/34/2/262/2528249

Drunk on Paleontology - Madonna Estate Dolcetto

 

The next Drunk on Geology is for the Madonna Estate Dolcetto by the Madonna Estate Winery from Napa, California. 

This Drunk on Geology is a little different because the geological nature of the wine is not in the name, or the label, but in the logo of the Madonna Estate Winery itself. 

The logo, as seen here a little better, is what is known as Fermat's spiral. 

Fermat's Spiral. Image courtesy of MSU.edu.

Here are a couple of clearer shots of the logo. 

On the front of the bottle.

And on the bottle cork cover. 

Now the reason that I am enamored with the logo, is that this is the same design that my favorite trace fossil, Spirorhaphe, makes. A trace fossil is a fossil that is left behind by the behavior of an organism, like a footprint or a worm burrow, but not a fossil of the actual organism itself. Trace fossils are also named based on their morphology, similar to animals. Spirorhaphe, in particular, is a trace fossil that is part of a group of trace fossils known as graphoglyptids. These fossils form as open burrows, often in deep water at the bottom of the ocean. 

Graphic of graphoglytid preservation. Image courtesy of my dissertation.

These open burrow systems often have intricate patterns to them. They are preserved when a turbidite, which is essentially an underwater landslide, comes down on top of where the graphoglytid burrows are located. The turbidite churns up the water and removes the top layer of sediment over the burrow. The turbidite then deposits the sand and mud that was transported on top of the bottom half of the open burrows creating a cast of the burrows, preserving the intricate burrow system.

Images of some common graphoglyptids. A) Cosmorhaphe. B) Helminthorhaphe. C) Megagrapton. D) Paleodictyon. E) Spirorhaphe. F) Urohelminthoida. 

Above is an example of some of the varied shapes that come from this group. Scientists aren't sure what the animals that lived in the burrows were doing but the thoughts range from filtering their food out of the sediment, to growing bacteria on the walls to eat, to trapping organisms within the burrow walls and eating those. The one that interests me the most in this instance is Spirorhaphe, which has the same design as the logo!

Example of Spirorhaphe from the Late Cretaceous of Tanzania. 

Initially named in 1895 by Fuchs, Spirorhaphe is an ichnogenus (a genus of a trace fossil) that has gone through a rather tortuous history with many ichnospecies (a species of a trace fossil) being attributed to it and then those definitions changing. Currently, there are three species associated with Spirorhaphe, however even those are contentious in the scientific community. 

Regardless, Spirorhaphe is a fantastic trace fossil and my favorite to boot. 

Text on the back of the bottle:

"Like the cave drawings of Lascaux, Madonna Estate's label represents a history of generations - four generations - that have grown grapes and produced varietal wines with rich concentrated flavors. The continuity of our spiral symbolizes an ongoing commitment to create fine wines."

Drunk on Paleontology - Cambria Benchbreak Chardonnay

 

The next Drunk on Geology post is for Cambria Benchbreak Chardonnay from the Cambria Estate Vineyards and Winery in Santa Barbara, CA. 

The name of the winery, Cambria, comes from the geologic time unit, the Cambrian, which lasted from 541 to ~485.4 million years ago. The Cambrian is the first geologic Period within the Era known as the Paleozoic, which also happens to be the first Period within the Phanerozoic Eon (which followed the Precambrian). 

The Geological Society of America's geological time scale. Available here for download in PDF.

Geological time periods are named after people, places, or some aspect to the Earth from which the rocks are found that date to those time periods. The Cambrian and all of the time periods around it are no exception.

The Cambrian was named after Cambria, which is the Roman name for Whales. This is where rocks of this age were first studied by Adam Sedgwick.

The Paleozoic, of which the Cambrian is the first Period within, means "Ancient Life" (paleo = ancient, zoic = life).

And the Phanerozoic, of which the Paleozoic is the first Era within, means "Visible Life" (phaner = visible). 

The Cambrian is a remarkable period within the Earth's history. So much so, that everything before the Cambrian is simply identified as the Precambrian. It was initially thought that the Cambrian represented when life first appeared on Earth, hence it starting off the Visible Life (Phanerozoic) eon. Scientists now know that is not the case, having found fossils and other evidence of life from rocks that are far older than the Cambrian. 

The Geological Time Scale in general was developed by the fossil record. When major animals appeared and disappeared are the basis for the divisions that we now know. Major extinction events mark major boundaries within the time scale such as the Permian Extinction, where 95% of all life on Earth went extinct and marked the end of the Paleozoic, and the Cretaceous extinction, where 80% of all life on Earth went extinct and marked the end of the Mesozoic. 

Treptichnus pedum from the Lower Cambrian. Image courtesy of Buatois, 2017.

The start of the Cambrian, and for that matter the start of the Paleozoic and Phanerozoic (since it is all the same start) is marked by the first appearance of "complex" life. To mark this notable occurrence one particular species needed to be identified. And for this a trace fossil was actually used. Trace fossils are not actual body fossils of animals but marks left behind by the animal, such as footprints, or burrows. And although trace fossils are difficult to ascribe to a particular species, they can generally ascribed to a group of animals based on morphology of the trace left behind. Trace fossils are also given names like body fossils, broken down into ichnogenus and ichnospecies (ichno = trace). For the Cambrian, the trace fossil chosen as the boundary designator is Treptichnus pedum.  

The Cambrian is most well known for the event dubbed the "Cambrian Explosion", which was originally meant to represent the sudden appearance of life on Earth and the quick evolution of new life forms. However, as more fossils are discovered from rock units older than the Cambrian, this moniker has become somewhat incorrect. Although now the Cambrian Explosion has taken on a new meaning. It now represents the explosion of animals with more readily preservable body parts, like shells and skeletons, because without which the fossils are more difficult to discover.

Text from the back of the bottle:

"Our cool coastal vineyard consists of ancient fossilized seashells, shale, limestone and sand. The fog-swept vines have endured since the 1970s. This unique estate sits 400-800 feet above sea level on a bench that overlooks Santa Maria Valley before plunging down to the Sisquoc River. We invite you to experience the results of sustainable farming and artisanal winemaking from our vineyard to your glass. Enjoy."

Upon looking at the location of the winery, the winery itself covers a lot of land within the Santa Maria Valley, which sits upon mostly river alluvium along the valley floor (anything that starts with a "Q" on the map below). However, the wine property also covers some land directly upslope of the valley into the mountains. Here the rocks aren't Cambrian though, they are actually Miocene in age (~17 to 5 million years old). Much, much younger than the Cambrian. 

Geologic Map section where the Cambria Winery is located. Full map with Legend is located at the National Geologic Map Database.

These rocks are part of the Monterey Shale deposit which is a marine, mostly biogenic shale made up of three units, two of which are within the Cambria property boundaries. The lower unit (Tml on the map above) has cream-white weathering, is a thin-bedded fissile semi-siliceous shale, with thin tan dolomitic layers, and a few thin fine-grained sandstone units. The upper layer (Tm on the map above) is similar but doesn't have dolomitic or sandstone layers. 

So, although the winery doesn't sit on Cambrian rocks, it does take its name from one of the the most important time periods in geological and paleontological history, which is a pretty good name to base anything off of.

References

https://www.cambriawines.com/

Buatois, Luis. (2017). Treptichnus pedum and the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary: Significance and caveats. Geological Magazine. 155. 1-7. 10.1017/S0016756817000656

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ngm-bin/pdp/zui_viewer.pl?id=34280

Drunk on Paleontology - Tooth and Claw Dry Hopped Lager

 

The next Drunk on Geology post is for Tooth & Claw Dry Hopped Lager by Off Color Brewing, brewed and bottled specifically for the Chicago Field Museum.  

When I was last in Chicago in April of 2019, I was touring around the Chicago Field Museum and I found out that they had a specialty label that appears to only be sold AT the Field Museum in honor of SUE the T. rex. According to Off Color Brewing's website:

"All lagers are not built the same. Czech style lagers are a subtype of pilsner style beers. Less bitter than it's German pilsner cousin, this style of pilsner instead features a hop aroma and a richer maltiness and is more delicate on the palate. Tooth & Claw is brewed as a house beer for The Field Museum of Natural History."

As I mentioned, the bottle proudly displays the skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus rex named SUE that is currently housed at Chicago's Field Museum. This is not the only beer to feature SUE, as I just did another post for Pseudo Sue Pale Ale, but this one is the only one to prominently display her skeleton on the bottle.   

SUE (AKA FMNH PR 2081) is a 90% complete T. rex skeleton, which is one of the most complete T. rexes ever found. She was discovered in 1990 by Sue Hendrickson and named after her. Sue Hendrickson worked for the Black Hills Institute of South Dakota, but there was some legal issues that came with the discovery. I go into it a bit more on my other blog, but I don't want to rehash that here. Eventually, the fossil was sold for $8.36 million to the Chicago Field Museum with backing by McDonalds and the Walt Disney Company. 

SUE in her fairly new home within the Griffin Dinosaur Experience at the Chicago Field Museum as of April of 2019. 

SUE was discovered within the Hell Creek Formation and has been dated to being about 67 million years old. This makes her one of the last dinosaurs of the Mesozoic. She is 40.5 feet and 13 feet tall, has been determined to be ~28 years old when she died, and is estimated to have weighed around 9 tons. 

SUE's original skull before it had been "fixed" by paleontologists in the cast of her complete skeleton.

Besides being nearly complete, one of the really cool things about SUE is the entire reconstruction of the skull. When discovered and pieced back together, the skull of SUE was essentially squished (all of which happened after death and burial). The skull itself also weighs over 600 pounds, so a reconstruction was needed in order to just display the skull. Luckily the original skull is also displayed nearby in the current exhibit as well.

SUE in her fairly new home within the Griffin Dinosaur Experience at the Chicago Field Museum as of April of 2019. 

After years of legal issues and paleontological prep work, SUE was finally mounted in its original location, within the main Stanley Field Hall at the Chicago Field Museum in the year 2000. It was then moved to the new location pictured here in late 2018. 

Secret Ingredient: Discovery

This has to be one of the coolest bottle designs that I have ever come across and I am thankful I was able to pick it up. I have also made to sure save at least one of the bottles with the carrier pack.