8 February 2014
Footsteps Of The Oldest Britains Uncovered By Phenomenal Seas
Posted by Dan Satterfield
From Ashton,Lewes et.al. Early hominid footprints discovered on the Norfolk Coast in the UK. Click for much larger version of this image.
From the paper published on PLOS ONE. Click for large version.
The Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4 this week used a word for the sea-state it has never used before – PHENOMENAL. It’s been that bad, with storm after storm and the worst flooding on record (Records of flooding go back to the time when the Virginia was a colony!). The storms have given archeologists a priceless gift though, because they uncovered footprints in the sand that have been dated to 800,000 years old.
These are the oldest human footprints known outside of Africa. The BBC has a great story on it and you can read the published paper on PLOS ONE here.
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.
Thanks for posting about the UK storms that have been going on since before Christmas. The absence of play in the American media about this and other exceptional weather events that are occurring worldwide is odd. When I check realtime coverage on google news for these disasters, it shows that American media do not pick up the stories. They used to… I remember. There was a ton of coverage on the Australian and European heat waves, the Moscow wildfires, etc. Not anymore. Do you think corporations don’t want us to connect the dots by not reporting the dots? I’m beginning to think so – keep them in the dark, and they keep control. But, don’t take my word, check for yourself. Thanks.