1.
Texas
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Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous state capital in the U. S. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its former status as an independent republic, and as a reminder of the states struggle for independence from Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the Texan state flag, the origin of Texass name is from the word Tejas, which means friends in the Caddo language. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10 percent of Texas land area is desert. Most of the centers are located in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the term six flags over Texas refers to several nations that have ruled over the territory. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas, Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state, the states annexation set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, after the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. One Texan industry that thrived after the Civil War was cattle, due to its long history as a center of the industry, Texas is associated with the image of the cowboy. The states economic fortunes changed in the early 20th century, when oil discoveries initiated a boom in the state. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy, as of 2010 it shares the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with California at 57. With a growing base of industry, the leads in many industries, including agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace. Texas has led the nation in export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. The name Texas, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning friends or allies, was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, during Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, La Provincia de Texas. Texas is the second largest U. S. state, behind Alaska, though 10 percent larger than France and almost twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile, Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers, the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south
2.
Oklahoma
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Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central United States. Oklahoma is the 20th-most extensive and the 28th-most populous of the 50 United States, the states name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning red people. The name was settled upon statehood, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were merged, on November 16,1907, Oklahoma became the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, or informally Okies, and its capital, a major producer of natural gas, oil, and agricultural products, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. In 2007, it had one of the economies in the United States, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahomas primary economic anchors, with nearly two-thirds of Oklahomans living within their metropolitan statistical areas. With small mountain ranges, prairie, mesas, and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains, Cross Timbers, interior Highlands—a region especially prone to severe weather. The name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma, literally meaning red people, equivalent to the English word Indian, okla humma was a phrase in the Choctaw language used to describe Native American people as a whole. Oklahoma later became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, and it was approved in 1890. Oklahoma is the 20th-largest state in the United States, covering an area of 69,898 square miles and it is one of six states on the Frontier Strip and lies partly in the Great Plains near the geographical center of the 48 contiguous states. It is bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas, on the northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, much of its border with Texas lies along the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen, a failed continental rift. The geologic figure defines the placement of the Red River, the Oklahoma panhandles Western edge is out of alignment with its Texas border. The Oklahoma/New Mexico border is actually 2.1 to 2.2 miles east of the Texas line, the border between Texas and New Mexico was set first as a result of a survey by Spain in 1819. It was then set along the 103rd Meridian, in the 1890s, when Oklahoma was formally surveyed using more accurate surveying equipment and techniques, it was discovered the Texas line was not set along the 103rd Meridian. Surveying techniques were not as accurate in 1819, and the actual 103rd Meridian was approximately 2.2 miles to the east and it was much easier to leave the mistake than for Texas to cede land to New Mexico to correct the surveying error. The placement of the Oklahoma/New Mexico border represents the true 103rd Meridian, cimarron County in Oklahomas panhandle is the only county in the United States that touches four other states, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Kansas. Its highest and lowest points follow this trend, with its highest peak, Black Mesa, at 4,973 feet above sea level, situated near its far northwest corner in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The states lowest point is on the Little River near its far southeastern boundary near the town of Idabel, Oklahoma, which dips to 289 feet above sea level
3.
Edward Drinker Cope
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Edward Drinker Cope was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, as well as a noted herpetologist and ichthyologist. He was a founder of the Neo-Lamarckism school of thought, born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science, he published his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, Cope married his cousin and had one child, the family moved from Philadelphia to Haddonfield, New Jersey, although Cope would maintain a residence and museum in Philadelphia in his later years. Cope had little formal training, and he eschewed a teaching position for field work. He made regular trips to the American West, prospecting in the 1870s and 1880s, a personal feud between Cope and paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh led to a period of intense fossil-finding competition now known as the Bone Wars. Copes financial fortunes soured after failed mining ventures in the 1880s and he experienced a resurgence in his career toward the end of his life before dying on April 12,1897. Though Copes scientific pursuits nearly bankrupted him, his contributions helped to define the field of American paleontology and he was a prodigious writer, with 1,400 papers published over his lifetime, although his rivals debated the accuracy of his rapidly published works. He discovered, described, and named more than 1,000 vertebrate species, including hundreds of fishes and his proposal for the origin of mammalian molars is notable among his theoretical contributions. Copes rule, however, the hypothesis that mammalian lineages gradually grow larger over geologic time, Edward Drinker Cope was born on July 28,1840, the eldest son of Alfred and Hanna Cope. The death of his mother when he was three years old seemed to have had effect on young Edward, as he mentioned in his letters that he had no recollection of her. His stepmother, Rebecca Biddle, filled the role, Cope referred to her warmly, as well as his younger stepbrother. Alfred, a member of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, operated a lucrative shipping business started by his father, Thomas P. Cope. He was a philanthropist who gave money to the Society of Friends, the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, Edward was born and raised in a large stone house called Fairfield, whose location is now within the boundaries of Philadelphia. The 8 acres of pristine and exotic gardens of the house offered a landscape that Edward was able to explore. The Copes began teaching their children to read and write at a young age, and took Edward on trips across New England and to museums, zoos. Copes interest in animals became apparent at an age, as did his natural artistic ability. Alfred intended to give his son the same education he himself had received. At age nine, Edward was sent to a day school in Philadelphia and in 1853 at the age of 12, Edward was sent to the Friends Boarding School at Westtown, near West Chester, Pennsylvania
4.
Tetrapod
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The superclass Tetrapoda contains the four-limbed vertebrates known as tetrapods, it includes living and extinct amphibians, reptiles and mammals, as well as earlier extinct groups. The first tetrapods appeared by the late Devonian,367, the first tetrapods were primarily aquatic. Their descendants drove most amphibians to extinction as they began to dominate, the amniotes include the tetrapods that further evolved for flight—such as birds from among the dinosaurs, and bats from among the mammals. The change from a plan for breathing and navigating in water to a body plan enabling the animal to move on land is one of the most profound evolutionary changes known. It is also becoming increasingly well-understood as a result of more transitional fossil finds, many tetrapods have returned to partially aquatic or fully aquatic lives throughout the history of the group. Tetrapods can be defined in cladistics as the nearest common ancestor of all living amphibians and all living amniotes, the group so defined is the crown group, or crown tetrapods. The term tetrapodomorph is used for the definition, any animal that is more closely related to living amphibians, reptiles, birds. The group so defined is known as the total group. Stegocephalia is a larger group equivalent to some uses of the word tetrapod. Batrachomorphs are all sharing a more recent common ancestry with living amphibians than with living amniotes. Reptiliomorphs are all sharing a more recent common ancestry with living amniotes than with living amphibians. Tetrapoda includes four classes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, however, that diversification process was interrupted at least a few times by major biological crises, such as the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which at least affected amniotes. As biodiversity has grown, so has the number of niches that tetrapods have occupied, the first tetrapods were aquatic and fed primarily on fish. Today, the Earth supports a diversity of tetrapods that live in many habitats. Tetrapods evolved from early bony fishes, specifically from the branch of lobe-finned fishes. The first tetrapods probably evolved in the Emsian stage of the Early Devonian from Tetrapodomorph fish living in water environments. The very earliest tetrapods would have been similar to Acanthostega, with legs and lungs as well as gills. The earliest tetrapods inhabited saltwater, brackish-water, and freshwater environments and these traits were shared with many early lobed-finned fishes
5.
Dimetrodon
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Dimetrodon is an extinct genus of synapsid that lived during the Cisuralian Permian, around 295–272 million years ago. It is a member of the family Sphenacodontidae, the most prominent feature of Dimetrodon is the large neural spine sail on its back formed by elongated spines extending from the vertebrae. It walked on four legs and had a tall, curved skull with teeth of different sizes set along the jaws. Most fossils have found in the southwestern United States, the majority coming from a geological deposit called the Red Beds of Texas. More recently, fossils have found in Germany. Over a dozen species have been named since the genus was first described in 1878, Dimetrodon is often mistaken for a dinosaur or as a contemporary of dinosaurs in popular culture, but it became extinct some 40 million years before the first appearance of dinosaurs. Reptile-like in appearance and physiology, Dimetrodon is nevertheless more closely related to mammals than to modern reptiles, Dimetrodon is assigned to the stem-mammals or non-mammalian synapsids, a group traditionally called mammal-like reptiles. This groups Dimetrodon together with mammals in a clade called Synapsida, while placing dinosaurs, reptiles and birds in a separate clade, Sauropsida. Single openings in the skull behind each eye, known as temporal fenestrae, Dimetrodon was probably one of the apex predators of the Cisuralian ecosystems, feeding on fish and tetrapods, including reptiles and amphibians. Smaller Dimetrodon species may have had different ecological roles, the sail of Dimetrodon may have been used to stabilize its spine or to heat and cool its body as a form of thermoregulation. Some recent studies argue that the sail would have been ineffective at removing heat from the body, Dimetrodon was a quadrupedal, sail-backed synapsid. Most Dimetrodon species ranged in length from 1.7 to 4.6 metres and are estimated to have weighed between 28 and 250 kilograms. The largest known species of Dimetrodon is D. angelensis at 4.6 metres, although some Dimetrodon species could grow very large, many juvenile specimens are known. Features such as ridges on the inside of the nasal cavity, the skull of Dimetrodon is tall and compressed laterally, or side-to-side. The eye sockets are positioned high and far back in the skull, behind each eye socket is a single hole called an infratemporal fenestra. An additional hole in the skull, the fenestra, can be seen when viewed from above. The back of the skull is oriented at an upward angle. The upper margin of the skull slopes downward in an arc to the tip of the snout
6.
Edaphosaurus
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Edaphosaurus is a genus of extinct edaphosaurid synapsid that lived around 300 to 280 million years ago, during the late Carboniferous to early Permian periods. Edaphosaurus is important as one of the earliest known large plant-eating amniote tetrapods, in addition to the large tooth plates in its jaws, the most characteristic feature of Edaphosaurus is a sail on its back. A number of other synapsids from the time period also have tall dorsal sails. However, the sail on Edaphosaurus is different in shape and morphology, the first fossils of Edaphosaurus came from Texas in North America, with later finds in New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Ohio. Fragmentary fossils attributed to Edaphosaurus also have found in the Czech Republic. However, older names in paleontology, such as Edaphodon Buckland,1838 pavement tooth, Edaphosaurus species measured from 0.5 metres to almost 3.5 metres in length and weighed over 300 kilograms. In keeping with the head, the cervical vertebrae are reduced in length, while the dorsal vertebrae are massive, the tail is deep, the limbs are short and robust. Like most herbivores, Edaphosaurus would have had a gut and symbiotic bacteria to aid in the breakdown of cellulose. Like its more famous relative Dimetrodon, Edaphosaurus had a fin that was supported by bones of the vertebral column. Edaphosaurus differs from Dimetrodon in having cross-bars on the spines that supported its fin, the head of Edaphosaurus was short, relatively broad, triangular in outline, and remarkably small compared to its body size. Back parts of the roof of the mouth and the inside of the lower jaw held dense batteries of teeth, forming a broad crushing and grinding surface on each side above. Early descriptions suggested that Edaphosaurus fed on such as mollusks. Early members of the Edaphosauridae such as Ianthasaurus lacked tooth plates, the sail along the back of Edaphosaurus was supported by hugely elongated neural spines from neck to lumbar region, connected by tissue in life. When compared with the sail of Dimetrodon, the spines are shorter and heavier. The function of the sail in both groups is still debated, bennett argued that the bony projections on Edaphosaurus spines were exposed and could create air turbulence for more efficient cooling over the surface of the sail to regulate body temperature. Edward Drinker Cope named and described Edaphosaurus in 1882, based on a crushed skull and he noted in particular the dense body of teeth on both the upper and lower jaws, and used the term dental pavement in a table in his description. The type species name means bearded in Greek, referring to the enlarged inward sloping chin on the lower jaw. Cope classified Edaphosaurus as a member of his Pelycosauria and created the new family Edaphosauridae, the type material did not include any of the post-cranial skeleton apart from an axis vertebra and Cope was unaware of the animal’s large sail, a feature then known only for Dimetrodon
7.
Seymouria
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Seymouria was a reptile-like tetrapod from the early Permian of North America and Europe. It was small, only 2 ft long, Seymouria was well adapted to life on land, with many reptilian features—so many, in fact, that it was first thought to be a primitive reptile. It had long and muscular legs, and may have had dry skin and it may have been able to excrete excess salt from its blood through a gland in its nose, like modern reptiles. All of this meant that Seymouria, unlike amphibians and other early tetrapods, if so, this would have allowed it to move about the landscape in search of insects, small amphibians, and other possible prey, such as the eggs of reptiles and synapsids. Male Seymouria had thick skulls that may have used to batter rivals in mating contests. After mating, the females would have had to return to water to lay their eggs, as in amphibians, the larvae would develop in water, hunting for worms and insects until they were strong enough to live on land. Fossils of Seymouria were first found in Seymour, Baylor County, over the years, many well preserved fossils have been found in North America and Germany, including the Tambach Lovers, two individuals of S. sanjuanensis fossilized lying next to each other. Seymouria agilis that is known only one specimen, a nearly complete skeleton from the Chickasha Formation of Oklahoma, was reassigned by Michel Laurin. A Redescription of the Cranial Anatomy of Seymouria baylorensis, the best known Seymouriamorph PaleoBios,17, 1-16 Illustrated discussion of Seymouria from the Tree of Life Project
8.
Nebraska
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Nebraska /nᵻˈbræskə/ is a state that lies in both the Great Plains and the Midwestern United States. Its area is just over 77,220 sq mi with almost 1.9 million people and its largest city is Omaha, which is on the Missouri River. The state is crossed by many trails and was explored by the Lewis. Nebraska was admitted as the 37th state of the United States in 1867 and it is the only state in the United States whose legislature is unicameral and officially nonpartisan. Nebraska is composed of two major regions, the Dissected Till Plains and the Great Plains. The Dissected Till Plains is a region of rolling hills. The Great Plains occupy most of western Nebraska, characterized by treeless prairie, the state has a large agriculture sector and is a major producer of beef, pork, corn, and soybeans. Two major climatic zones are represented in Nebraska, the half of the state has a humid continental climate, and the western half. Indigenous peoples lived in the region of present-day Nebraska for thousands of years before European exploration. The historic tribes in the state included the Omaha, Missouria, Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, when European exploration, trade, and settlement began, both Spain and France sought to control the region. In the 1690s, Spain established trade connections with the Apaches, by 1703, France had developed a regular trade with the native peoples along the Missouri River in Nebraska, and by 1719 had signed treaties with several of these peoples. After war broke out between the two countries, Spain dispatched an expedition to Nebraska under Lieutenant General Pedro de Villasur in 1720. The party was attacked and destroyed near present-day Columbus by a force of Pawnees and Otoes. The massacre of the Villasur expedition effectively put an end to Spanish exploration of Nebraska for the remainder of the 18th century, in 1762, during the Seven Years War, France ceded the Louisiana territory to Spain. Frances withdrawal from the area left Britain and Spain competing for dominance along the Mississippi, by 1773, later that year, Mackays party built a trading post, dubbed Fort Carlos IV, near present-day Homer. In 1819, the United States established Fort Atkinson as the first U. S. Army post west of the Missouri River, the army abandoned the fort in 1827 as migration moved further west. European-American settlement did not begin in any numbers until after 1848, on May 30,1854, the US Congress created the Kansas and the Nebraska territories, divided by the Parallel 40° North, under the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The Nebraska Territory included parts of the current states of Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, the territorial capital of Nebraska was Omaha
9.
Kansas
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Kansas /ˈkænzəs/ is a U. S. state located in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas is named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribes name is said to mean people of the wind or people of the south wind. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous, tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison. When it was opened to settlement by the U. S. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided. The abolitionists eventually prevailed, and on January 29,1861, after the Civil War, the population of Kansas grew rapidly when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into farmland. By 2015, Kansas was one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, corn, sorghum, and soybeans. Kansas, which has an area of 82,278 square miles is the 15th largest state by area and is the 34th most populous of the 50 United States with a population of 2,911,641, residents of Kansas are called Kansans, officially. Mount Sunflower is Kansass highest point at 4,041 feet, for a millennia, the land that is currently Kansas was inhabited by Native Americans. The first European to set foot in present-day Kansas was Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, in 1803, most of modern Kansas was secured by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Southwest Kansas, however, was still a part of Spain, Mexico, from 1812 to 1821, Kansas was part of the Missouri Territory. The Santa Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured goods from Missouri and silver and furs from Santa Fe, wagon ruts from the trail are still visible in the prairie today. In 1827, Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of white Americans in the future state, the Kansas–Nebraska Act became law on May 30,1854, establishing the U. S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas, and opening the area to broader settlement by whites. Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the sites of present-day Denver, Colorado Springs, Missouri and Arkansas sent settlers into Kansas all along its eastern border. These settlers attempted to sway votes in favor of slavery, the secondary settlement of Americans in Kansas Territory were abolitionists from Massachusetts and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring Missouri. Directly presaging the American Civil War, these forces collided, entering into skirmishes that earned the territory the name of Bleeding Kansas, Kansas was admitted to the United States as a free state on January 29,1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union. He was roundly condemned by both the conventional Confederate military and the partisan rangers commissioned by the Missouri legislature and his application to that body for a commission was flatly rejected due to his pre-war criminal record
10.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
