{"id":1264,"date":"2012-08-17T11:47:29","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T18:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www2.nau.edu\/news-p\/wordpress\/?p=1264"},"modified":"2012-10-29T15:37:47","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T22:37:47","slug":"researchers-look-back-to-see-sharks-over-flagstaff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/researchers-look-back-to-see-sharks-over-flagstaff\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers look back to see sharks over Flagstaff"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Discovery Channel wraps up its 25th anniversary edition of\u00a0Shark Week<\/a>, a little something happened away from the TV images of great whites wreaking havoc on the waves.<\/p>\n

In the academic world, at least, Shark Week\u00a0made a pass through Flagstaff<\/a>\u00a0this year, which might come as a surprise to those who have noticed a distinct lack of ocean in northern Arizona.<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t always the case. A while back\u2014say, about 270 million years or so, during a time known as the Middle Permian, scientists tell us\u2014this neck of the woods was actually under water. And the water was home to sharks.<\/p>\n

Say hello to\u00a0Neosaivodus flagstaffensis<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the three species of shark identified by a group of researchers that included Northern Arizona University\u2019s David Elliott<\/strong>, a professor in the geology program.<\/p>\n

Elliott<\/a>\u00a0and NAU\u2019s\u00a0James Wittke<\/strong>, a geologic materials analyst in the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, were among four authors of a\u00a0paper that appeared recently<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleontology<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Their work caught the attention of Discovery.com, which\u00a0featured their research<\/a>\u00a0in a news story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work has resulted from collections of teeth made by local collectors,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cWe have identified over 30 shark taxa to date. This is only the first of a projected series of papers that will make the Permian Kaibab Formation a global standard for these organisms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Discovery Channel wraps up its 25th anniversary edition of\u00a0Shark Week, a little something happened away from the TV images of great whites wreaking havoc on the waves. In the academic world, at least, Shark Week\u00a0made a pass through Flagstaff\u00a0this year, which might come as a surprise to those who have noticed a distinct…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":1266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}