On Thursday, February 27, the Royal Tyrrell Museum Speaker Series travels back in time to the origin of the first animals. 
    Dr. Murray Gingras, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, will present a talk titled “585-million-year-old tracks reveal evidence of the first animals on Earth.”
    For the first several billions of years of its history, the Earth was inhabited solely by microscopic, single-celled organisms, commonly called “bacteria.” Eventually some unicellular organisms began living in colonies and various cells began specializing to accomplish specific roles, resulting in the appearance of the first multicellular organisms roughly one billion years ago.
    It is from this latter group that two groups of animals evolved: 1) radially symmetrical animals (i.e., animals with a top and a bottom, but no right or left, such as sea anemones and jelly fishes) and bilaterally symmetrical animals (i.e., animals with a right and left side, which include all animals from worms to humans).
    However, the timing of the origin of bilaterally symmetrical animals (technically called bilaterians) is somewhat controversial. The oldest fossils and burrows left by bilaterians are found in deposits that are 555-million-years old, but recent analyses based on rates of DNA mutations suggest that this group of animals evolved much earlier, sometime between 580 million years ago to 1.1 billion years ago.
    In his talk, Gingras will discuss his ongoing research on ancient marine deposits from Uruguay where he has discovered traces of fossils left by the most ancient bilaterian animals known to date.            Speaker Series talks are free and are held on Thursdays at 11:00 a.m. until April 24, 2014 in the Museum auditorium. Each talk is approximately one hour long. Visit www.tyrrellmuseum.com for the most up-to-date schedule.
    Speaker Series talks are also online on the Royal Tyrrell Museum channel on YouTube: http://youtube.com/user/RoyalTyrrellMuseum.

    This year’s heavy snowfall on the prairies has many wondering aloud if the conditions are ripe for a second year in a row of flooding.
    Last June, Alberta came face to face with what might be Canada’s most expansive natural disaster. While Drumheller’s mitigation efforts helped save Drumheller from substantial damages, many are wondering if there is the same risk this season. After all, the one in 100 year flood level has now been breached twice in eight years.
    According to Carrie Sancartier of Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, it is too early to make such a prediction.
    “In terms of predicting flooding this spring it is still too early in the year,” said Sancartier. "Typically in the plains area we start to think about melts around April.”
    She explains there are a number of factors that come in to predicting potential flooding, including the weather.
    “How quickly spring melts happen depends on the weather. If it gets really hot really quickly and stays above freezing overnight, it would melt faster than if it were warm during the day and freezing during the night,” said Sancartier.
    Another indicator is snow pack in the mountains and she says this is localized and may not give an overall complete view of the risk.
    “It depends where you look in the province,” she said.
    Alberta Environment’s web presence has posted ongoing levels of river flow and snow pack.
    For example, a snapshot of the snowpack in the mountains at Skoki Lodge, upstream from the Red Deer River shows the snow pack as lower than last season, although still in the average level. Slightly north, Limestone Ridge snow data shows higher than normal levels of accumulation.
    “With the higher snowpack, theoretically there is an increased risk, there is still a lot of winter to happen yet,” said Sancartier, adding there will be more monitoring as it gets later in the season.
    “There isn’t a lot of snow data and it is mostly in the mountains at this point. In some areas of the province, the plains for example, we wouldn’t start monitoring until the beginning of March,” said Sancartier.
     She said the province continues to monitor as spring approaches.
    “If there is cause for concern we would issue an advisory to let municipalities and Albertans know there is a concern and we try to do that with as much advance warning as possible,” said Sancartier.