Parafaveoloolithus xixiaensis: A new oospecies of Dinosaur eggs from the Upper Cretaceous of HenanProvince, China.

The Xixia Basin lies in Henan Province, China, to the east of the Qinling Mountains of southern Shaanxi Province, and extends roughly 100 km east-to-west, covering an area of about 518 km². Within this basin a series of Upper Cretaceous fluvial deposits overlie a Devonian basement. These deposits have been divided into three formations, the middle one of which, known as the Zhaoying (or sometimes Majiacun) Formation, comprises a 2120 m thick sequence beginning with motley argillaceous siltstones, sandstones and mudstones at the base, and grading into an upper layer comprising reddish mudstones and sandstones. This sequence, considered to have been laid down in a fluvio-lacustrine basin in an area with a generally arid climate, is noted for its production of preserved Dinosaur eggs, with at least seven described oospecies (because eggs are a record of a part of the life-cycle of an animal, can seldom be related to a species defined from body fossils, they are described under a parataxonomic system as oospecies, which are then organised into oogenera and oofamilies) from the Zhaoying and underlying Zoumagang (or Gaogou) formation, as well as ichnofossils (trace fossils), Dinosaur bones, Turtle eggs, and fossil Bivalves, Gastropods, Ostracods, Spinicaudatans, and Plants.

In a paper published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica on 17 December 2025, Qing He and Shutong Li of the School of Resources and Environmental Engineering at Anhui University, Shukang Zhang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yifan Huang of the Prevention and Control Center for Geological Disasters at the Henan Geological Bureau, Xiqiang Cao of the Henan Scientific Academy of Land and Resources, and Hongqing Li and Mengyuan Zhu, also of the School of Resources and Environmental Engineering at Anhui University, describe a new oospecies of Dinosaur eggs from the Zhaoying Formation of Xixia County.

The new species is placed in the oogenus Parafaveoloolithus, and given the specific name 'xixiaensis' meaning 'from Xixia'. The species is described from a clutch of 13 subspherical eggs arranged in a radial pattern. The individual eggs are 123.3–142.6 mm by 97.2–127.2 mm, with shells 123.3–142.6 mm and 97.2–127.2 mm thick. The shells have a single structural layer with no visible growth lines and a honeycomb structure with straight pore canals. 

A clutch of Dinosaur egg oospecies Parafaveoloolithus xixiaensis. YJYM-01–13 (each egg has unique repository number), from the Upper Cretaceous of the Xixia Basin, Henan Province, China. He et al. (2025).

The oogenus Parafaveoloolithus belongs to the oofamily Faveoloolithidae, which includes six genera from the Late Cretaceous of China, Mongolia, and South Korea. No fossil eggs from outside East Asia have been assigned to the oofamily (some 'Titanosaur eggs' from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina have been suggested as possible members of the family, but this is doubtful), suggesting that the egg-layers had a limited geographical distribution, although they are found in a variety of different palaeoenvironments.

Thin sections (SREE X13-01) of Dinosaur eggshell Parafaveoloolithus xixiaensis, (YJYM-13) from the Upper Cretaceous of the Xixia Basin, Henan Province, China. (A₁) A single structural layer composed of loosely arranged eggshell units and the straight pore canals between eggshell units; arrows indicate the secondary eggshell units. (A₂) A line drawing showing the eggshell units in radial section. (A₃) Enlargement of the gathered egg￾shell units; arrow points to the single eggshell unit. (A₄) Growth centres of the gathered eggshell units; arrows point to the six growth centres. He et al. (2025).

Very few eggs belonging to the Faveoloolithidae have been found in clutches to date, and Parafaveoloolithus xixiaensis is probably the best known example to date. The radial pattern in which the eggs are arranged suggests that this is a true representation of how they were deposited, rather than a result of transportation and redeposition. He et al. suggest that the pattern and porosity of the eggs implies the female Dinosaur would have deposited the eggs in a roughly circular arrangement, before covering them over with sand - something which would also have aided there preservation. 

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Thirty four confirmed dead and many more still missing following landslide in West Java.

Thirty four people have been confirmed dead and 56 are still missing following a landslide which hit the village of Pasirlangu on the side of Mount Burangrang in West Java Province, Indonesia, on Saturday 24 January 2026. As well as local villagers, the landslide is reported to have hit a group of Indonesian marines on a training exercise in the area, who are thought to have been wiped out. So far the bodies of four marines have been recovered, with another nine still missing. 

A rescue team searching the site of a landslide which hit the village of Pasirlangu in West Java on 24 January 2026. Septianjar Muharam/Xinhua.

The landslide is reported to have been triggered by heavy rains associated with the northeast monsoon. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. However, the root cause of the landslide appears to have been deforestation, with a large area of forest above the village cleared to create space for commercial vegetable farming. This process removes the root structure which binds soil together, making slopes more vulnerable to slippage, particularly in areas such as West Java, where soils tend to be volcanic, as such soils typically have much smaller particle sizes and lose cohesion more rapidly when they become waterlogged.

Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry seasons, the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate.

Diagrammatic representation of wind and rainfall patterns in a tropical monsoon climate. Geosciences/University of Arizona.

Java has two distinct Monsoon Seasons, with a Northeast Monsoon driven by winds from the South China Sea that lasts from November to February and a Southwest Monsoon driven by winds from the southern Indian Ocean from March to October. Such a double Monsoon Season is common close to the equator, where the Sun is highest overhead around the equinoxes and lowest on the horizons around the solstices, making the solstices the coolest part of the year and the equinoxes the hottest.

The winds that drive the Northeast and Southwest Monsoons in Southeast Asia. Mynewshub.

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Magnitude 5.4 Earthquake on the coast of Tanzania.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.4 Earthquake at a depth of 10 km, on the coast of Tanzania, roughly 200 km to the south of Dar es Salaam, slightly after 8.10 pm local time (slightly after 5.10 pm GMT) on Tuesday 20 January 2026. There are no reports of any damage or casualties associated with this event, although it is likely to have been felt locally.

The approximate location of the 20 January 2026 Tanzania Earthquake. USGS.

The western Tanzania lies within the the of the Great Rift Valley, which is slowly splitting the African Plate in two along a line from the Red Sea through Ethiopia, and which includes the great lakes and volcanoes of east-central Africa. This has the potential to open into a new ocean over the next few tens of millions of years, splitting Africa into two new, smaller, continents; Nubia to the west and Somalia to the east.

Movement on the African Rift Valley, with associated volcanoes. Rob Gamesby/Cool Geography.

To the southeast, the island of Madagascar has been moving away from Africa since the Jurassic, forming a series of spreading centres across the Mozambique Channel, which both continue to push the island to the east and exert pressure on the southeastern coast of Africa, contributing to Earthquake activity in the region. 

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Protesters block entrance to mine project site in Norway.

A group of protesters from the environmental group Nature and Youth have blocked entrances to a mining project in the Hammerfest Municipality in Finnmark County on the northern coast of Norway. The group of about 70 protesters from all over Norway have took the step on Saturday 24 January 2026 in support of the local Sámi community, who believe that traditional fisheries for Salmon and Cod are threatened by the project. Protests of this kind are illegal in Norway, and previous protests at the site have led to protesters being detained by the police.

The location of Hammerfest Municipality the north coast of Norway. Google Maps.

The mining project, which is operated by Blue Moon Metals, aims to excavate around 74 million tonnes of copper ore from a deep pit mine beneath a former open pit mine, which was active in the 1970s. The Norwegian government has approved this project because it considers copper a vital resource for a transition to green technologies (i.e. replacing fossil fuel-derived energy with electricity generated by renewable means). 

However, the planned operation intends to dump waste generated from the mine into Repparfjord, an important fishing ground for the local Sámi community, who believe that this is likely to have a significant affect on local fish stocks. The practice of dumping mine waste into the sea is still legal in Norway, but is illegal almost everywhere else (the only other countries which allow the practice are Indonesia, Turkey and Papua New Guinea).

Protesters blocking an entrance to the Nussir Mining Project in northern Norway on 24 January 2026. The banner reads 'We promise a hell - no dumping of tailing in the Repperfjord'. Jannik Abel/Nature and Youth.

Blue Moon Minerals, who acquired the site in February 2025, aim to mine the site in line with a mining permit issued to the former owners, Nussir Property, a decade ago, but Nature and Youth argue that significant new discoveries have been made about fish spawning in Repparfjord have been issued since this time, and that on that basis the mine should not be allowed to proceed. 

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Asteroid (242708) 2005 UK1 passes the Earth.

Asteroid (242708) 2005 UK1 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 12 355 300 km (32.2 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 8.26% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 10.25 am GMT on Monday 12 January 2026. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would have presented a significant threat. Asteroid (242708) 2005 UK1 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 450-1400 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 450-1400 m in diameter), and an object of this size would be expected to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and impact  the Earth's surface, causing an explosion with an equivalent energy release of more than 4000 megatons of TNT. An impact of this size would be expected to flatten forests and man-made structures over thousands of kilometres, while producing a crater at least 6 km in diameter and probably significantly larger, as well as causing global climatic effects which would persist for decades if not centuries.

120 second image of (242708) 2005 UK1 taken with the Elena Planetwave 17" Telescope at Ceccano in Italy on Sunday 11 March 2026. The asteroid is the small point at the centre of the image, the longer lines are stars, their elongation being caused by the telescope tracking the asteroid over the length of the exposure. Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope.

(242708) 2005 UK1 was discovered on 24 October 2005 by the University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon Survey at the Steward Observatory on Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The designation 2005 UK1 implies that the asteroid was the 35th object (asteroid K1 - in numbering asteroids the letters A-Z, excluding I, are assigned numbers from 1 to 25, with a number added to the end each time the alphabet is ended, so that A = 1, A1 = 26, A2 = 51, etc., which means that K1 = 25 + 10 = 25) discovered in the second half of October 2005 (period 2005 K - the year being split into 24 half-months represented by the letters A-Y, with I being excluded).

(242708) 2005 UK1 is calculated to have a 1445 day (3.96 year) orbital period, with an elliptical orbit tilted at an angle of 0.79° to the plain of the Solar System which takes in to 0.79 AU from the Sun (79% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) and out to 4.24 AU (4.24 times the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, almost three times the distance at which the planet Mars orbits). 

The positions and orbits of Asteroid (242708) 2005 UK1 and the planets of the Inner Solar System at 10.00 am on Monday 12 January 2026. JPL Small Body Database.

(242708) 2005 UK1 is therefore classed as an Apollo Group Asteroid, which is an asteroid that is on average further from the Sun than the Earth, but which does get closer. As an asteroid possibly larger than 150 m in diameter that occasionally comes within 0.05 AU of the Earth, (242708) 2005 UK1 is also classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.

Close encounters between (242708) 2005 UK1 and Earth are fairly common, with the last thought to have happened in April 2018 and the next predicted in December 2029. (242708) 2005 UK1  also has frequent close encounters with other planets, the last being an encounter with Venus in September 1974, and the next predicted being an encounter with Mars in February 2133.

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