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The Fossil Record02:56

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Using Archival Japanese Paper and Thermoplastic Resins to Prepare Fossils for Storage, Display, Transport, and Radiography
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Dinosaur extinction: closing the '3 m gap'.

Tyler R Lyson1, Antoine Bercovici, Stephen G B Chester

  • 1Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. tyler.lyson@yale.edu

Biology Letters
|July 15, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The discovery of the youngest non-avian dinosaur fossil, a ceratopsian brow horn, challenges the existence of a

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Area of Science:

  • Paleontology
  • Geology
  • Extinction Events

Background:

  • The Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event is debated, particularly regarding the timing of non-avian dinosaur extinction.
  • A proposed 3-meter gap in the fossil record of the Upper Cretaceous has fueled controversy over dinosaur survival.
  • The position of the stratigraphically youngest in situ dinosaur fossil has been a key point of contention for 30 years.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To resolve the debate surrounding the '3 m gap' and the extinction timing of non-avian dinosaurs.
  • To identify the stratigraphically youngest in situ dinosaur specimen.
  • To test the hypothesis that non-avian dinosaurs went extinct before the K-T boundary impact.

Main Methods:

  • Discovery and stratigraphic analysis of a fossilized ceratopsian brow horn.
  • Identification of the K-T boundary using palynological data (Cretaceous palynomorphs, fern spike) and geochemical markers (iridium anomaly, spherules, shocked quartz).
  • Precise dating of the fossil's location relative to the K-T boundary.

Main Results:

  • The stratigraphically youngest in situ dinosaur specimen, a ceratopsian brow horn, was found 13 cm below the K-T boundary.
  • The fossil was located in a floodplain deposit, indicating dinosaur presence close to the boundary.
  • The discovery refutes the existence of a 3-meter gap devoid of dinosaur fossils.

Conclusions:

  • Non-avian dinosaurs did not go extinct prior to the K-T boundary impact event.
  • The '3 m gap' hypothesis is inconsistent with the fossil record.
  • Dinosaur fossils can be found stratigraphically very close to the K-T boundary.