Fossils can define a whole ecosystem in the Cretaceous

[shunyadragon]

Most often there are limited fossils to describe some animals and plants, but now they have enough fossils to define a whole ecosystem in the late Cretaceous.

Source: https://www.newswise.com/articles/late-cretaceous-dinosaur-dominated-ecosystem.

Late Cretaceous dinosaur-dominated ecosystem[email protected]; David Evans; Fred Longstaffe; Ulrich Wortmann; Li Huang; Federico Fanti; Mark Goodwin; Michael Ryan.
URL: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa...erization-of-a

GEOLOGY articles are online at http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/recent. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary articles by contacting Kea Giles at the e-mail address above. Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GEOLOGY in articles published. Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, [email protected].

https://www.geosociety.org.

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[rogue06]

Until relatively recently paleontologists have concentrated largely on the fossils at a site and pretty much ignored the sedimentary rock they were found in. This has changed and as a result we are learning a great deal more about the environment and ecosystems that the organisms inhabited.

Still I gotta wonder how much data could we have acquired if this was something we had been doing for numerous decades and not just the past two to two and a half.

[shunyadragon]

Interesting times the volume of discoveries and research results has never been this high in a very long time. Even the research in older fossils is increasing.

[shunyadragon]

. . . just a few million years after the asteroid impact they found . . .

Source: https://gazette.com/cheyenneedition/paleontologists-talk-about-game-changing-mammal-skull-find-at-corral/article_00ee6ce0-63c9-11ea-b7fc-174f094658c3.html

Paleontologists talk about game-changing mammal skull find at Corral Bluffs Open Space

© Copyright Original Source

[shunyadragon]

Until relatively recently paleontologists have concentrated largely on the fossils at a site and pretty much ignored the sedimentary rock they were found in. This has changed and as a result we are learning a great deal more about the environment and ecosystems that the organisms inhabited.

Still I gotta wonder how much data could we have acquired if this was something we had been doing for numerous decades and not just the past two to two and a half.

Some years ago I saw an article about paleontologists sorting through debri from dinosaur excavations in the Midwest and finding many small mammal bones, and other fossils.

[rogue06]

Interesting times the volume of discoveries and research results has never been this high in a very long time. Even the research in older fossils is increasing.

[rogue06]

Some years ago I saw an article about paleontologists sorting through debri from dinosaur excavations in the Midwest and finding many small mammal bones, and other fossils.

A dozen or so years ago in China they discovered a fossilized badger-sized mammal that actually ate dinosaurs, Repenomamus, which was still digesting the remains of a juvenile Psittacosaurus (an early ceratopsian dinosaur) when it died. Whether it was a predator, scavenger or both (very few predators turn down a free meal) is not known.