TURLOCK, Calif., Feb. 17 (AScribe Newswire) -- Dr. Julia Sankey, Assistant Professor of Geology in the Department of Physics and Geology at California State University, Stanislaus, led a class of geology students to Big Bend National Park, Texas, this month for a "hands on" dinosaur research field trip that netted some helpful discoveries.
The students helped with Sankey's research on 75-million-year-old dinosaurs, coming up with an abundance of microfossils that provided much more detail about the beasts that inhabited Texas in prehistoric times. They discovered many of what Sankey described as "fantastic fossils," including teeth from an older relative of T. rex and smaller dinosaurs.
One of the most important discoveries at the dig featured numerous dinosaur eggshell fragments and baby or embryonic dinosaur teeth, documenting that dinosaurs nested in the area. No nests with complete eggs have been found yet, but Sankey is hopeful that future trips with CSU Stanislaus students may uncover them from the rocks in the west Texas desert.
Evidence was gathered about theories that gigantic fires may have raged through the region when dinosaurs roamed the area. Students also collected many fragments of what appears to be burned wood and studied the sediments surrounding the bones and wood to determine how the animals and plants died and were buried. Further research is planned for spring semester starting in February to test some ideas brought up during the trip to Texas.
"At the moment our hypothesis can be summed up in the following title: 'Fires, Floods, Eggs, and Babies in the Late Cretaceous of Big Bend, Texas,' which is our tentative abstract title for the fall meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology," Sankey said.
Sankey will be in Alberta, Canada, in July to help colleagues from the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology do field work in Dinosaur Provincial Park.
In Review (2005), North American Paleontology Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
DROUGHT, FIRES, DINOSAURS, EGGS, AND BABIES IN THE LATE CRETACEOUS OF
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, TEXAS
Julia Sankey
Geology Program, Department of Physics and Geology, California State University,
Stanislaus, 801 West Monte Vista Ave., Turlock, CA 95382.
Julia@geology.csustan.edu; 209-667-3090
Big Bend National Park, Texas has one of the southernmost terrestrial records for the Late Cretaceous in North America. In contrast to northern areas, slower sedimentation rates resulted in a sparser fossil record in Big Bend and less is known about this distinctive southern fauna. Big Bend was also warmer and more arid than northern areas, with evidence for periodic droughts from abundant horizons of conglomeratic lags with paleo-caliche nodules and evidence for fires from burned wood.
New microsites have been collected (surface collected and screened) during the past five years from the inland floodplain deposits of the upper Aguja Formation (Campanian to early Maastrichtian) at Rattlesnake Mountain, significantly increasing the vertebrate record for Big Bend. The most productive horizon is a silty mudstone to fine sandstone with abundant plant fragments, burned wood, clay balls, coprolites, burrows, snails, dinosaur eggshell fragments, and bones and/or teeth from fish, salamander, lizard, turtle, crocodylian, and dinosaur (hadrosaur, ankylosaur, tyrannosaurid, Saurornitholestes, and other small theropods). Numerous dinosaur eggshell fragments and small teeth from hatchlings or juveniles of hadrosaurs and theropods (tyrannosaurid and Saurornitholestes) document that dinosaurs nested in Big Bend; no nests have been found yet. The Big Bend dinosaur fauna was less diverse compared to northern areas as a result of the warmer and drier climate. Similar results are expected from other Late Cretaceous southern faunas such as those from Mexico.
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Dr. Julia Sankey, 209-667-3090; Julia@geology.csustan.edu
Don Hansen, Public Affairs, CSU Stanislaus, 209-667-3997; dhansen@csustan.edu
PHOTOS: Photos from their research trip to Texas are available upon request. Please contact Don Hansen at: dhansen@csustan.edu
Media Contact: Dr. Julia Sankey, 209-667-3090; Julia@geology.csustan.edu
Don Hansen, Public Affairs, CSU Stanislaus, 209-667-3997;
dhansen@csustan.edu
PHOTOS: Photos from their research trip to Texas are
available upon request. Please contact Don Hansen at:
dhansen@csustan.edu
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