Journal
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
Volume 295, Issue 3-4, Pages 376-388Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.02.029
Keywords
Taphonomy; Coastal plain; Dinosaurs; Alaska; High-latitude
Funding
- National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs [OPP 0424594, OPP 0425636]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Several dinosaurian bonebeds occur within the Campanian-Maastrichtian portion of the Prince Creek Formation of northern Alaska along a 45 km stretch of the Colville River. These beds are characterized by the occurrence of bones from large numbers of juvenile to sub-adult dinosaurs entombed in a hydraulically incompatible fine-grained matrix. The skeletal elements show little evidence for articulation, though there is evidence for association. Further, the bones show little evidence of post-mortem alteration such as prolonged exposure to weathering, predation, or trampling. The sediments of the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene Prince Creek Formation represent a continental succession deposited on a high-latitude, low-gradient alluvial/coastal plain. Deposition occurred in trunk channels, on distributary-channel splay complexes, in interdistributary bays, and on floodplains. These bonebeds formed under unique paleoclimatic and paleogeographic conditions. Although mean annual temperatures on the coastal plain were higher during the deposition of the Prince Creek Formation than modern temperatures, the evolving Brooks Range orogenic belt formed the southern edge of the Colville basin, providing a high-latitude, cooler alpine environment in close proximity to these warmer lowland environments. Seasonal flow due to the combination of snow melt and alpine permafrost in the ancestral Brooks Range likely produced regularly occurring seasonal floods, which are the likely killing mechanism that resulted in the formation of these bonebeds. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available