Extremely rapid, yet noncatastrophic, preservation of the flattened-feathered and 3D dinosaurs of the Early Cretaceous of China
Scott A. MacLennan, Jingeng Sha, Paul E. Olsen, Sean T. Kinney, Clara Chang, Yanan Fang, Jun Liu, Bennett B. Slibeck, Elaine Chen, Blair Schoene · 2024
Read Extremely rapid, yet noncatastrophic, preservation of the flattened-feathered and 3D dinosaurs of the Early Cretaceous of China by Scott A. MacLennan, Jingeng Sha, Paul E. Olsen, Sean T. Kinney, Clara Chang, Yanan Fang, Jun Liu, Bennett B. Slibeck, Elaine Chen, Blair Schoene (2024) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-11588062.txt.
Description
Scott MacLennan and co-authors rethink how China's feathered dinosaurs were preserved in a 2024 paper. The Yixian Formation holds two fossil styles: flat specimens with feathers and color in layered lake rock, and plump skeletons in lifelike poses in heavier beds. How the beds relate, their ages, and the cause of such fine preservation were argued for near fifty years.
The standing story leaned on catastrophe. The team's reading favors burial that was extremely rapid yet not catastrophic. Settling the tempo matters, since it decides what the fossils can say about the animals' lives and deaths. The work reframes one of paleontology's most famous windows.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Scott A. MacLennan, Jingeng Sha, Paul E. Olsen, Sean T. Kinney, Clara Chang, Yanan Fang, Jun Liu, Bennett B. Slibeck, Elaine Chen, Blair Schoene |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 32 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |