The upper Maastrichtian dinosaur fossil record from the southern Pyrenees and its contribution to the topic of the Cretaceous Palaeogene mass extinction event

Autor: José I. Canudo, Oriol Oms, Bernat Vila, Àngel Galobart, Víctor Fondevilla, Eduardo Puértolas-Pascual, Albert G. Sellés, Penélope Cruzado-Caballero, Jaume Dinarès-Turell, Enric Vicens, Diego Castanera, Julio Company, Laura Burrel, Rita Estrada, Josep Marmi, Alejandro Blanco
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
instname
RID-UNRN (UNRN)
Universidad Nacional de Río Negro
instacron:UNRN
DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2015.06.013
Popis: In the present paper, the fossil record of the archosaurs (dinosaurs, crocodylomorphs and pterosaurs) of the southern Pyrenees before the CretaceousePalaeogene (KePg) transition is revised. On the basis of this fossil record, a well-dated succession of dinosaurs and other archosaurs is established within polarity magnetochrons C30 and C29r. Almost 150 sites with dinosaur remains have been identified, containing hadrosauroid ornithopods, titanosaur sauropods and theropods, as well as egg sites and tracks. Fossil remains of dinosaurs and other archosaurs are abundant in C29r, disappearing abruptly near the top of the Lower Red Garumnian unit of the Tremp Formation. Thus this should be located very close to, or coinciding with the KePg boundary. These data suggest that the disappearance of the dinosaurs and other archosaurs was geologically abrupt in the southern Pyrenees, but to date there is no incontrovertible evidence of the presence of the impact level that marks the CretaceousePalaeogene boundary. Interestingly, what is highlighted in the southern Pyrenees is that the vertebrate-rich upper Maastrichtian continental sites were replaced by similar sedimentological facies characterized by the virtual absence not only of dinosaurs but also of any vertebrate remain throughout the lower Palaeocene. This could mean that the Danian terrestrial ecosystems of the southern Pyrenees took longer than other areas of the world to recover their biodiversity after the K Pg extinction event.
This paper is a tribute to Prof. Nieves Lopez Martinez (deceased in 2010); some of the research included here was conducted under her guidance. This paper forms part of the projects CGL2014-53548-P, CGL2011-25581, CGL2011-30069-C02-01,02/BTE, subsidized by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, the European Regional Development Fund, and the European Social Fund. Moreover, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the University of Zaragoza and the Government of Aragon, ("Grupos Consolidados" and "Direccion General de Patrimonio Cultural") funded the fieldwork. B. Vila acknowledges support from the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Subprograma Juan de la Cierva MICINN-JDC, 2011). E. Puertolas is supported by the program Formacion del Profesorado Universitario (FPU) subsidized by the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deportes. V. Fondevilla is supported by the program Formacion del Personal Investigador (FPI, BES-2012-052366), subsidized by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. A. Blanco is supported by a FI AGAUR grant from the DGR of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2013FI_B 01059). We thank David E. Fastovsky (Universitat Wien) and Hugues Alexandre Blain (Institut de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social) for their comments on the original manuscript during the peer-review process. Rupert Glasgow revised the English of the text.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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