#yixian

菊豆 / Ju Dou Fengliang Yang, Yimou Zhang

House Nanpingcun, 南屏村, Yixian, Huangshan, Anhui, China 245502 See in map

Yixian retro mug

Get a mug with this synthwave-inspired design that illustrates a landscape from the Yixian Formation. This Early Cretaceous scene features the silhouette of Changyuraptors next to a Bennettitale tree.

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Fossils and volcanoes

This photo is one of the many, many gorgeous dinosaur fossils recovered from a unique series of rocks in China known as the Yixian formation. These rocks date back to the early Cretaceous period and have given us our most striking examples of the linkages between dinosaurs and birds.

For example, here you see a dinosaur fossil trapped in the rocks of this formation and surrounded by its feathers.

Geologists have long recognized that the fossils in this unit (and others in China) are often confined to specific layers. The rocks themselves are sedimentary, representing the deposition of sediment within lakes and rivers at the time.

But, new research out of Nanjing University and the American Museum of Natural History says that the actual layers which hold most of the fossils are something different. In fact, they’re remnants of pyroclastic flows from large volcanic eruptions. Basically…this research suggests that these dinosaurs were entombed the same way the inhabitants of Pompeii were.

The researchers first looked at the rocks surrounding the fossil layers and examined the rocks in high detail. They found telltale characteristics of igneous rocks in the compositions and the textures, suggesting the rocks could be pyroclastic flows.

When they looked in more detail at some of the fossils, they found incredibly that they tell the same story. The bones show patterns of cracks known as “heat stress”, just like the human remains found at Pompeii, in addition to evidence of combustion of organic material due to heat.

It seems that 100 million years ago, pyroclastic flows just like the ones we see today had a hand in producing one of the most spectacular fossil records on the planet.

-JBB

Image credit: Wikimedia commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaur

Original paper: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140204/ncomms4151/full/ncomms4151.html

Press report: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-pompeii-style-volcano-gave-china-dinosaur.html

One of the new full-color paleoart pieces featured in my & Jonathan’s new book on the creationism/evolution controversy, God’s Word or Human Reason? I’ve been waiting to share this one for ages, as it is probably my favorite of my artworks right now.

This snapshot from the Early Cretaceous Yixian of Liaoning, China, depicts a Caudipteryx zoui mother and her two chicks darting across a shallow riverbed to the safety of denser cover beyond. In the background, a pair of shaggy tyrannosauroid Yutyrannus try to decide if they ought to be interested, and a pair of Changchengornis, a confuciusornithid basal bird, glide by. Together, the three genera represent a wide span on the continuum of feathered dinosaurs and of feather complexity: from hulking, filamentous carnivore, to ground-bound, display-feathered oviraptorosaur, to flight-capable bird.

This illustration, along with 11 other full-color paintings of feathered dinosaurs, appears in chapter 4 of our new book. If you haven’t already bought it on Amazon, you can order a signed copy directly from me for $40 via PayPal at e.deinonychus(at)gmail.com, personalized with a sketch of a bird or dinosaur of your choice! (International orders are totally fine, but please include an extra $5 for shipping.)