VOLCANO MADNESS: [Geology2] Fwd: Yahoo! Groups: Welcome to geology2. Visit today!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

[Geology2] Fwd: Yahoo! Groups: Welcome to geology2. Visit today!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Clay Chesney <fossrme@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 10:13 PM
Subject: Re: Yahoo! Groups: Welcome to geology2. Visit today!
To: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>

Well, I tried the suggestions for the browser but no luck. My son went to the homepage on his computer and it looked the same for him as for me. I don't suppose it would do any good to cancel and rejoin.

I am getting all the messages through the email okay. I was especially interested in the one about dinosaur bones at the K-T boundary becuase I have some thoughts on that I've wanted to express for a long tmie, but this is the first it has come up. Would you be able to add the comments below to the discussion for me? Thanks, either way.

Clay

I've always been puzzled by the cliam that lack of dinosaur bones at the K-T boundary is evidence against their extinction by the impact event. On first impulse, what may spring to mind is that dino bones should be found in sediments right up to, and on the boundary, but a little thought on the mechanics of fossilization suggests something quite different.

In one of his books Robert Bakker dismissed the impact as the cause of the great extinction and asked, ". . .where are the piles of dinosaur bones? ." But we have only to look at a recent near-catastrophic event for the answer. During the late 1800s the High Plains of the Western US saw the wholesale slaughter of millions of bison, most left on the ground after being stripped of their hides, yet now there is scarcely a trace left of those animals. Of course the flesh rotted quickly, but the bones too begin to disintegrate rapidly under the great temperature swings and oxydizing conditions and destructive organic influences at the surface. Who hasn't seen a splintered fragment of bone in the prairie or the desert, a last testament of life so obviously soon to disappear altogether.

The simple truth we learned in our first geology class, and which still holds, is that rapid burial is essential to the preservation of organic remains. This is especially true for land environments where erosion, rather than deposition, dominates over most of the surface and highly mobile, efficient scavengers constantly scour the land to clean up organic remains. The only common terrestrial environments where animals are likely to be buried and preserved are located in the low ground around waterways, sites for occasional drownings and quick burial on flood plains and in channels.

I've heard that the iconic T-rex had an extraordinarly well developed sense of smell, based on an anlysis of the skull. This would have been useful in locating prey animals but undoubtedly would have been to great advantage in finding dead and decaying ones as well. I doubt that the mighty rex would have had any qualms about it. How deeply would he dig to uncover a carcass buried by a flash flood? The highest dinosaur bones I've heard of occur about 4 feet below the K-T boundary, which sounds like a reasonable depth to protect a burial from scavengers. Is it unreasonable to expect that anything more shallow would have been susceptible to being disinterred? Dogs have been trained to detect human burials at this depth, even deeper, and I suspect that the dinosaurs were at least as capable in this area.

To be honest, I would have been surprised to hear that dinosaur bones were common right up to the level of K-T. It would have meant that they weren't doing the job that nature designed them for.

From: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>
To: Clay Chesney <fossrme@yahoo.com>

Sent: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 6:44 AM

Subject: Re: Yahoo! Groups: Welcome to geology2. Visit today!

Hi Clay,

Patience is my specialy. :-) However, something is very wrong iwth your group page; you're right-the message link is very much missing. I went into your account and tinkered with it a little, but I would like for you to go into your browser and clear the history and dump the cache. Usually, this function is found through the "Options" link. Then reboot your browser. I'm hoping it shows up, but if it doesn't, let me know. I'll begin nipping at Yahoo's heels about this problem.

Lin