A multi-disciplinary perspective on habitat preferences among dinosaurs in a Cretaceous Arctic greenhouse world, North Slope, Alaska (Prince Creek Formation: lower Maastrichtian)

The First Definite Lambeosaurine Bone From the Liscomb Bonebed of the Upper Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation, Alaska, United States

“…Because Xing and others 35 argued that Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis is a nomen dubium , we conservatively regard the hadrosaurine specimens from the Liscomb Bonebed as Edmontosaurus sp. as they were in prior works 5,7,23,29–33,76 .…”

“…The Prince Creek Formation is a non-marine succession deposited on a high-latitude, low-gradient alluvial/coastal plain. An integrated reconstruction of pedogenic processes and biota 7 suggests that this ancient Arctic coastal plain was influenced by seasonally fluctuating water table levels and floods, and in distal areas, marine waters. The formation has yielded a diverse dinosaur assemblage that includes ceratopsids, dromaeosaurids, hadrosaurids, basal ornithopods, pachycephalosaurids, troodintids, and tyrannosaurids 4,5,8–16 .…”

“…The rocks were deposited at an estimated paleolatitude of 74.5° ± 7.5° 22 . The Liscomb Bonebed is from the distal area of coastal plain and is represented by lower delta plain facies 7 . Further, the stratigraphic interval containing the Liscomb Bonebed represents a series of episodic floods 19,23 and specifically these episodic flood events created deposition by fine-grained viscous hyperconcentrated flows that transported the remains of scores of juvenile dinosaurs onto floodplains adjacent to distributary channels.…”

“…The Liscomb Bonebed is characterized by high specimen density (up to 160–220 elements/m 2 ) and has yielded over six thousand bones 15,24 . It is a monodominant multitaxic bonebed consisting of three theropod taxa (dromaeosaurid, troodontid, and tyrannosaurid) 7,10,25 and hadrosaurid skeletal elements which comprises 98.5% of dinosaur skeletal elements 23 .…”

An unusual association of hadrosaur and therizinosaur tracks within Late Cretaceous rocks of Denali National Park, Alaska

“…Within the dinosaur bone-bearing Prince Creek Formation of northern Alaska evidence indicates hadrosaurs preferred the more distal, wetter lower delta plain environments, in contrast to ceratopsid dinosaurs which seemed to prefer more proximal, slightly elevated, and drier upper coastal plain environments 78 . In addition to channel and splay deposits throughout the area, the presence of nymphaeaceous leaf fossils near the Big Creek track site shows that rivers and still-water ponds and lakes existed in this part of DENA at the time.…”