The Taphonomy of a Centrosaurus (Ornithischia: Certopsidae) Bone Bed from the Dinosaur Park Formation (Upper Campanian), Alberta, Canada, with Comments on Cranial Ontogeny

Ryan, Michael J.; Russell, Anthony P.; Eberth, David A.; Currie, Philip J.

doi:10.1669/0883-1351(2001)016<0482:ttoaco>2.0.co;2

Cited by 139 publications

(132 citation statements)

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“…When using palaeoenvironment as a factor, sites were assigned to one of four settings, based on their lithology and predominant fauna: (1) marine, (2) transitional, (3) terrestrial (paralic; lower coastal plain), and (4) terrestrial (alluvial; upper coastal plain). The two terrestrial groupings correspond to the palaeoenvironmental conditions from which the vast majority of dinosaur fossils are known, and represent the two primary environmental regimes discussed in previous studies of dinosaur environmental sensitivity and/or provinciality/endemism [1–7, 9, 19, 20, 22–25, 36, 37, 42–45, 49, 70]. Three non-overlapping grouping were obtained: one for sites with palaeoenvironments reconstructed as marine (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 75%

Palaeoenvironmental drivers of vertebrate community composition in the Belly River Group (Campanian) of Alberta, Canada, with implications for dinosaur biogeography

Cullen

Evans

2016

BMC Ecol

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BackgroundThe Belly River Group of southern Alberta is one of the best-sampled Late Cretaceous terrestrial faunal assemblages in the world. This system provides a high-resolution biostratigraphic record of terrestrial vertebrate diversity and faunal turnover, and it has considerable potential to be a model system for testing hypotheses of dinosaur palaeoecological dynamics, including important aspects of palaeoecommunity structure, trophic interactions, and responses to environmental change. Vertebrate fossil microsites (assemblages of small bones and teeth concentrated together over a relatively short time and thought to be representative of community composition) offer an unparalleled dataset to better test these hypotheses by ameliorating problems of sample size, geography, and chronostratigraphic control that hamper other palaeoecological analyses. Here, we assembled a comprehensive relative abundance dataset of microsites sampled from the entire Belly River Group and performed a series of analyses to test the influence of environmental factors on site and taxon clustering, and assess the stability of faunal assemblages both temporally and spatially. We also test the long-held idea that populations of large dinosaur taxa were particularly sensitive to small-scale environmental gradients, such as the paralic (coastal) to alluvial (inland) regimes present within the time-equivalent depositional basin of the upper Oldman and lower Dinosaur Park Formations.ResultsPalaeoenvironment (i.e. reconstructed environmental conditions, related to relative amount of alluvial, fluvial, and coastal influence in associated sedimentary strata) was found to be strongly associated with clustering of sites by relative-abundance faunal assemblages, particularly in relation to changes in faunal assemblage composition and marine-terrestrial environmental transitions. Palaeogeography/palaeolandscape were moderately associated to site relative abundance assemblage clustering, with depositional setting and time (i.e. vertical position within stratigraphic unit) more weakly associated. Interestingly, while vertebrate relative abundance assemblages as a whole were strongly correlated with these marine-terrestrial transitions, the dinosaur fauna does not appear to be particularly sensitive to them.ConclusionsThis analysis confirms that depositional setting (i.e. the sediment type/sorting and associated characteristics) has little effect on faunal assemblage composition, in contrast to the effect of changes in the broader palaeoenvironment (e.g. upper vs. lower coastal plain, etc.), with marine-terrestrial transitions driving temporal faunal dynamics within the Belly River Group. The similarity of the dinosaur faunal assemblages between the time-equivalent portions of the Dinosaur Park Formation and Oldman Formation suggests that either these palaeoenvironments are more similar than characterized in the literature, or that the dinosaurs are less sensitive to variation in palaeoenvironment than has often been suggested. A lack of sensitivity...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 75%

Palaeoenvironmental drivers of vertebrate community composition in the Belly River Group (Campanian) of Alberta, Canada, with implications for dinosaur biogeography

Cullen

Evans

2016

BMC Ecol

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“…This material shows a moderate to high degree of compressional fracturing, consistent with deposition within fine-grained sand to silt [2]. Longitudinal fracturing is present on much of the material as well, suggesting periods of prolonged post-depositional weathering [2].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…These specimens have undergone very little abrasion, showing Stage 0 or 1 conditions, suggesting they are both associated in time and originate from a single event [2], [22], [23]. This material shows a moderate to high degree of compressional fracturing, consistent with deposition within fine-grained sand to silt [2].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Isolated postcranial elements, especially phalanges, are, conversely, very common. Although bonebeds are common for ornithischians, especially ceratopsians and hadrosaurs, theropod bonebeds are rare [2], [3], [4], [5]. Examples from the Late Cretaceous include an Albertosaurus bonebed from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta [6], [7], a Daspletosaurus bonebed from the Two Medicine Formation of Montana [8], and a Mapusaurus bonebed from the Rio Limay Formation of Argentina [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Ornithomimid (Dinosauria) Bonebed from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, with Implications for the Behavior, Classification, and Stratigraphy of North American Ornithomimids

et al. 2013

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Bonebeds can provide a wealth of anatomical, taphonomic, and ontogenetic information about the specimens preserved within them, and can provide evidence for inferred behavior. The material described here represents the first known bonebed of ornithomimids in North America, and the fourth record of an ornithomimosaur bonebed in the world. Partial skeletons representing three individuals are preserved in this assemblage, each comprising primarily portions of the posterior postcrania (pelvis, hind limbs and tail). All three individuals are morphologically similar, although one is larger in overall size. Given the stratigraphic position of the site, and the morphology of the postcrania, the preserved material represents a taxon from the clade containing Ornithomimus and Struthiomimus. Pedal ungual morphology is examined and found to be too variable to be useful in distinguishing these species taxonomically. This site provides additional evidence of gregarious behavior in ornithomimids and the first probable record of that behavior in North American forms.

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“…2, 3, 12) provides even stronger evidence for gregarious behaviour in ankylosaurs than the bonebeds used to infer so− cial structure in other dinosaurs. These include prosauropods (Huene 1928;Sander 1992;Hungerbühler 1998), sauropods (Coombs 1975Coria 1994;Myers 2004;Sander et al 2006), stegosaurs (Hennig 1925), ornithopods (Horner and Makela 1979;Hooker 1987;Norman 1987;Winkler et al 1988Winkler et al , 1997Forster 1990;Rogers 1990;Varricchio and Hor− ner 1993;Derstler 1995;Ryan et al 1995;Hanna et al 1999;Godefroit et al 2000;Lauters et al 2008) and ceratopsians (Currie 1981;Currie and Dodson 1984;Sampson 1995;Ryan et al 2001;Wolfe et al 2004;Eberth and Getty 2005;Currie et al 2008;Mathews et al 2009;Eberth et al 2010). It cannot be determined whether herding was a normal behavioural pattern doi:10.4202/app.2010.0055 for juvenile Pinacosaurus, or if it only occurred under certain stressed conditions, such as drought.…”

Section: Taphonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Hands, Feet, and Behaviour inPinacosaurus(Dinosauria: Ankylosauridae)

Currie¹,

Badamgarav²,

Koppelhus³

et al. 2011

Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

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The Taphonomy of a Centrosaurus (Ornithischia: Certopsidae) Bone Bed from the Dinosaur Park Formation (Upper Campanian), Alberta, Canada, with Comments on Cranial Ontogeny

Cited by 139 publications

References 40 publications

Palaeoenvironmental drivers of vertebrate community composition in the Belly River Group (Campanian) of Alberta, Canada, with implications for dinosaur biogeography

Palaeoenvironmental drivers of vertebrate community composition in the Belly River Group (Campanian) of Alberta, Canada, with implications for dinosaur biogeography

An Ornithomimid (Dinosauria) Bonebed from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, with Implications for the Behavior, Classification, and Stratigraphy of North American Ornithomimids

Hands, Feet, and Behaviour inPinacosaurus(Dinosauria: Ankylosauridae)

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