Re: Great Heaping Gobs of New Papers (short!)

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Lockley, M., Matsukawa, M., Ohira, H., Li, J., Wright, J., White, D., and
> Chen, P. 2006. Bird tracks from Liaoning Province, China: new insights 
> into
> avian evolution during the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition. Cretaceous
> Research 27(1):33-43. doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2005.10.007.
>
> ABSTRACT: Tracks of shorebird-like species from a small outcrop in the 
> upper
> part of the Tuchengzi Formation at Kangjiatun, in the Beipiao area, 
> Liaoning
> Province, may be the oldest bird tracks known from China. Formerly
> considered Late Jurassic in age, new fission track dates give an age of
> 145.9 Ma for ash beds associated with dinosaur track-bearing beds from the
> middle part of the Tuchengzi Formation outcrops at a nearby locality. 
> Thus,
> the age appears to be close to the Jurassic-Cretaceous
> (Tithonian-Berriasian) boundary.

Indeed: 145.5 +- 4.0 Ma ago http://www.stratigraphy.org/gssp.htm. That's 
great! That (potentially) makes FOUR more or less terrestrial J-K boundary 
sediment outcrops around the world now. :-)

> The precise age of the bird track-bearing
> beds has not been determined, but is unlikely to be younger than about 139
> Ma, based on dates for the upper part of the Tuchengzi Formation.

Even with these two dates alone, the Tuchengzi Fm spans the entire 
Berriasian! Berriasian-Valanginian boundary: 140.2 +- 3.0 Ma ago 
http://www.stratigraphy.org/gssp.htm.

> Clack, J.A. 2006. The emergence of early tetrapods. Palaeogeography, 
> Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 232(2-4):167-189. doi: 
> 10.1016/j.palaeo.2005.07.019.

Oho!

> Antunes, M.T., Balbino, A.C., and Ginsburg, L. 2006. Miocene Mammalian
> footprints in coprolites from Lisbon, Portugal. Annales de Paléontologie
> 92(1):13-30. doi: 10.1016/j.annpal.2005.09.002.

ROTFL! Quite a narrow discipline. :-)