RE: Paleocene dinosaurs (Ref.s)

["Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of Ken
Kinman
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 4:37 AM
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Paleocene dinosaurs (Ref.s)


     I obviously have my doubts about early Paleocene "non-avian" dinosaurs,
but would certainly welcome any unambiguous evidence that some of them
survived for a time past K-T.
     In the absence of articulated material, I wonder if anyone has used a
"Trueman and Benton" REE (rare earth element) analysis on the eggshells (or
hadrosaur bone in America) compared with that of the matrix in which they
were found.  Isn't "REE" analysis becoming one of the state-of-the-art
standards for determining whether fossil material is reworked or not?  I
would think it would at least be superior to a more subjective
interpretation of relative "pristine"-ness, especially since there was
probably a wide continuum from pristine to badly worn among reworked
material.
     A Paleocene "dinosaur" (non-avian) would be really cool, but I'm still
not getting my hopes up.  My skepticism warns me that this could easily be
just wishful thinking and just-so stories.  But who knows.  I was surprised
when I learned tritylodonts made it into the Early Cretaceous (however, the
Jurassic-Cretaceous was not near the extinction hurdle that K-T was).


There is a large hadrosaur femur from New Mexico that is above the K/T
boundary. It wasn't reworked into the Early Paleocene.

FASSETT & LUCAS, 2000

Number: Not given.

Locality: Ojo Alamo, NE 1/ 4, sec. 36, T29N, R14W, San Juan County, New
Mexico.

Horizon: Earliest Paleocene.

Material: A large right femur of a hadrosaur

Fassett, J. E., and Lucas, S. G., 2000, Evidence for Paleocene dinosaurs in
the Ojo Alamo sandstone, San Juan Basin, New Mexico: In: Dinosaurs of New
Mexico, edited by Lucas S. G., and Heckert A. B., New Mexico Museum of
Natural History and Sciences, Bulletin 17, p. 221-230.


Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca  92074