RE: Mesozoic biomass

["W. F. Zimmerman, wfzimmerman.com" <wfz@wfzimmerman.com>]

Good point about the mammoths.

My basic question is, how was there enough food for all the dinosaurs?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu] On Behalf Of
Aidan Karley
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 4:05 PM
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Mesozoic biomass


--- Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com> wrote:
> I'd say that biomass and megafauna size are rather far apart,
> conceptually.
> 
     Indeed. Having just been getting wiggly line data from another
Nojabrskian (city in Siberia), I'm inevitably reminded that not very
long ago, most of Siberia was a mostly-frozen plain of low biological
productivity, poor soils and mammoth-sized megafauna. It's *still*
much the same (unless it's changed in the last 11 months <G>), but
the maximal size of the present fauna is deer, around 100kg. Unless
there was something lurking in the peat bogs other than horse flies
that could keep pace with an SUV at 40 km/hr.
    And of course, those peat bogs reflect back on someone else's
point about the "average" fossil, by number or tonnage, being a spore
or something equally impressive. After all, why do we get
palynologists out working on the rigs in real time, but not
vertebrate palaeontologists?

-- 
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen,
Scotland


                
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