Re: Age Abstractions

[K and T Dykes <ktdykes@arcor.de>]

<<Fassett, J.E. 2007. The documentation of in-place dinosaur fossils in the
Paleocene Ojo Alamo Sandstone and Animas Formation in the San Juan Basin of
New Mexico and Colorado mandates a paradigm shift: dinosaurs can no longer
be thought of as absolute index fossils for end-Cretaceous strata in the
Western Interior of North America. New Mexico Geology 29(2):56.>>

I kind of heard a rumour that a group of maniraptor dinosaurs were sort of
already known to have survived the K-T extinction event(s).  Allegedly, they
subsequently radiated and are presently represented by 9,000 or so species.
In the face of that, this paradigm can't have needed much shifting.

I'm also not sure what "absolute index fossils" are or how, absolutely,
anybody might try to use them.  Perhaps somebody might enlighten me upon
this.


<<The conventional wisdom (entrenched dogma) among most geologists, and
especially among vertebrate paleontologists has been, for more than 100
years, that all dinosaurs became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.>>

Holy cow!  There was no convincing evidence showing the presence of any
living non-birdy dinosaurs beyond about 65 million years ago, and this was
well accounted for by the last of them all having dropped dead.  That was
the entrenched dogma.  It happened to be supported by the available
evidence, so the entrenched dogmatists accepted it (although, as mentioned,
this doesn't entrenchedly dogmatically apply for "all dinosaurs".  Many
entrenched dogmaticists entrenchedly and dogmatically accepted the
aforementioned gang of maniraptor cats failed, in fact, either entrenchedly
or dogmatically to drop dead).

As far as I know, not wishing to be seen as a spokesperson of  the
entrenched dogmatists, the available evidence until now indicated the last
non-birdy dinos dropped dead 65 million years ago.  Fassett believes he has
evidence indicating some actually dropped dead exactly 568,000 years later.
Goody.  Perhaps he's correct.  If so, the entrenched dogmatists would have
to radically shift their paradigm from: "The last non-birdy dinos dropped
dead about 65 million years ago".  This would now have to read: "Just about
the last non-birdy dinos dropped dead about 65 million years ago."

Wow, that would be radical, the addition of the words "just about".  I'm not
sure I could cope with that degree of paradigm shifting.

In fairness to Fassett, this reaction is definitely of the knee-jerk variety
to a merely quick perusal of his abstract.  I'm sure his paper may be of
great interest, so here's the citation again:
"Fassett, J.E. 2007. The documentation of in-place dinosaur fossils in the
Paleocene Ojo Alamo Sandstone and Animas Formation in the San Juan Basin of
New Mexico and Colorado mandates a paradigm shift: dinosaurs can no longer
be thought of as absolute index fossils for end-Cretaceous strata in the
Western Interior of North America. New Mexico Geology 29(2):56."