Re: Sloping terrain Re: Woman against Abelisaur

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

On Sun, July 24, 2011 1:33 am, Richard W. Travsky wrote:
>
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2011, Don Ohmes wrote:
> ...
>>
>> Anecdotally speaking, exuberant young ostriches and emus apparently
>> sometimes
>> have similar experiences -- and they can result in serious injury.
>>
>> Areas w/ significant grade may have been relatively abelisaurid-free...
>
> Hmmm. So, could their found remains be taken as an indicator of
> relatively flattish terrain when alive?
>
I don't buy the idea that ANY dinosaur is forbidden from particular
terrain (except perhaps for excessively swampy)  because of the
topography. After all, proboscideans like mammoths and mastodons made
their way up into the Appalachians, and they were arguably less well
adapted in terms of their limb design to steep surfaces.

As for the preservation: sediment flows downhill, so you ONLY preserve
typical strata in basins. That is a reflection of gravity flows, not of
the animals habitat!


Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA