RE: Snowmastodons

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

> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] 
> On Behalf Of Anthony Docimo
>
> > This week's NOVA on PBS, "Ice Age Death Trap" is about the 
> > mastodon-intensive fossil fauna collected up at Snowmass, Colorado, 
> > this past year.
> > 
> > (Sadly, my on-screen guide describes it this way: 
> Archaeologists study 
> > the life and death of North America's most exotic and extreme
> > creatures.) B-(
>  
>  well yes - native camels and elephants...in a predator-free 
> enviroment.

Predator free?!?! Not so much: Smilodon, Arctodus, Panthera, Canis, etc.

> Also seriously, the documentary proposed liquifaction as a 
> reason why the mammoths were trapped and unable to escape 
> (thus having so many of all ages there).....the only time 
> I've heard this suggested for the Mesozoic, was the "Dino 
> Death Trap" {National Geographic Channel} where _Guanlong_ 
> and "an unidentified species of carnivore" were discovered, 
> stacked one on top of another.
>
Technical publication at:
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2110/palo.2009.p09-028r
http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.2110/palo.2009.p09-028r

(the "unidentified species" is Limusaurus).

> Were there other cases of Mesozoic liquifaction, or do the 
> pressures of it being so distant an epoch  help to conflate 
> liquifaction with other capture methods as seen through the 
> fossil record?
>               
Don't know of other cases. Liquefaction should leave a distinctive 
sedimentological signature, which makes it nicely testable.


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