Lesson 2

Question 1

taphonomy=

Answer 1

studying how bones are situated in the sediments

tells us what happens between time of death of the animal and the time it was buried and dug up

Question 2

What are 3 things we can learn about the dino from taphonomy?

Answer 2

• enviro it was living in
• cause of death
• what the animal was doing up to the time it died (if we’re lucky)

Question 3

why is dinosaur provincial park a good place to look for dino bones?
a. the region was once covered by massive glaciers.
b. the dry climate limits plant growth.
c. the rock exposures date back to 100,000yrs
d. during the age of dinos, the region was a forested mtn range

Answer 3

a and b

ice acted as a bulldozer: removed younger sediments, revealed the older sediments with dino fossils (cretaceous). wind and rain + glacial melt continued erosion

Question 4

t/f
forests and mountain areas seldom preserve fossils

Answer 4

true

Question 5

what 4 factors should you consider when looking for dino bones in a certain location?

Answer 5

• need exposures (if the rocks are covered by concrete cities or forest/soil, it’s hard to access anything)
• the rocks have to represent the correct age (cretaceous period)
• the correct enviro represented (terrestrial, not marine)
• it helps to know you found dino bones in that location before

Question 6

is dinosaur provincial park a good place for fossils to form today?

Answer 6

no!
very dry today, no mud to preserve bones

Question 7

why was dinosaur provincial park a good place for fossils to form in the past?

Answer 7

there were rivers carrying sand/ mud that buried the animals and preserved them well

Question 8

What would the terrain and climate have been like when the dinosaurs
were alive?

• wet
• dry
• hilly
• flat
• rivers and wetlands
• plains and bluffs

chose 3

Answer 8

wet
flat
rivers and wetlands

Question 9

what is the main shared characteristic of all sedimentary rocks?

Answer 9

they’re breakdown products of other rocks
& then redeposited by water/ wind in layers

Question 10

explain likelihood of finding fossils in sedimentary vs igneous vs metamorphic rocks

Answer 10

sedimentary= good places for animals to get buried and therefore fossilized

igneous= represent ancient, molten magma, which is not a good place for things to be fossilized

metamorphic= sedimentary or igneous rocks that have been changed by heat/ pressure deep underground. Not going to find fossils there!

Question 11

are dino fossils ever found in ancient marine sediments?

Answer 11

yes!

although all dinos were terrestrial, some lived near coasts. Some were washed out to sea, then sunk and were preserved in ancient seafloor sediments

Question 12

river deposits are typically _____ (__stone)

lake deposits are usually made of ___ or ___ (___stone or ___)

swampy areas with lots of vegetation can make a special kind of sedimentary rock called ____

lagoons/ shallow seas deposit ____

Answer 12

sand (sandstone)

mud (mudstone or shale)

coal (fossilized compressed remains of plants)

limestones (chalky sediments composed on plankton exoskeletons- typical of marine envios)

Question 13

Why may we not find a complete articulated skeleton?
a. The skeleton is in a flowing river.
b. The carcass is scavenged.
c. The dinosaur dies in a forest.
d. the bones are scattered randomly by other animals

Answer 13

a. The skeleton is in a flowing river (the bones will become worn down and break apart)
b. The carcass is scavenged (predators are good at breaking up large carcasses)
d. the bones are scattered randomly by other animals

Question 14

Preservational Styles=

Answer 14

ways fossils can form

Question 15

What are the two main categories of Preservational Styles?

Answer 15

1. permineralization: internal spaces of tissues and bones are filled with dissolved minerals carried by water
2. replacement: original material is replaced by minerals (no original material is left). This is a cast/ impression

Question 16

plastic deformation=

Answer 16

weight of sediments above the bones + the pressure of rocks below/ to sides cause the fossil to be a bit deformed.
Occurs after the bones have been fossilized

Question 17

Of the following, what is the correct order of events that occurs
between the death and excavation of a dinosaur?

fossilization
burial
death
excavation
erosion

Answer 17

Death, burial, fossilization, erosion,
excavation

Question 18

why are there so many dino teeth found in dino prov park?

Answer 18

b/c dinos shed their teeth throughout their life! (like sharks)

so one animal could produce 1000s of teeth in its life
and they fossilize well

Question 19

bonebeds=

Answer 19

massive accumulations of bones of many individual animals (usually at a river channel)
- the bones found here normally represent long-term accumulations of bones that have washed downstream & dropped where the water slows

Question 20

how would preservation be different in sandstone vs mudstone?

Answer 20

sandstone= coaser grain, so faster moving waters. dino would be buried very rapidly by sand, so preservation is different than what we find in mudstone, where the water was slow

Question 21

type specimen=

Answer 21

the specimen that bears the name for a new species. Very important!

Question 22

how long does it typically take to collect a dino from soft sandstone?

Answer 22

3 weeks ish in dino prov park

Question 23

airscribe=

Answer 23

a special tool, like a tiny jackhammer used when a rock is too hard to remove from a fossil using picks alone

Question 24

____ different bones from endomtosaurus and albertosaurus have been collected from the danek bed

Answer 24

1000 ish

Question 25

The danek bed mostly contains:

Where is the danek bed located?

Answer 25

remains of the hadrosaurid edmontosaurus

edmonton

Question 26

to estimate how many animals may be in a bonebed, what technique is used?

Answer 26

use a unique bone, like a left femur (each animal only has 1). So if you find 15 of these, then there were a minimum of 15 different animals in that bonebed

Question 27

do we have evidence that albertosaurus scavenged on edmontosaurus?

Answer 27

yes!

albertosaurus teeth found mixed in with edmontosaurus fossils: they lost their teeth while feeding (they shed their “baby teeth”)

Question 28

each quarry map represents ___ of the bonebed

Answer 28

1m squared

Question 29

If all the bones in a quarry map are oriented in different directions, that suggests they were deposited in a ___-moving system

Answer 29

slow (water)