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Did fire play a role in formation of dinosaur-rich deposits? An example from the Late Cretaceous of Canada

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Abstract

The mid-late Campanian Dinosaur Park Formation outcropping within Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada, contains multiple dinosaur deposits occurring as bone beds, articulated skeletons, isolated bones and microvertebrate deposits. Due to the abundance of dinosaur deposits, the exposure of Cretaceous sediments, and the presence of charcoal, this locality acts as a good test site for investigating the implications of fire-impacted landscapes for the formation of vertebrate deposits. Despite prior palaeontological and geological research being carried out into this Formation, the presence of charcoal in vertebrate deposits has never previously been recorded. This study compares charcoal content in vertebrate deposits (two bone beds, two beds with articulated skeletons), 6 sediment samples with isolated bones and 23 sediments with no bone. Charcoal is more abundant in the vertebrate deposits than in sediments containing isolated bones or no bones, including those in identical lithofacies. This evidence suggests that flooding events following wildfires are likely to have played a role in the formation of some vertebrate deposits.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dennis Braman for assistance with fieldwork and for his generous hospitality whilst S.A.E.B. worked in Canada. We thank the Canadian Park Authority for access to Dinosaur Provincial Park and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology for logistic support during field-work. We are extremely grateful to Dennis Braman and D. Eberth for helpful comments on an earlier manuscript. S.A.E.B. thanks the Department of Earth Sciences Research Committee of Royal Holloway University of London for a grant to undertake laboratory work. We thank Sharon Gibbons for technical support with the processing of a single sample that required HF treatment. We are very grateful to our reviewers, Dieter Uhl and Deborah Martin, for their helpful comments and suggestions that have greatly improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK

    Sarah A. E. Brown, Margaret E. Collinson & Andrew C. Scott

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  1. Sarah A. E. Brown
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  2. Margaret E. Collinson
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  3. Andrew C. Scott
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Correspondence to Sarah A. E. Brown.

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Brown, S.A.E., Collinson, M.E. & Scott, A.C. Did fire play a role in formation of dinosaur-rich deposits? An example from the Late Cretaceous of Canada. Palaeobio Palaeoenv 93, 317–326 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-013-0123-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-013-0123-y

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