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Boulder, Colo., USA: The Geological Society of America regularly publishes
articles online ahead of print. For April,
GSA Bulletin topics
include multiple articles about the dynamics of China and Tibet; new
insights into the Chicxulub impact structure; and the dynamic topography of
the Cordilleran foreland basin. You can find these articles at
https://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/recent
.
Tectonic and eustatic control of Mesaverde Group
(Campanian-Maastrichtian) architecture, Wyoming-Utah-Colorado region,
USA
Keith P. Minor; Ronald J. Steel; Cornel Olariu
Abstract:
We describe and analyze the depositional history and stratigraphic
architecture of the Campanian and Maastrichtian succession of the southern
Our earliest primate ancestors rapidly spread after dinosaur extinction
The small, furry ancestors of all primates a group that includes humans and other apes were already taking to the trees a mere 100,000 years after the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and most other terrestrial animals, according to a new analysis of fossil teeth in the collections of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP).
The analysis showed that the teeth are the earliest-known fossil evidence of any primate, dating from about 65.9 million years ago 105,000 to 139,000 years after Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary 66 million years ago that signaled the end of the dinosaur era, except for the dinosaurs’ descendants, the birds.
An artist’s rendering shows the early primate species known as Purgatorius mckeeveri. (Andrey Atuchin Illustration via Burke Museum)
The shapes of fossilized teeth from 65.9 million-year-old, squirrel-like creatures suggest that the branch of the tree of life that gave rise to us humans and other primates flowered while dinosaurs still walked the earth.
That’s the claim coming from a team of 10 researchers across the U.S., including biologists at Seattle’s Burke Museum and the University of Washington.
In a study published by Royal Society Open Science, the team lays out evidence that an ancient group of primates known as plesiadapiforms must have emerged before the mass-extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs. (Technically, modern-day birds are considered the descendants of dinosaurs, but that’s another story.)
By Scott Rogers February 24, 2021
An illustration of a Purgatorius, the oldest known primate. (Courtesy of the Burke Museum)
Though it doesn’t quite corroborate
The Flintstones, a new study featuring UF geology assistant professor Courtney J. Sprain confirms that the earliest known primates did walk with the dinosaurs.
Published in
Royal Society Open Science, the study analyzed 65.9 million-year-old fossils of the early primate Purgatorius, the oldest genus in a group of primates called plesiadapiforms. The study found that these small mammals, who mainly lived off a diet of insects and fruits, likely emerged in the Late Cretaceous, just before the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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New York, February 24, 2021 - Graduate Center, CUNY/Brooklyn College professor was part of a discovery of the first fossil evidence of any primate, illustrating the earliest steps of primates 66 million years ago following the mass extinction that wiped out all dinosaurs and led to the rise of mammals.
Stephen Chester, an assistant professor of anthropology and paleontologist at the Graduate Center, CUNY and Brooklyn College, was part of a team of 10 researchers from across the United States who analyzed several fossils of Purgatorius, the oldest genus in a group of the earliest-known primates called plesiadapiforms. These ancient mammals were small-bodied and ate specialized diets of insects and fruits that varied across species.