The northern China is famous for yielding remarkable specimens of fossilized prehistoric creatures, including dinosaurs, birds and mammals. This section of China is seen as one of the world's richest fossil beds and a new study suggests that the fossils, which are understood to be over 100 million years old, were a result of volcanic eruption, similar to the one that happened in Pompeii.
The fossils are known as the Jehol Biota and were first dug up more than a century ago. However, researchers have managed to showcase the richness of this fossil bed only in the last few decades. Several layer of rocks have shown finely detailed fossil specimen, which displays the delicate feathers of birds and stomach contents.
The fossils of primitive mammals and early birds found at this location suggest these specimens are around 120 million to 130 million years old. These fossils will allow researchers to understand life during the early Cretaceous period.
The big question is - how did so many creatures die at once and how come they have been found in one region?
Baoyu Jiang of China's Nanjing University and his team analyzed the fossils to find out what happened, and came to the conclusion that deadly volcanic eruptions were the cause of these fossil beds. The study, reported in Nature, suggested that the eruptions were likely similar to the one that happened in Pompeii in 79 A.D.
"The authors go a step further than had been done before in suggesting that all the Jehol animals were killed, transported, and exceptionally preserved by the pyroclastic flows," says paleontologist Michael Benton of the University of Bristol in the UK, by email.
"This is quite a challenge to previous views that assumed most of the animals lived in and around the lakes in which they are found," he adds.
The ashes covering the fossils are fine grained, similar to the ashes that covered the people of Pompeii. Furthermore, the posture of the fossilized animals mimic the posture of the people of Pompeii who died as a result of the volcanic eruption.
"All of the evidence certainly points to this explanation," says paleontologist Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was not part of the study. "Looking at the exceptional preservation and the numbers [of fossils], it just seems a noxious gas cloud swept in and took them all out."
Scientists and researchers are calling this the dinosaur version of Pompeii, and it could very well be the case due to the evidence found.
