Feathered dinosaur death site is an “animal Pompeii”

Baoyu Jiang

A series of fossil discoveries in the 1990s changed our understanding of the lives of early birds and mammals, as well as the dinosaurs they shared an ecosystem with. All those discoveries had one thing in common: they came from a small region in northern China that preserved what is now called the Jehol Biota.

Until now, however, no one knew why so many well-preserved fossils were found in that region. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers discovered that this remarkable preservation might have been the result of a Pompeii-like event, where hot ash from a volcanic eruption entombed these animals.

Dino colors

According to Leicester University's Sarah Gabbott (who wasn’t involved in the study), “Unravelling the environments in which fossilisation took place, as the authors do in this paper, is very important. It places the fossils within the context of their habitat and it allows us to determine what filters and biases may have played a part.” These biases may affect which organisms get preserved.