Re: The absurity, the absurdity (was: WUSSY RAPTORS)

["Larry Dunn" <larrydunn@hotmail.com>]

From: "Allan Edels" <edels@email.msn.com>

>    While I respect your opinion, and your idea of the search for the 
truth,
>I would like to know what you think of the fossil assemblage with the
>_Tenontosaurus_  and 3 _Deinonychus_.

Well, who knows?  There are an almost infinite set of possibilities.  
But, based on the present context, I think you may be suggesting that 
the pack-hunt hypo is the best, or even a good one, and you may be 
asking me what *other* rational explanations there are.

To believe that the fossil site had anything to do with a packhunting 
scenario, here's what we have to assume:

Numbers of Deinonychus killed a tenontosaur, and several of them were 
also killed, either by the tenontosaur or by other Deinonychus.

The corpses all lay there, where they are quickly covered up and 
eventually fossilized.

I don't think that this gels with present theories about fossilization.  
I think there are more likely explanations.  I don't mean to offer this 
as my own hypo, *because I don't have one,*  but here's one rational 
possibility:

The Deinonychus, the tenontosaur and many other animals were drowned in 
a flash flood.  Their corpses and others were washed along by the 
waters, and the dinosaurs we're discussing were deposited in some mud 
near a rise, where more mud quickly poured over them and they were 
deeply covered.   Maybe other animals were cariied along and got stuck 
as well and were fossilized, but these fossils disintegrated, or maybe 
they were stuck but were close enough to the surface that they were dug 
out and scavenged in the feast that followed.

Pure fiction, but sounds more like a fossilization event to me than a 
bunch of corpses from a prey event just laying around in situ for 
centuries until covered up and fossilized.

Larry

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