Re: World's 'largest dinosaur' found (with crocs & fish)

["Ken Carpenter" <Kcarpenter@dmns.org>]

Peter pointed out to me that my email was set to html, so my reply did not go 
through to all of you. Therefore, here it is again (right format I hope)

        There is no doubted that there were mountain-dwelling dinosaurs since 
life invades any suitable place. Yet, for the most part, we will never know who 
these dinosaurs are because mountains are areas of erosion, not deposition. The 
right place at the right time holds true over geologic time, although not 
necessarily for shorter intervals. For example, mammoth bones have been found 
in the high mountains regions of Colorado. But since these mountains are 
eroding, in a few million years all trace of these mammoths are likely to 
disappear.
Ken


>>> <zone65@bigpond.com> 03/02/04 18:06 PM >>>
>
> <searching memory> I don't believe I have ever seen a dinosaur fossil 
> in
> the ground in which a gar fish dermal plate, or a turtle fragment, or a
> croc scute was *not* also found nearby.
>
> Since water plays a big role in depositing nearly all terrestrial
> fossils-to-be (aeolian deposition being the exception), then the
> association of croc fossils and fish fossils with dinosaur bones has no
> particular significance.
>
> <pb>

I do wonder, then, why so many claim that most or all sauropods were 
dry-landers, if their remains are practically *always* associated with 
water creatures ... I appreciate the catch-22 that water and the 
sedimentary deposits it lays down are necessary for forming fossils. 
But doesn't that mean that all fossilized dinosaurs lived in 
more-or-less wet conditions? Or can fossilization sometimes be the 
result of infrequent but heavy rainfall (such as in the Chinese desert 
finds)?

Peter M