RE: Welcome, Zhuchengceratops!

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] 
> On Behalf Of Andrew A. Farke
> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 10:01 AM
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Welcome, Zhuchengceratops!
> 
> 2010 is truly the year of the ceratopsian! Here's another 
> one, from the same deposits in China that gave us Sinoceratops.
> 
> Xu X, Wang K, Zhao X, Sullivan C, Chen S (2010) A New Leptoceratopsid
> (Ornithischia: Ceratopsia) from the Upper Cretaceous of 
> Shandong, China and Its Implications for Neoceratopsian 
> Evolution. PLoS ONE 5(11): 
> e13835. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013835
> 
> Available for free online at:
> 
> http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0013835

Actually, "expectatus" might be better than "inexpectatus". The Zhuceng fauna 
(and other later Late Cretaceous assemblages from
northeastern Asia) is very, very much like typical western North American mesic 
(wet) communities of the Campano-Maastrichtian
(Dinosaur Park Formation, Horseshoe Canyon Formation, etc.). There are more 
taxa to come that show this as well.

It is important to remember that nearly every general paleogeographic is 100% 
WRONG about the Bering Sea region, in creating a
non-existent separation between northeastern Asia and Alaska. Even today there 
are no tectonic features separating these units, only
a very shallow ephemeral strait. Geologically--and paleogeographically--Siberia 
and Alaska are the same place.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA