Ancient Ash Volcanoes Entombed Chinese Dinosaurs

Earth Science                                                                                          
Emma Verscaj

Current Event Article                                                                                            
3/1/14

Ancient Ash Volcanoes Entombed Chinese Dinosaurs

            Between 65 million and 250 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed around China. Most fossils have been found in the central and eastern parts of the country. Recently, beautifully preserved fossils have been discovered in Northern China. Fossilization is a process that requires many conditions to be present and of course, for the good ones, millions of years. Otherwise, the bones simply get worn away by the weather or destroyed by outside forces. I believe that these fossils were preserved through the process of permineralization. This is where a fossil gets stuck in the ground and then all its empty spaces (in bones, organs and cells) get filled with minerals creating an efficient preservation.

            Before the discovery of these volcanic eruptions scientists had no idea how these fossils came to be buried where they were found. They believed that wherever an organism died, that is where his fossil would be. How did so many dinosaurs end up at the bottom of a lake? They believe that the ash from the volcanic eruption protected and projected many of these organisms away from where they died and into a lake. Scientists are comparing it to the devastation that the now entombed residents of Pompeii suffered 2000 years ago when Mt Vesuvius erupted.

            I think National Geographic did a good job in proving the point of the article and it had sufficient information however, they repeated this information over and over and I felt like I read the same five paragraph article three times. They constantly stated that the volcano moved the dinosaurs and it was like Pompeii. They also contradicted themselves with the contribution of paleontologist Michael Benton who said this theory is unlikely. It is good to involve a contrary viewpoint in an article but considering the small amount of information provided, it just makes the theory look weaker.

            Little can be done to improve this article; it is National Geographic after all. But if I wrote this, I would have tried to provide more evidence of the volcanic transportation or another reason why the fossils ended up in the lake and I would have included more pictures.

Vergano, Dan. "Ancient Ash Volcanoes Entombed Chinese Dinosaurs." National Geographic. N.p., 4 Feb. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.