Jurassic Mongolia

At http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-incredible-daoh… … we have evidence the Arctic was subtropical in the Jurassic and western Europe also had a pleasant enough and warm climate – and now we have evidence that NE Asia too harboured animals akin to a more benign climate than exists nowadays. At the Jehol Biota of NE China the early Cretaceous levels have revealed some astonishing dinosaurs – and evidence of feathers. At Daohuguo Biota in Inner Mongolia, dating to the middle Jurassic, we have fossil evidence of of vertebrae specimens in fine grained lacustrine beds that often retain feathers and other soft tissue features. In other words, they are preserved in silt produced by water flow – but were rapidly buried in order to preserve them. These are not the galumphing giants, so beloved by little boys, but are examples of small creatures  that thrived amongst the big boys. SDource – China Academy of Sciences, May 20th 2014.