Significance We collected over 1,000 dinosaur eggshell samples from an ∼150-m-thick stratigraphically continuous fossil-rich sequence in the Shanyang Basin of central China, which is one of the most abundant dinosaur… Click to show full abstract
Significance We collected over 1,000 dinosaur eggshell samples from an ∼150-m-thick stratigraphically continuous fossil-rich sequence in the Shanyang Basin of central China, which is one of the most abundant dinosaur records from a Late Cretaceous sequence. We use biostratigraphy of dinosaurs and Bemalambda, magnetostratigraphy, and cyclostratigraphy from orbital cycles to establish a geochronological framework of the dinosaur fossils with a high resolution of 100,000 y. Our results demonstrate low dinosaur biodiversity during the last 2 million y of the Cretaceous, and those data indicate a decline in dinosaur biodiversity millions of years before the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary. The end-Cretaceous catastrophic events, such as the Deccan Traps and bolide impact, probably acted on an already vulnerable ecosystem and led to nonavian dinosaur extinction.
               
Click one of the above tabs to view related content.