Bone Bed
“A graveyard turned to stone”
A bone bed is a sedimentary deposit unusually rich in fossilized vertebrate remains — bones, teeth, scales, and coprolites — concentrated by currents, drought, or mass mortality events. These layers provide paleontologists with treasure troves of information about ancient ecosystems.
calcium phosphate (hydroxyapatite), calcite, quartz sand, clay minerals, organic carbon
Dinosaur Provincial Park (Alberta, Canada), Rhaetic Bone Bed (England), Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), Hell Creek Formation (Montana, USA)
3-5
A single bone bed in Dinosaur Provincial Park contains the remains of thousands of centrosaurs that likely drowned together trying to cross a flooded river 76 million years ago.
Test Your Knowledge
What catastrophic event typically produces the densely packed bone beds found in the fossil record?
Photo Attribution
Author: James St. John
License: CC BY 2.0
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