TAPHONOMY OF PLIOCENE MAMMALIAN FOSSILS FROM LINGTAI, GANSU

Abundant mammalian fossils of Neogene fauna are widely spread in eolian dust accumulation in northern China. In field buried skeletons are overlapped, fossils saved in a panticular state. Taphonomic process and deposition environment of fossiliferous layers are problems that paleontologists hope to solve. The discovery of new mammalian fossils in Renjiapo, Lingtai, Gansu throws some light on those doubts. Most skeletons of Renjiapo Pliocene mammalian fauna are saved organically isolated,a few connected materials are skulls and Alta vertebrae,and the ends of limb bones, etc. Weathering traces on the skeleton surface are diverse. A lot of gnaw marks of rodents are on bones. The damages of fossil materials are about 30 percent of whole ones. Rupture of the bones is stepping one. Orientation of long axes of elongate bones in the fossiliferous layer has obvious direction. There are some similarities in taphonomic features between the Renjiapo Pliocene mammalian fauna and the flood plain fauna. The general features are: fossils are abundant and concentratedly distributed. They include parts of individual bodies and different taxa. Joint and scattered bones, complete and broken bones exist in same area. Acting marks of other animals are general, age distribution of population indicate attrition mortality. The actions of water transportation and sorting existed. However, there are also different features. For example, the grain size of flood plain deposits is relatively coarse. They usually contain some sands. Fossils are distributed successively. These general and specific characters may be considered as the similarity of taphonomic process and variance of taphonomic environment. The taphonomic character of Renjiapo Pliocene mammalian fauna is similar to that in North China. Distinguishable features may be caused by different transportation course, transportation distance and transporting agent. Therefore, taphonomic knowledge of Renjiapo Hipparion fauna affords some references to understand the taphonomic processes of Hipparion fauna in China.

Project Supported:

Clc Number:

Q915.87 Q915.2