Late Cretaceous Amber Deposits from Saskatchewan, Canada

加拿大萨斯喀彻温省的白垩纪晚期琥珀矿床

• 批准号: RGPIN-2021-04174
• 负责人: McKellar, Ryan
• 金额: $ 2.62万
• 依托单位: University of Regina
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=745813
• 关键词: Late; Cretaceous; Amber; Deposits; Saskatchewan

Amber or fossilized resin offers palaeontologists one of the most detailed glimpses of ancient terrestrial ecosystems. In western Canada, amber deposits are found associated with coal seams, in dinosaur bonebeds, and in the remains of ancient river systems throughout the Late Cretaceous. This amber is typically too small and fragile for jewelry, but it captures insects and small fragments of larger animals (such as feathers), preserving these inclusions and their soft tissues in 3D with microscopic detail. The surrounding amber also retains some of its original chemistry and stable isotopic composition, allowing researchers to identify the group of trees that produced the deposit, and the conditions that they were living under. The goal of the proposed research is to intensively sample the Late Cretaceous rocks of western Canada for amber, analyzing this material and its inclusions, and placing them in the larger context of palaeoecology and insect evolution. The insect inclusions that are found will help to fill in a 20-million-year gap in the fossil record of insects that exists in the Late Cretaceous, thus improving our understanding of insect diversification and extinction around the end-Cretaceous extinction event. The amber will also provide data about the ancient forests and habitat conditions that existed at the time. Together, these aspects of the research will improve our understanding of terrestrial conditions during the Late Cretaceous, and the habitats occupied by dinosaurs. The outcomes of this work will be of interest to a broad range of scientists, including palaeontologists, evolutionary biologists and geologists, but will also have implications for researchers working on modern insects. Modern insect faunas are dominated by four hyper-diverse insect orders that grew in diversity alongside the rise of flowering plants, in the Cretaceous. These insect groups (beetles, flies, true bugs, plus the order containing ants, wasps, and bees) are major contributors to terrestrial ecosystems, and have significant ecological and economic importance, yet our understanding of their evolutionary relationships and responses to past events is limited by their fossil record. The proposed research will shed light on a key time interval for these insect groups, and provide a comparison point for the fossil record after the extinction event.

琥珀或树脂化石为古生物学家提供了古代陆地生态系统最详细的一瞥。在加拿大西部，人们在煤层、恐龙骨床和晚白垩纪古代河流系统的遗迹中发现了琥珀矿床。这种琥珀通常对于珠宝来说太小太脆弱，但它可以捕捉昆虫和大型动物的小碎片（如羽毛），以微观细节的3D方式保存这些内含物及其软组织。周围的琥珀还保留了一些原始的化学成分和稳定的同位素组成，使研究人员能够确定产生沉积物的树木群，以及它们生活的条件。这项研究的目标是对加拿大西部晚白垩世的岩石进行琥珀取样，分析这种物质及其内含物，并将它们置于更大的古生态学和昆虫进化背景中。发现的昆虫包裹体将有助于填补晚白垩纪昆虫化石记录中存在的2000万年的空白，从而提高我们对白垩纪末期灭绝事件前后昆虫多样化和灭绝的理解。琥珀还将提供有关当时存在的古代森林和栖息地条件的数据。总之，这些方面的研究将提高我们对晚白垩纪陆地条件和恐龙栖息地的理解。这项工作的结果将引起广泛的科学家的兴趣，包括古生物学家、进化生物学家和地质学家，但也将对研究现代昆虫的研究人员产生影响。现代昆虫动物群由四种高度多样化的昆虫目主导，它们在白垩纪随着开花植物的兴起而变得多样化。这些昆虫类群（甲虫、苍蝇、真虫，以及蚂蚁、黄蜂和蜜蜂）是陆地生态系统的主要贡献者，具有重要的生态和经济意义，但我们对它们的进化关系和对过去事件的反应的理解受限于它们的化石记录。拟议的研究将阐明这些昆虫类群的关键时间间隔，并为灭绝事件后的化石记录提供一个比较点。