How many mammalian and avian species are represented in the fossil record from that million year period after the K-T boundary? How is the coverage across the world? (In comparison with other time periods.) How does the mammal skull discovery fit into that record and expand our understanding of that time period?
What is our best understanding of the time it took for all dinosaur species to disappear? Was it purely environmental factors that drove the extinction or did some species survive to be out-competed post K-T? (And how well would we even be able to determine this from the fossil record?)
Thanks for the AMA! Always excited to see scientists do these--great outreach opportunity. I ended up going into physics, but paleontology was the first field that got me excited about science and the scientific process.
ohtheplacesiwent18 karma
How many mammalian and avian species are represented in the fossil record from that million year period after the K-T boundary? How is the coverage across the world? (In comparison with other time periods.) How does the mammal skull discovery fit into that record and expand our understanding of that time period?
What is our best understanding of the time it took for all dinosaur species to disappear? Was it purely environmental factors that drove the extinction or did some species survive to be out-competed post K-T? (And how well would we even be able to determine this from the fossil record?)
Thanks for the AMA! Always excited to see scientists do these--great outreach opportunity. I ended up going into physics, but paleontology was the first field that got me excited about science and the scientific process.
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