The Mystery of the Cretaceous Pompeii

Since the 1990s, paleontologists have been pulling 125-million-year-old complete dinosaur skeletons from the rocks of the Lujiatun in Northeastern China, most seemingly posed in perfect rest. This has prompted comparisons to a famous archeological site where behavior is similarly well preserved: the site of Pompeii, a town crystallized by volcanic eruption almost 2000 years ago. But when you look into the details, it turns out their residents may have experienced very different final moments.

*****
*****

Eons is a production of Complexly for PBS Digital Studios.

Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible:
Spilmann Reed, Randall George, Morgan, Kevin Lacson, Marco Narajos, Ian Leavitt, Collin Dutrow, Pope John XII, Aaditya Mehta, AllPizzasArePersonal, John H. Austin, Jr., Alex Hackman, Stephen Patterson, Gizmo, Karen Farrell, Jason Rostoker, Jonathan Rust, Mary Tevington, Bart & Elke van Iersel - De Jong, Irene Wood, Mark Talbott-Williams, Nomi Alchin, Duane Westhoff, Hillary Ryde-Collins, Yu Mei, Albert Folsom, Dan Caffee, Nick Ryhajlo, Jeff Graham

Want to follow Eons elsewhere on the internet?
#Eons #volcano

Thumb image: Han et al. (2023) / Michael Skrepnick
References:

[eons]

We made a mistake! Liaoning Province is in northeastern China, not northwestern China. Thank you to the folks who pointed that out!

[GraceTI]

I would love it if you could make playlists of all the different periods. It would be so cool to be able to watch your videos in chronological order of geologic time!

[nakenmil]

This is actually the first time I've heard of mesozoic mammals hunting dinosaurs. That's badass!

[kierianiis]

The Pompeii victims we have casts of are mostly hiding - the pyroclastic flow was the second stage of the eruption. They had sought shelter from the pumice rain before being killed by the pyroclastic flow. So yes, the flow didn’t disturb their remains, and it killed them instantly, but they definitely saw it coming.

[drimachuck]

It's always Psittacosaurus. I'm glad we have so many fossils of them but they're often from such tragic scenes. The babysitter fossils bring a tear to my eye every time.

[annekeener]

Yes. This sounds like asphyxiation like the Lake Nyos disaster before entombment by a lahar. The animals affected being burrowers makes even more sense as CO2 is heavier than air.

[alexcamacho]

This reminds me of the third episode of Prehistoric Park, where Nigel Marvin stumbles across _Mei long_ thinking they're all sleeping, but then a CO2 sensor alerted him of the danger.

[mountainmatt]

That guy from Pompeii who was killed half upright, his facial expression still preserved, always chills me.

[tazzybeaubazzy]

I'm glad everyone loves the new form videos but please don't ever stop these ones! No matter what you talk about I feel interested and relaxed enough to fall asleep. I am so grateful for this YouTube and love learning

[emilylcasanovaphd]

I don't work in animal research anymore but when we had to CO2 mice, they definitely thrashed. Honestly, I would wonder if carbon monoxide would be a better culprit, even though it occurs in small amounts with volcanoes. Carbon monoxide you can sleep through; carbon dioxide is going to wake up you because you won't be able to breathe.

[believer]

Intact fossils like this are a marvel and so rare, imagine the joy of being the first paleontologist to uncover one.

[kevincronk]

This was a really cool structure of a video, lay out the mustery then slowly uncover it as time goes on, before revealing the vital last clue at the end

[warpdriveby]

I've been to St Hellen's several times as well as crater lake and others and when i saw Napoli from the air I immediately thought "no wonder my great-great grandfather was willing to go, they'd be nuts building on top of just Vesuviuo, but Campi Flegrei is right there too! They're out of their minds not moving things away while there's been time to do so.

[Laurasiana]

Did the lahar not solidify quickly enough to create molds of the animals, as the ash evidently did at Pompeii? A life-cast of a dinosaur would be extraordinary.

[BeksBend]

It would be really cool if you could do videos based on specific old locations (Appalachians, Nuvvuagittuq greenstone) and how the animals/ location on earth has changed over time.

[theunknownunknowns]

Saw the Pompeii Exhibition at Te Papa museum a while back, still get 'lump in the throat' thinking about it.

[TiggerIsMyCat]

Why was the Troodontid drawn so cute?! Now I'm sad. :( Too many paleontology videos lately have been describing fossils as the literal death scenes they are and making me really sad for the poor lil critters. I was literally crying over that museum in Houston talking about the horseshoe crab fossil where it walked into an anoxic area, realized it was suffocating, and tried to turn back and escape, but didn't quite make it. At least the animals here didn't suffer, but still.

[lightbeingform]

Something about grisly dicussions of sudden death in Callie's chipper delivery is so wrong, and it delights me!

[SomeoneCommenting]

That image 1:25 makes me remember that scene in nature documentaries when you see a little stoat jumping on a large hare to hunt it. Big size difference but the stoat is full aggressive and willing to take on that large hare.

[UnshavenStatue]

One fossil's fingers wrapped around another is an incredibly baller way to start a video, damn