Dan Peppe

@danpeppe.bsky.social

Paleobotanist, paleoclimatologist, & geologist. I study fossil plants, ancient climate, and the Earth's magnetic field. (he/him) Linking Earth’s Ancient Flora, Fauna, and Climate (LEAFF Climate) Lab https://sites.baylor.edu/daniel_peppe/

If you work on fragmentary fossil material, check out this method published in JoVE Journal developed by my PhD student, Dava Butler, and colleagues that can be used to stabilize & repair fossil material using archival Japanese paper and typical fossil prep resins: app.jove.com/v/68979/usin... 🧪🦴🦣

Using Archival Japanese Paper and Thermoplastic Resins to Prepare Fossils for Storage, Display, Transport, and Radiography

Kozo washi is an archival-grade paper commonly used in the conservation of museum objects. This paper can be combined with widely used archival adhesives ...

app.jove.com

I am on my way home to Toronto and the aurorae are absolutely phenomenal. If you are anywhere in the northern half of the continent, get outside and look up! Or better still, put your camera on a 10 second exposure and point it up.

Gorgeous red and green aurorae over a lighted city below.Gorgeous picture of red and green aurorae over a lighted city below.

I wanted to offer some thoughts on the Gates climate memo that has been circulating this week. While I can't directly speak for others, I can say that my own response is one of dismay & deep frustration (and that this view is shared by many climate/Earth scientists). [1/n]

New dates for the Naashobito faunas from New Mexico help show that dinosaur diversity was declining making them weren’t extinction. Instead dinosaurs were diverse and thriving right up until the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact 🧪🪨🦕🦖☄️☠️

Dan Peppe@danpeppe.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Excited to share the results of collaborative research in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico published today in @science.org that provides new age constraints for the Naashobito dinosaurs from New Mexico, like the giant sauropod, Alamosaurus: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Illustration showing the giant sauropod dinosaur, Alamosaurus, in southern North America as the  asteroid impact that caused the Cretaceous-Paleocene impact hits the Earth

New dates on fossils from New Mexico reveal a community of dinosaurs that were thriving right before the asteroid strike, including 80-foot-long, 30-ton giants like Alamosaurus. I’ll tell you more in my latest for NatGeo. 🧪

New evidence reveals dinosaurs were thriving right up to the moment the asteroid hit

Newly dated fossils from New Mexico challenge the idea that dinosaurs were in decline—and suggest instead they had formed flourishing communities.

nationalgeographic.com

Paleontologists still debate whether dinosaurs were in decline even before the asteroid wiped them out. New precise dating techniques of a century-old fossil site in New Mexico are giving scientists a better idea.

What really killed the dinosaurs? These rocks may unlock the answer.

New dating techniques at a fossil site in New Mexico attempt to dispel the theory that dinosaurs were already in decline before the fateful asteroid hit.

washingtonpost.com

Lastly, this N-S bioprovincialism persists after the mass extinction and is seen in early Paleocene mammalian communities suggesting that the biogeographic structure was not destroyed by the mass extinction event.

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We then used ecological modeling to show dinosaur communities were partitioned into two different bioprovinces during the terminal Cretaceous across western North America, driven by differences in climate. This suggests dinosaurs in North America diverse & thriving leading up to the K/Pg boundary.

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This Naashoibito dinosaur community was dominated by the giant sauropod Alamosaurus and crested Lambeosaurine hadrosaurs, which is a marked difference than the coeval Hell Creek Formation.

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Using magnetostratigraphy and Ar/Ar geochronology, we were able to constrain the age of Naashoibito Member deposition, and the major vertebrate fossil localities, to no older than 66.38 Mya.

Four panel figure. Panel A shows map of western north ameria indicating major Laramide basins and hightlight the study area in the San Juan Basin of NW New Mexico. Panel B shows geologic map of the San Juan

Looking for a graduate program in paleobotany, paleoclimatology, and/or terrestiral sedimentology? Attending #GSA2025 next week? Please reach out so we can chat! Recruiting MS students for Fall 2026 for projects focused on the late Cretaceous - early Paleogene of western North America.

Landscape picture of rocks in the San Juan Basin of northern New Mexico. Lower, drab colored rocks overlain by gold and tan sandstones plus fossilized trees.