Robert DePalma made headlines again in 2021 with the discovery of a leg from a Thescelosaurus dinosaur at Tanis, reported The Washington Post. The raw data are missing, he says, because the scientist who ran the analyses died years prior to the papers publication, and DePalma has been unable to recover them from his deceased collaborators laboratory. In my view, it was an intentional omission which leads me to question the credibility of data. Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, says, There is a simple way for the DePalma team to address these concerns, and that is to publish the raw data output from their stable isotope analyses.. Robert A. DePalma1,2, David A. Burnham2,*, Larry D. Martin2,, Peter L. Larson 3 and Robert T. Bakker 4 1 Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, The Palm Beach Museum of Natural History, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; 2 University of Kansas Bio- Credit. One Of Richest Fossil Resources In The World Crossed By Keystone - SDPB With David Attenborough, Robert DePalma, Phillip Manning. [1]:p.8, Although Tanis and Chicxulub were connected by the remaining Interior Seaway, the massive water waves from the impact area were probably not responsible for the deposits at Tanis. This had initially been a seaway between separate continents, but it had narrowed in the late Cretaceous to become, in effect, a large inland extension to the Gulf of Mexico. The paleontologist believed that this new information further supported the theory that an asteroid killed the dinosaursalong with 75 percent of the animals and plants on Earth 66 million year ago. According to Science, DePalma was incorrect in 2015 when he believed he discovered a bone from a new type of dinosaur. [1]:p.8 Instead, the initial papers on Tanis conclude that much faster earthquake waves, the primary waves travelling through rock at about 5km/s (11,000mph),[1]:p.8 probably reached Hell Creek within six minutes, and quickly caused massive water surges known as seiches in the shallow waters close to Tanis. DePalma quickly began to suspect that he had stumbled upon a monumentally important and unique site not just "near" the K-Pg boundary, but a unique killing field that precisely captured the first minutes and hours after impact, when the K-Pg boundary was created, along with an unprecedented fossil record of creatures and plants that died on that day, as well as material directly from the impact itself, in circumstances that allowed exceptional preservation. In the early 1980s, the discovery of a clay layer rich in iridium, an element found in meteorites, at the very end of the rock record of the Cretaceous at sites around the world led researchers to link an asteroid to the End Cretaceous mass extinction. Science journalism's obligation to truth. Other papers describing the site and its fossils are in progress. Fragment of the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs may have been In 2004, DePalma was studying a small site in the well-known Hell Creek Formation, containing numerous layers of thin sediment, creating a geological record of great detail.His advisor suggested seeking a similar site, closer to the K-Pg boundary layer. 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Scientists believe they have been given an extraordinary view of the last day of the dinosaurs after they discovered the fossil of an animal they believe . Robert A. DePalma, a paleontologist at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History and a graduate student at the University of Kansas. Her former collaborator Robert DePalma, whom she had listed as second author on the study, published a paper of his own in Scientific Reports reaching essentially the same conclusion, based on an entirely separate data set. In December 2021, a team of paleontologists published data . This further evidences the violent nature of the event. According to The New Yorker, DePalma also sports some off-putting paleontology practices, like keeping his discovery secret for so long and limiting other scientists' access to the site. The email, which came after Science started to inquire about the case, says their concerns remain under investigation. [30] However, the journal later published a note in December 2022 stating that "the reliability of data presented in this manuscript [] currently in question" following claims that data in the paper was fabricated in order to scoop a later paper[18] published in Nature February 2022 (but submitted before the Scientific Reports paper was submitted), by a separate team, which also studied the fish skeletons found at Tanis, and also identified annual cyclical changes, and found that the impact had occurred in spring. At the site, called Tanis, the researchers say they have discovered the chaotic debris left when tsunamilike waves surged up a river valley. The response doesnt satisfy During and Ahlberg, who want the paper retracted. New Winged Dinosaur May Have Used Its Feathers to Pin Down Prey November 5, 2015. Mr. Frithiof was able to broker an agreement between Paleo Prospectors and DePalma. I dont believe that Curtis himself went to another lab, he was ill for many years, Sacasa says. . TV scientist accused of FAKING data in a major dinosaur study "We're never going to say with 100 percent certainty that this leg came from an animal that died on that day," the scientist said to the publication. Ritchie Hall | Earth, Energy & Environment Center 1414 Naismith Drive, Room 254 Lawrence, KS 66045 geology@ku.edu 785-864-4974 DePalma characterizes their interactions differently. Han var redan som barn fascinerad av ben. [20] The sediment appeared to have liquefied and covered the deposited biota, then quickly solidified, preserving much of the contents in three dimensions. She and her supervisor, UU paleontologist Per Ahlberg, have shared their concerns with Science, and on 3 December, During posted a statement on the journal feedback website PubPeer claiming, we are compelled to ask whether the data [in the DePalma et al. While DePalma corrected his claim, his reputation still took a hit. The three-metre problem encompasses that . Isaac Schultz. Dont yet have access? He did so, and later also sent a partial paddlefish fossil he had excavated himself. Stunning discovery offers glimpse of minutes following 'dinosaur-killer Does fossil site record dino-killing impact? Based on the chemical isotope signatures and bone growth patterns found in fossilized fish collected at Tanis, a renowned fossil site in North Dakota, During had concluded the asteroid that ended the dinosaur era 65 million years ago struck Earth when it was spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Paleontologist Robert DePalma Presents in NASA Goddard Colloquium on When DePalmas paper was published just over 3 months later, During says she soon noticed irregularities in the figures, and she was concerned the authors had not published their raw data. [2], A paper documenting Tanis was released as a prepublication on 1 April 2019. Retaliation is also prohibited by university policy. The Byte reports that the amber was found 2,000 miles away from the asteroid crater off the coast of Mexico believed to be . A researcher claims that Robert DePalma published a faulty study in order to get ahead of her own work on the Tanis fossil site. He reportedly helps fund his fieldwork by selling replicas of his finds to private collectors. The extinction event caused by this impact began the Cenozoic, in which mammals - including humans - would eventually come to dominate life on Earth. With Gizmodos Molly Taft | Techmodo. The CretaceousPaleogene ("K-Pg" or "K-T") extinction event around 66 million years ago wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs and many other species. Additional fossils, including this beautifully preserved fish tail, have been found at the Tanis site in North Dakota. May 9, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT. Robert DePalma, a curator at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History, found some rare fossils close to Bowman, North Dakota, in 2013 that led to a hypothesis of his own. Sir David Attenborough presents this landmark documentary which brings to life, in unprecedented detail, the lost world of the very last days of the dinosaurs. After his team learned about Durings plan to submit a paper, DePalma says, one of his colleagues strongly advised During that the paper must at minimum acknowledge the teams earlier work and include DePalmas name as a co-author. There was a fossil everywhere I turned., After she returned to Amsterdam, During asked DePalma to send her the samples she had dug up, mostly sturgeon fossils. Impact Theory of Mass Extinctions and the Invertebrate Fossil Record, The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary. . ", "Tanis exhibits a depositional scenario that was unusual in being highly conducive to exceptional (largely three dimensional) preservation of many articulated carcasses (Konservat-Lagersttte). DePalma submitted his own paper to Scientific Reports in late August 2021, with an entirely different team of authors, including his Ph.D. supervisor at the University of Manchester, Phillip Manning. How the dinosaurs died: New evidence In PBS documentary - The And mass spectrometry revealed the paddlefishs fin bones had elevated levels of carbon-13, an isotope that is more abundant in modern paddlefishand presumably their closely related ancient relativesduring spring, when they eat more zooplankton rich in carbon-13. It is not even clear whether the massive waves were able to traverse the entire Interior Seaway. [1]:p.8193 The original paper describes the river in technical detail:[1]:Fig.1 and p.9181-8193. DePalma's team argues that as seismic waves from the distant impact reached Tanis minutes later, the shaking generated 10-meter waves that surged from the sea up the river valley, dumping sediment and both marine and freshwater organisms there. "That some competitors have cast Robert in a negative light is unfortunate and unfair," Richards told Science. Both Landman and Cochran confirmed to Science they had reviewed the data supplied by DePalma in January, apparently following Scientific Reportss request for additional clarification on the issues raised by During and Ahlberg immediately after the papers publication. By 2013, he was still studying the site, which he named "Tanis" after the ancient Egyptian city of the same name,[5] and had told only three close colleagues about it. Her mentor there, paleontologist Jan Smit, introduced her to DePalma, at the time a graduate student at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. . though Robert DePalma's love of the dead and buried was anything but . Hell Creek evidence pinpoints month of dinosaur extinction - Earth & Sky Paleontologist Robert DePalma, postgraduate researcher at University of Manchester UK and adjunct professor for the Florida Atlantic University Geosciences Department, gave a guest talk at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, on April 6. Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. Science and AAAS are working tirelessly to provide credible, evidence-based information on the latest scientific research and policy, with extensive free coverage of the pandemic. The nerds travel to the final day of the dinosaurs reign with paleontologist Robert DePalma and the legendary Tanis Site. View Obituary & Service Information Robert DePalma (kottke.org) Some scientists cite the KT layer a 66-million-year-old section of earth present through most of the world, with a high iridium level as proof that this is so. [1]:Fig.1 and p.9181-8192 Although other flooding is evidenced in Hells Creek, the Tanis deposit does not appear to relate to any other Marine transgression (inland shoreline movement) known to have taken place. September 20, 2021. Robert DePalma, fdd 12 oktober 1981, r en amerikansk paleontolog och kurator . In lieu of controversial New Yorker article, UCD Professor weighs in on Others defend DePalma, like his co-author, Mark Richards, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley. A wealth of other evidence has persuaded most researchers that the impact played some role in the extinctions. 'The day the dinosaurs died': Fossilized snapshot of mass death found A North Dakota Excavation Had One Paleontologist Rethinking The Bottom left, micro-CT image showing cutaway of clay-altered ejecta spherule with internal core of unaltered impact glass. "That's the first ever evidence of the interaction between life on the last day of the Cretaceous and the impact event," says team member Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. She also removed DePalma as an author from her own manuscript, then under review at Nature. A bad day for dinosaurs was the subject of an engaging hour-and-a-half for both paleontologists and NASA researchers. Others later pointed out that the reconstructed skeleton includes a bone that really belonged to a turtle; DePalma and his colleagues issued a correction. The deathbed created within an hour of the impact has been excavated at an unprecedented fossil site in North Dakota. Three papers were published in 2021. Tanis is the only known site in the Hell Creek Formation where such conditions were met, [so] the deposit attests to the exceptional nature of the [Event]. The paleontologist believed that this new information further supported the theory that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of the animals and plants on Earth 66 million year . Although they stopped short of saying the irregularities clearly point to fraud, mostbut not allsaid they are so concerning that DePalmas team must come up with the raw data behind its analyses if team members want to clear themselves. A A. Paleontologist Robert DePalma has done it again. Traduzioni in contesto per "i paleontologi che" in italiano-inglese da Reverso Context: Ma i paleontologi che studiano dettagliatamente i denti fossilizzati di questi animali hanno sospettato che non erano quello semplice. High impact paleontology - Medium Robert DePalma uncovers a preserved articulated body of a 65-million-year-old fish at Tanis. In the BBC documentary, Robert DePalma, a relative of film director Brian De Palma, can be seen sporting an Indiana Jones-style fedora and tan shirt. Raw machine data are seldom supplied to end users (myself included) who contract for isotope analyses from a lab that does them., Cochran says DePalma erred in not including these data and their origins in his original manuscript, but the bottom line is that I have no reason to distrust the basic data or in any way believe that it was fabricated., Eiler disputes this. Despite more than 200 years of study, paleontologists have named only several hundred species. The Tanis site was first identified in 2008 and has been the focus of fieldwork by paleontologist Robert DePalma since . . Last month, During published a comment on PubPeer alleging that the data in DePalmas paper may be fabricated. [2][3] The full paper introducing Tanis was widely covered in worldwide media on 29 March 2019, in advance of its official publication three days later.