The World of Dinosaurs: Amber Reveals the Ecology of the Ancient Earth

Scientists are learning a bit more about the world in which dinosaurs lived, thanks to the efforts of one researcher. Ryan McKellar examines pieces of amber found buried with dinosaur skeletons in order to study the world in which they lived.

"Basically it puts a backdrop to these dinosaur digs, it tells us a bit more about the habitat," said McKellar in a news release. "Just a few of these little pieces among the bones can show a lot of information."

McKellar and his colleagues work with very small pieces of amber-only a few millimeters wide. These small samples, before they hardened into amber, collected animal and plant material like leaves and feathers. These "inclusions" can reveal quite a bit about environmental conditions at the time, surrounding water sources, temperature and even oxygen levels.

These samples can also sometimes include insects. In fact, researchers found an aphid stuck directly to a dinosaur skeleton with some amber. This can allows scientists to track insect evolution and find their modern relatives.

"When you get insects, it is like frosting on the cake-you can really round out the view of the ecosystem," said McKellar.

Yet what have really forwarded the research are new techniques when it comes to examining this amber. In the past, researchers screened amber in a glycerin bath. Now, though, the scientists reduce crumbling by vacuum-injecting the amber with epoxy.

Currently, the scientists plan to present preliminary findings about dinosaur ecology, habitat and other results from four different fossil deposits from the Late Cretaceous in Alberta and Saskatchewan at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.