China’s famously rich dinosaur fossil beds get a new origins story

A series of unfortunate events, not volcanic eruptions, may have buried the Cretaceous creatures

A photo of a dinosaur fossil bed

A new study proposes that this famous fossilized nest of juvenile Psittacosaurus dinosaurs and one older individual may have formed when a burrow they were sheltering in collapsed.

Harry Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons (CC 2.0)

One of the most extraordinary fossil beds of Cretaceous creatures in the world formed about 125 million years ago, in what’s now northeastern China.