Spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota: Responses to the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous – pnas.org

Significance

The Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota is a terrestrial lagersttte that produces exquisitely preserved fossils that have furnished enormous evidence on the origins and early evolution of diverse vertebrate groups. On the basis of the latest paleontological and geochronologic evidence, we discuss the three stages of the biota, and suggest that the spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota coincides with the initial and peak stages of the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous. Such linkage presents an example of how regional tectonics influence the terrestrial biota that points to a new path for future studies involving multidisciplinary methods to explore the biosphere in deep time.

The Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota is a terrestrial lagersttte that contains exceptionally well-preserved fossils indicating the origin and early evolution of Mesozoic life, such as birds, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mammals, insects, and flowering plants. New geochronologic studies have further constrained the ages of the fossil-bearing beds, and recent investigations on Early Cretaceous tectonic settings have provided much new information for understanding the spatiotemporal distribution of the biota and dispersal pattern of its members. Notably, the occurrence of the Jehol Biota coincides with the initial and peak stages of the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous, and thus the biotic evolution is related to the North China craton destruction. However, it remains largely unknown how the tectonic activities impacted the development of the Jehol Biota in northeast China and other contemporaneous biotas in neighboring areas in East and Central Asia. It is proposed that the Early Cretaceous rift basins migrated eastward in the northern margin of the North China craton and the Great Xingan Range, and the migration is regarded to have resulted from eastward retreat of the subducting paleo-Pacific plate. The diachronous development of the rift basins led to the lateral variations of stratigraphic sequences and depositional environments, which in turn influenced the spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota. This study represents an effort to explore the linkage between terrestrial biota evolution and regional tectonics and how plate tectonics constrained the evolution of a terrestrial biota through various surface geological processes.

Author contributions: Z.Z. designed research; Z.Z., Q.M., R.Z., and M.W. performed research; Z.Z., Q.M., R.Z., and M.W. analyzed data; and Z.Z., Q.M., R.Z., and M.W. wrote the paper.

Reviewers: A.D.B., Universidad Autonoma de Madrid; E.M.F., University of Aarhus; J.M., American Museum of Natural History; and J.Z., Peking University.

The authors declare no competing interest.

All study data are included in the article.

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Spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota: Responses to the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous - pnas.org