Time and space coordinates of the late Cretaceous vertebrate succession in the Gobi Desert

Streszczenie w języku pol. zob. zał.

The Late Cretaceous sediments of the Gobi Desert are one of the richest fossil assemblages of terrestrial vertebrates of that time in the world, yielding several thousand wellpreserved specimens representing hundreds of species (e.g., dinosaurs, lizards, and mammals). Although palaeontological exploration of the Gobi region has been going on for more than a century, there are still some unresolved issues regarding spatiotemporal relationships between particular faunistic assemblages. Due to the continental conditions of sedimentation, there are no marine fossils in the Gobi Basin, that hampers correlation with the global marine biostratigraphic standard. The lack of the volcanic rocks makes radiometric dating impossible. Hence, the precise age of the Gobi sediments remains problematic. Their provisional dating is based on comparisons of the local faunas with those better-dated (e.g., from North America). Moreover, even the relative age of each of the geological units (formations) in the Gobi Basin is unclear. There is no single section where the continuous succession of all the geological formations could be observed. Moreover, the vertebrates of the Gobi Basin do not help in solving the problem being highly endemic.