A lake deposit in the La Huérguina Formation near Cuenca in Spain, of Barremian age, and one of the great conservation deposits of the Early Cretaceous. The limestone formed in a freshwater wetland where microbial mats sealed carcasses almost as they fell, so soft tissue survives: the crest of the small theropod Pelecanimimus is preserved through iron carbonate laid down by bacteria, and the enantiornithine birds come out articulated. Burial was fast, sometimes in less than a day, which is why so little was disturbed. The site is a working research excavation rather than an open attraction, and the finds are shown in Cuenca at the Museo de las Ciencias de Castilla-La Mancha, which is where to go if you want to see what has come out of this rock.
Feathered dinosaurs and early birds in lake limestone · Early Cretaceous, Barremian
This ground is protected. Photograph it, record it, leave it where it lies. On US federal land the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 2009 makes collecting vertebrate fossils an offence, and penalties are real.
Spain
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