Further support for a Cretaceous age for the feathered-dinosaur beds of Liaoning,China:New ^(40)Ar/^(39)Ar dating of the Yixian and Tuchengzi Formations

We report new 40Ar/39Ar dating results ob-tained from total fusion and incremental-heating analyses of sanidine and biotite from three tuffs found interbedded within the fossil-bearing deposits of Liaoning, northeast China. The first is a new sample of the Bed 6 Sihetun tuff from the Yixian Formation, previously dated by our team as middle Early Cretaceous, and recently considered by Lo et al., partially reset due to metamorphism from a nearby ba-saltic sill. The second is the Yixian Bed 9 tuff from Heng-daozi considered by Lo et al. to be unaffected by metamor-phism and whose age, based on total fusion 40Ar/39Ar dating of biotite, argues for a Jurassic age for the Yixian Formation. The third tuff is a previously undated tuff from the upper part of the underlying Tuchengzi Formation. Single crystal total fusion 40Ar/39Ar analyses of the Sihetun sanidine showed homogeneous radiogenic Ar, Ca/K ratios, excellent reproducibility and gave a mean age of 125.0 ± 0.18 (1SD) ± 0.04 (SE) Ma. Single sanidine

We report new 40Ar/39Ar dating results ob-tained from total fusion and incremental-heating analyses of sanidine and biotite from three tuffs found interbedded within the fossil-bearing deposits of Liaoning, northeast China. The first is a new sample of the Bed 6 Sihetun tuff from the Yixian Formation, previously dated by our team as middle Early Cretaceous, and recently considered by Lo et al., partially reset due to metamorphism from a nearby ba-saltic sill. The second is the Yixian Bed 9 tuff from Heng-daozi considered by Lo et al. to be unaffected by metamor-phism and whose age, based on total fusion 40Ar/39Ar dating of biotite, argues for a Jurassic age for the Yixian Formation. The third tuff is a previously undated tuff from the upper part of the underlying Tuchengzi Formation. Single crystal total fusion 40Ar/39Ar analyses of the Sihetun sanidine showed homogeneous radiogenic Ar, Ca/K ratios, excellent reproducibility and gave a mean age of 125.0 ± 0.18 (1SD) ± 0.04 (SE) Ma. Single sanidine crystal total fusion 40Ar/39Ar analyses of the Hengdaozi tuff gave a mean age of 125.0 ± 0.19 (1SD) ± 0.04 (SE) Ma, which is indistinguishable from the Sihetun tuff. The Tuchengzi Formation tuff gave a mean age of 139.4 () 0.19 (1SD) () 0.05 (SE) Ma. Detailed laser in-cremental-heating analyses of biotite from Sihetun, Heng-daozi, and Tuchengzi tuffs show disturbed Ar release pat-terns and evidence of trapped argon components. We con-clude from these analyses that the total fusion dates on bio-tite by Lo et al. are erroneously old and isotopic dating of both biotite and sanidine from tuffs of the Yixian Formation point to a middle Early Cretaceous age. The upper part ofthe Tuchengzi Formation can be referred to the Early Cre-taceous.