Meyer, Christian A.

Thüring, Basil

Wetzel, Andreas

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HANTKENIANA 5 (2006)   96   The hitch-hikers guide to the Late Jurassic — Basement structures provide clues to dinosaur migration routes  Christian A. MEYER1, Basil THÜRING1 & Andreas WETZEL2  1 Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Augustinergasse 2, 4001 Basel, Switzerland; 2 Institut für Geologie und Paläontologie, Departement Umweltwissenschaften, UniversitätBasel, Bernoullistrasse 32, CH-4056 Basel, Schweiz, e-mail: andreas.wetzel@unibas.ch   Since the first discovery of a megatracksite in the Late Jurassic (Late Kimmeridgian) in the northern Jura mountains (Meyer, 1993), numerous tracksites have come to light. Following the documentation of another large tracksite (Meyer & Lockley, 1996) additional sites have demonstrated that those constitute all together a second megatracksite. Bio- and lithostratigraphic correlations indicate a Mid to Late Kimmeridgian age (Meyer & Thüring, 2003). Today we know of at least five intervals with tracks and bones that span from the Kimmeridigan into the Tithonian. Within these recurrent associations four different morphotypes of dinosaurs are present. Among those are small, medium-sized and large sauropod (wide- and narrow-gauge type) and large and very small theropods (e.g. Marty et al., 2003). The tracklevels occur at the end shallowing-upward cycles and are often found in barren micrites that show fenestrate fabric, birds-eyes and stromatolites deposited in a tidal flat environment. The recurrent association of sauropod and theropod footprints over a large area is consistent with the Brontopodus Ichnofacies concept of Lockley et al. (1994). When seen in a larger palinspastic context, all those tracksites occur at conspicuous locations. Contra the idea of megatracksites as large continuous surfaces we can conclusively demonstrate that the occurrence of tracksites is controlled by ancient basement structures. When plotted on the subsurface Permian horst and graben structure it becomes evident that all sites including tracks and skeleton remains lie on horst structures. These shallow water to emergent areas are arranged in ESE–NNW direction and link the northeast corner of the Massif Central with the southwest corner of the London Brabant massif (Jank et al., 2006). These travel corridors are linked to 3rd order sea-level cycles. Thus we present the “Stargate” hypothesis – “open gate” each million year - that explains recurrent migration routes for “hitch-hiking” dinosaur travelling from Central France to Germany and Great Britain.  References Jank, M., Meyer, C.A. Wetzel, A. 2006. Late Oxfordian to Late Kimmeridgia carbonate deposits of NW Switzerland (Swiss Jura): stratigraphical and palaeogeographical implications in the transition area between the Paris Basin and the Tethys. Sedimentary Geology, 186: 237-263. Lockley, M., Hunt, A. & Meyer, C.A. 1994. Vertebrate Tracks and the Ichnofacies Concept: Implications for Paleoecology and Palichno-stratigraphy. In: Donovan, S. (ed): The Palaeo-biology of Trace fossils. Belhaven Press, London. Lockley, M. & Meyer, C.A. 2000. Dinosaur tracks and other fossil footprints of Europe. Columbia University Press, New York, 360 pp. Marty, D., Hug, W.A., Iberg, A., Cavin, L., Meyer, C.A. & Lockley, M.G. 2003. Preliminary report of the Courtedoux Dinosaur tracksite form the Kimmeridgian of Switzerland. Ichnos, 10: 209-219. Meyer, C.A. 1993. A sauropod megatracksite from the Late Jurassic of Northern Switzerland. Ichnos, 2: 1-10. Meyer, C.A. & Lockley, M. G. 1996. The Late Jurassic continental record of Northern Switzer-land - evidence and implications. In: Morales, M. (ed.): The continental Jurassic. Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff 421-426. Meyer, C.A. & Thüring, B. 2003. Dinosaurs of Switzerland. C.R. Palevol, 2: 103-117. 

The hitch-hikers guide to the Late Jurassic — Basement structures provide clues to dinosaur migration routes

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The hitch-hikers guide to the Late Jurassic — Basement structures provide clues to dinosaur migration routes

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