Re-description of the partially collapsed Early Cretaceous Zhaojue dinosaur tracksite (Sichuan Province, China) by using previously registered video coverage. (January 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Xing, Lida; Lockley, Martin G.; Marty, Daniel; Piñuela, Laura; Klein, Hendrik; Zhang, Jianping; Persons, W. Scott
• Is Part Of: Cretaceous research. Volume 52:Part A(2015)
• Page Start: 138
• Page End: 152
• Publication Date: 2015-01
• Subjects: Dinosaur footprint -- Sauropoda -- Theropoda -- Ornithopoda -- Locomotion -- Turning trackway -- Brontopodus -- Eubrontes -- Grallator -- Pteraichnus; Geology, Stratigraphic -- Cretaceous -- Periodicals; 551.77
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2014.09.010
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0195-6671

Abstract

Abstract: A re-description of the Early Cretaceous Zhaojue dinosaur tracksite (Sichuan Province, China) is the major focus of the present work. The tracksite is located in an active copper mine, and a dinosaur track-bearing surface of about 1500 m 2 (named tracksite I) initially discovered in 1991, has since almost completely collapsed due to ongoing quarry activities. Only about 5% of the initial surface still remains in place (named "remaining tracksite"), while due to the collapse a few new but rather poorly-preserved tracks were unearthed on an underlying level. While the tracks still in place were studied using common field techniques, a schematic tracksite map of the collapsed surface was drawn based on a "corrected orthophotograph" that was generated from overview photographs and from video frames. Fortunately, the resolution of some of the close-up video frames is sufficiently high to observe general track morphology, and to re-interpret previously wrongly identified trackways. Here, we report a quite diverse ichnocoenosis consisting of sauropod, ornithopod, theropod, and pterosaur trackways and isolated tracks. The sauropod trackways belong to the Brontopodus -type and were possibly left by medium-sized titanosaurs. One of the sauropod trackways turns around and makes an astonishingly narrow turn of more than 180° with very pronounced "off-tracking" of the manus with respect to the pes. Such unusual trackways are important for the reconstruction of sauropod locomotion. The theropod trackways were left by small and medium-sized animals with the imprint morphology being similar to that of the ichnogenera Grallator and Eubrontes . Large tridactyl tracks with blunt toes are tentatively identified as ornithopod tracks and may be described as Caririchnium -type tracks . Pterosaur tracks can be assigned to Pteraichnus . The association of pterosaur with small theropod tracks is rather unusual, and this tracksite further corroborates the frequent presence of large ornithopods in inland environmental settings.