NDLI: Isochirotherium trackways, their possible trackmakers (?Arizonasaurus): intercontinental giant archosaur migrations in the Middle Triassic tsunami-influenced carbonate intertidal mud flats of the European Germanic Basin

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Diedrich, Cajus
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	A remarkable Middle Triassic (Pelsonian, Anisian) fossil track site at Bernburg in Central Germany permits reconstruction of a tetrapod fauna at the point of recovery when early poposaur quadruped dinosaurs diversificated globally. The site has yielded numerous tetrapod and thousands of arthropod horseshoecrab tracks from several levels in intertidal biolaminites with intercalated storm and seismic-influenced carbonates. The tetrapod tracks, Procolophonichnium, Rhynchosauroides, Chirotherium, and Isochirotherium, are assigned to smaller Archosauromorpha and large Archosauria. The largest chirotheroid tracks Isochirotherium herculis (Egerton in Proc Geol Soc London 3:14–15, 1838) reach up to 350-mm-long pes sizes and 120-mm-long manus imprints. Those were most probably made by a 5-m-long poposauroid archosaur like Arizonasaurus, based on matching skeleton anatomy and trackways including a new three-dimensional model of those giants in locomotion. A first German poposauroid bone record is added herein with a scapula from shallow marine carbonates of similar Pelsonian ages. These crurotarsan archosaurs were at the top of their food chains globally, and fed most probably on smaller tetrapods (Hescheleria, Macrocnemus), the latter also represented well by long behavioural escaping Rhynchosauroides trackways. The smaller reptiles may have fed especially on “Millions” of horseshoecrab eggs in those arthropod reproduction seasons in the intertidal carbonate mud flats. Such tidal flats and sabkhas extended over hundreds of square kilometres surrounding the Germanic Basin in Central Europe in the Middle Triassic, representing a drastic change in the palaeoenvironment of central Pangaea, and a possible trigger for continuing diversification of archosauromorphs and eventually dinosaurs. The horseshoecrab reproduction seasons seem to have caused a food chain reaction along the southern Pangaean (northern Tethys) coast in carbonate mud flats between Northern America, Africa, Europe and China, with possibly long-distance migrations of poposauroids such as Arizonasaurus, whose bones were found in terrestrial to shallow marine carbonate deposits in terrest to coastal context.
Starting Page	229
Ending Page	252
Page Count	24
File Format	PDF
ISSN	08912556
Journal	Carbonates and Evaporites
Volume Number	30
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	18785212
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2015-03-06
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Isochirotherium Giant archosaur trackways Trackmaker Carbonate intertidal flats Tsunami influence Global migrations Geology Mineral Resources Mineralogy
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Geochemistry and Petrology

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Middle Triassic chirotherid trackways on earthquake influenced intertidal limulid reproduction flats of the European Germanic Basin coasts

Chirotherium trackways and feeding traces on seismic-influenced carbonate intertidals of the Middle Triassic of Central Europe: global food chain reactions onto horseshoe crab reproduction mud flat beaches of the Germanic Basin

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Isochirotherium trackways, their possible trackmakers (?Arizonasaurus): intercontinental giant archosaur migrations in the Middle Triassic tsunami-influenced carbonate intertidal mud flats of the European Germanic Basin

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