Tikhi Metoposaur bonebed (Triassic to of India)

Where: Madhya Pradesh, India (23.9° N, 81.4° E: paleocoordinates 35.1° S, 44.2° E)

• coordinate stated in text

When: Tiki Formation, Carnian to Carnian (237.0 - 208.5 Ma)

Environment/lithology: wet floodplain; limestone and mudstone

• The metre scale-thick laminated red and white mudstone suggests an amalgamated deposition of mud in a floodplain setting where ephemeral lakes/ponds, splay, short-lived flooding occurred both temporally and spatially...rapid deposition during short-lived floods in small, shallow, ephemeral channels and adjoining floodplains during overbank flooding.
• Trough cross-bedded calcirudite unit (calcirudite II) and the overlying mudstone up to a level of 0.3 m in thickness. The new bonebed encompassing the trough cross-bedded calcirudite unit and immediately overlying mudstone was formed under two distinctly different processes involving deposition of the eroded palaeosols during a flooding event by localised and high energy drainage, followed by deposition of fine clastics from suspension in stagnant water after the recession of floodwater

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Collection methods: A new bonebed (BB I) encompassing a total area of 1947 m2 is identified based on surface indicators such as small fragmentary fossil remains. The fossils are mainly recovered from two sites (I and II) within this bonebed, which are of about 700 m2 and 300 m2, respectively, and spatially separated by a distance of about 35 m. The region between the two sites is partially destroyed and the bonebed is completely exposed by natural and anthropogenic activities.

Primary reference: N. Rakshit and S. Ray. 2020. Mortality dynamics and fossilisation pathways of a new metoposaurid-dominated multitaxic bonebed from India: a window into the Late Triassic vertebrate palaeoecosystem. Historical Biology [B. Gee/B. Gee]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 218155: authorized by Bryan Gee, entered by Bryan Gee on 19.02.2021

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Amphibia
 Temnospondyli - Metoposauridae
Metoposauridae indet.
Metoposauridae indet. Watson 1919 tetrapod
at least 655 specimens (reposited at Indian Institute of Technology)
Reptilia
 Rhynchosauria - Rhynchosauridae
Hyperodapedon tikiensis
Hyperodapedon tikiensis Mukherjee and Ray 2015 rhynchosaur
at least 20 specimens
 Phytosauria -
Phytosauria indet.
Phytosauria indet. archosaur
at least 52 specimens
Bivalvia
 Unionida -
Tihkia sp.
Tihkia sp. Sahni and Tewari 1958 clam