Compton Bay foreshore (Cretaceous of the United Kingdom)

Where: England, United Kingdom (50.7° N, 1.5° W: paleocoordinates 40.7° N, 9.6° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Wessex Formation (Wealden Group), Barremian (129.4 - 125.0 Ma)

• At this locality, the upper Wessex Formation of the Wealden Group is exposed above a small fault, down throwing the younger and overlying Vectis Formation against the Wessex Formation. The plant debris bed yielding the specimens lies west of the fault and occurs below the boundary of the Wessex-Vectis formations.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: wet floodplain; pyritic mudstone and sandstone

• PDBs are thought to represent locally generated debris flows, collecting in depressions on the floodplain (Sweetman and Insole, 2010). Wright et al. (2000) conclude they are a result of stagnant to periodically oxygenated ponds, or billabongs, acting as local refugia for animals during droughts.
• The attached matrix indicates they derive from a pyrite-rich plant debris. The non-marine Wessex Formation is comprised of a succession of variegated and oxidized overbank mudstones, some having undergone long periods of pedogenesis (Wright et al., 2000; Robinson et al., 2002). Alluvial sandstones and plant debris beds (PDBs) are intermittent throughout the sequence (Stewart, 1981; Radley, 1994; Sweetman et al., 2014). Plant debris beds (PDBs) occur as laterally discrete and well-defined beds with abundant plant material and irregular nodules of siderite and pyrite.

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by Mick Green, Nick Chase in 2004

Collection methods: surface (in situ),

• collected from the Wessex Formation at Compton Bay, Isle of Wight, by Mr Mick Green of Brighstone, IOW, and Mr Nick Chase

Primary reference: N. R. Longrich, D. M. Martill, and M. L. Jacobs. 2022. A new dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Wessex Formation (Lower Cretaceous, Barremian) of the Isle of Wight, and implications for European palaeobiogeography. Cretaceous Research 134:105123 [P. Mannion/G. Varnham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 225020: authorized by Philip Mannion, entered by Grace Varnham on 20.04.2022

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Theropoda - Dromaeosauridae
Vectiraptor greeni n. gen. n. sp.
Vectiraptor greeni n. gen. n. sp. Longrich et al. 2022 maniraptoran
Holotype: IWCMS 2021.31.1-3; IWCMS 2021.31.2, anterior dorsal vertebra, IWCMS 2021.31.1, posterior dorsal vertebra, and IWCMS 2021.31.3 partial sacrum