Ardley Quarry tracksite (Jurassic to of the United Kingdom)

Where: England, United Kingdom (51.9° N, 1.2° W: paleocoordinates 41.6° N, 9.1° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Shipton Member (White Limestone Formation), Middle Bathonian to Middle Bathonian (167.7 - 164.7 Ma)

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: lagoonal or restricted shallow subtidal; burrowed, shelly/skeletal, gray wackestone and shelly/skeletal, gray wackestone

• "Bed 1, Footprint Bed (0·2 – 0·3 m exposed): Pale grey micritic limestone containing peloids and bioclastic debris (mostly bivalve shell fragments) and moulds of aragonitic bivalves and gastropods. Comparison with the section formerly exposed in the quarry (approximately 1 km to the north; Palmer 1973) suggests that Bed 1 is probably about 1 m thick in total. The surface has an irregular low hummocky topography and is capped by a strongly burrowed omission surface (Planolites burrows) overlain by darker grey contrasting bioclastic arenite which also infills burrows. Bed 1 forms the floor of much of the present

•Ardley excavation. Bed 2 (0·2 m): Firm grey coarse bioclastic limestone, passing upwards into marly limestone. At the base,

•lenses of coarser material containing lignite fragments infill the prints inset into the underlying bed. The

•bed contains numerous regular echinoids of the genus Acrosalenia, some of which retain spines on the surface of the test, and many slightly abraded oysters (Praeexogyra hebridica). Brachiopods and vertebrate remains (crocodile teeth, scales and teeth of the fish Lepidotes spp., and shark and ray teeth) are also present, but rare. Deep burrowing bivalves of the genus Pholadomya are preserved in life position in their burrows."

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: cast, mold/impression, trace

Primary reference: J. J. Day, A. C. Burton, and D. B. Norman. 2000. New Middle Jurassic dinosaur trackways from Oxfordshire, UK. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 20(3 (suppl.)):38A [M. Carrano/M. Carrano]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 53512: authorized by Matthew Carrano, entered by Matthew Carrano on 10.09.2005

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Gastropoda
  -
Gastropoda indet. Cuvier 1795 snail
Bivalvia
  -
Bivalvia indet. Linnaeus 1758 clam
Reptilia
 Theropoda - Eubrontidae
Megalosauripus sp. Lessertisseur 1955 theropod
 Saurischia -
Titanosauriformes indet. Salgado et al. 1997 sauropod
 Ichnofossils -
Planolites sp. Nicholson 1873