Cerro la Isla (Cretaceous of Chile)

Where: Atacama, Chile (27.4° S, 69.5° W: paleocoordinates 26.2° S, 34.0° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Quebrada Monardes Formation, Berriasian (145.0 - 139.8 Ma)

• Probably Berriasian based on Martínez et al. (2015 [see Alarcón-Muñoz et al. 2020])

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: "floodplain"; conglomeratic sandstone and mudstone

• "Intra-arc extensional basin. The fault-bounded basin formed a deep, but narrow, north-south elongated trough within an andesitic volcanic chain. Warm and arid climate with a low and seasonal rainfall. Intermontane desert basin flanked by volcanoes and floored by dune fields, saline lakes, mudflats, alluvial fans and floodplains. The pterosaur horizon is interpreted as the traction and debris-flow deposits of a rapidly flowing sheet of water. Represents an exceptional flood event"
• "The pterosaur horizon fines upward from cross-bedded pebbly sandstone and intraclast breccia at the base to parallel-bedded mudstone at the top. The base is an irregular erosion surface cut 50 cm or more into the underlying sediments. There is no distinctive basal lag gravel"

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by Larry Marshall, Michael Bell, Patricia Salinas and Manuel Suárez in 1988

Primary reference: C. M. Bell and M. Suarez. 1989. Vertebrate fossils and trace fossils in Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous red beds in the Atacama region, Chile. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 2(4):351-357 [P. Mannion/J. Tennant/J. Tennant]more details

Purpose of describing collection: paleoecologic analysis

PaleoDB collection 92314: authorized by Richard Butler, entered by Richard Butler on 06.11.2009, edited by Matthew Carrano and Philip Mannion

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Gnathostomata
  -
Osteichthyes indet.
Osteichthyes indet. bony fish
scales
Reptilia
 Dinosauria -
Dinosauria indet.2
Dinosauria indet.2 Owen 1842 dinosaur
 Ornithischia - Iguanodontidae
Iguanodontidae indet.
Iguanodontidae indet. Bonaparte 1850 iguanodontid
caudal vertebra
 Saurischia -
Sauropoda indet.
Sauropoda indet. sauropod
partial ulna or fibula
 Loricata -
Mesoeucrocodylia indet.1
Mesoeucrocodylia indet.1 Whetstone and Whybrow 1983 crocodilian
1Bajor et al. 2022; 2Bell and Padian 1995