Ashwell (reworked) (Cretaceous of the United Kingdom)

Where: England, United Kingdom (52.0° N, 0.2° W: paleocoordinates 40.4° N, 2.6° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Cambridge Greensand Member (West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation), Late/Upper Albian (105.3 - 99.6 Ma)

• Remanie fauna - reworked from late Albian into early Cenomanian deposits. Faunal assemblage is late Albian in age (age used here). "Although the deposit itself is generally considered to be of late Cretaceous, Cenomanian age, its macrofossil assemblage is thought to be derived largely from the underlying early Cretaceous, Albian, Gault Formation, on the basis of derived ammonites associated with the vertebrate fossils. An early Cenomanian age for deposition of the Cambridge Greensand is based on an apparently autochthonous foraminiferan assemblage, but Morter and Wood (1983) could not rule out the possibility of a very late Albian age due to the presence of the bivalve Aucinella. The age of the derived vertebrates is now considered to be no older than the Callihoplites auritus ammonite subzone and most likely no younger than upper Stoliczkaia dispar Zone, and they are thus of late Albian age." (Martill & Unwin 2011, Cretaceous Research, 10.1016/j.cretres.2011.09.003).

• member-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: open shallow subtidal; lag, glauconitic, micaceous, nodular, phosphatic, green, silty marl

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: replaced with phosphate

Collected by Farren, Fordham in the 1800s

Collection methods: salvage,

• CAMSM: Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge

Primary reference: H. G. Seeley. 1869. Index to the Fossil Remains of Aves, Ornithosauria, and Reptilia, from the Secondary System of Strata, Arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge. Deighton, Bell, and Co, Cambridge 1-143 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano/M. Uhen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 94253: authorized by Richard Butler, entered by Richard Butler on 15.02.2010, edited by Matthew Carrano

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• Originally listed by Seeley as "Ornithosauria"; however, all Cambridge Greensand material appears to represent pterodactyloids (Unwin 2001)
Reptilia
 Ichthyosauria - Ophthalmosauridae
"Ichthyosaurus campylodon" = Pervushovisaurus campylodon
"Ichthyosaurus campylodon" = Pervushovisaurus campylodon Carter 1846 ichthyosaur
teeth, vertebrae, fragmentary bones
 Pterosauria -
Pterosauria indet., Pterodactyloidea indet., "Ornithocheirus machaerorhynchus n. sp." = Lonchodectes machaerorhynchus
Pterosauria indet. pterosaur
humerus, "group C" (Hooley)
Pterodactyloidea indet. pterosaur
CAMSM "series 8 & 33"
"Ornithocheirus machaerorhynchus n. sp." = Lonchodectes machaerorhynchus Seeley 1864 pterosaur
CAMSM B54855, partial mandibular symphysis
 Plesiosauria -
Polyptychodon sp. Owen 1841 plesiosaur
teeth
"Plesiosaurus" sp. de la Beche and Conybeare 1821 plesiosaur
vertebrae
Actinopteri
 Pycnodontiformes - Gyrodontidae
Gyrodus sp. Agassiz 1833
 Pachycormiformes - Pachycormidae
Protosphyraena ferox Leidy 1857
"recorded as 'Saurocephalus lanciformis Ag.'"
Chondrichthyes
 Chimaeriformes - Edaphodontidae
Edaphodon sp. Buckland 1838 chimaera
fragments
 Lamniformes - Otodontidae
"Lamna appendiculata" = Cretalamna appendiculata
"Lamna appendiculata" = Cretalamna appendiculata Agassiz 1835 mackerel shark
teeth, vertebrae