Dogsthorpe brick pit (bed 10): Middle Callovian, United Kingdom
collected 1980-1990

List of taxa
Where & when
Geology
Taphonomy & methods
Metadata & references
Taxonomic list
Cephalopoda
Cephalopoda indet. Cuvier 1797
Martill 1986
Cephalopod hooklets
Cephalopoda - Ammonitida - Kosmoceratidae
Chancellor and Duff 1991
Cephalopoda
Martill 1986 1 specimen
Fragment of guard
Reptilia - Metriorhynchidae
Metriorhynchus sp. von Meyer 1830
1 individual
LEIUG 90985, partial skeleton with stomach contents
Martill 1986 2 specimens
Hollow bones, possibly wing-phalanges
    = ? Metriorhynchus sp. von Meyer 1830
Unwin 1996
"Probably belonged to the crocodile"
Reptilia - Plesiosauria - Pliosauridae
Chancellor and Duff 1991 1 specimen
PETMG R188, 'The Dogsthorpe pliosaur' skeleton
Ketchum and Benson 2010
PETMG R188 referred to Simolestes vorax in Appendix 2
see common names

Geography
Country:United Kingdom State/province:England County:Cambridgeshire
Coordinates: 52.6° North, 0.2° West (view map)
Paleocoordinates:36.0° North, 18.6° East (Wright 2013)
Basis of coordinate:stated in text
Geographic resolution:small collection
Time
Period: Jurassic Epoch: Middle Jurassic
Stage: Callovian 10 m.y. bin: Jurassic 5
Key time interval: Middle Callovian Ammonoid zone:  Kosmoceras jason
Age range of interval: 165.3 - 161.5 m.y. ago
Stratigraphy
Geological group:Ancholme Formation:Oxford Clay Member:Peterborough
Local section:Peterborough Local bed:10
Local order:bottom to top
Stratigraphic resolution:group of beds
Stratigraphy comments: "The specimen lay mainly within bed 10, but also within bed 11 of the Jason Zone and Subzone of the Lower Oxford Clay"
Lithology and environment
Primary lithology:gray carbonaceous mudstone
Secondary lithology: "limestone"
Includes fossils?Y
Includes fossils?Y
Lithology description: bed 10 is a fissile bituminous shale, bed 11 is a Gryphaea shell bed "The Lower Oxford Clay is composed predominantly of organic-rich mudstones that on exposure rapidly develop a shale-like fissility" (Hudson & Martill 1991, p. 20-21)
Environment:offshore indet.
Geology comments: "accumulated in a wide, shallow (30–50 m deep) epeiric sea"
Taphonomy
Modes of preservation:body,shellbed
Size of fossils:macrofossils
Associated major elements:all
Collection methods and comments
Collection methods:salvage,selective quarrying,mechanical,field collection
Reason for describing collection:paleoecologic analysis
Collection dates:1980s-1990
Collection method comments: LEIUG 90985: University of Leicester, Department of Geology
PETMG, The Peterborough Museum, Peterborough, United Kingdom
Metadata
Also known as:Shanks & McEwan Waste Services Ltd. Peterborough
Database number:92051
Authorizer:R. Butler, R. Benson Enterer:R. Butler, R. Benson
Modifier:M. Carrano Research group:vertebrate
Created:2009-10-28 03:00:45 Last modified:2025-02-22 15:12:02
Access level:the public Released:2009-10-28 03:00:45
Creative Commons license:CC0
Reference information

Primary reference:
47746. D. M. Martill. 1986. The stratigraphic distribution and preservation of fossil vertebrates in the Oxford Clay of England. Mercian Geologist 10(3):161-186 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano]

Secondary references:

43324 G. Chancellor and K. Duff. 1991. The Dogsthorpe Pliosaur 1-10 [R. Benson/R. Benson]
38105 H. F. Ketchum and R. B. J. Benson. 2010. Global interrelationships of Plesiosauria (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) and the pivotal role of taxon sampling in determining the outcome of phylogenetic analyses. Biological Reviews 85:361-392 [R. Benson/R. Benson]
30973 D. M. Martill. 1986. The diet of Metriorhynchus, a Mesozoic marine crocodile. Neues Jahrbuch für Geoogie und Paläontologie Monatshefte 1986:621-625 [R. Butler/R. Butler]
46063 D. M. Martill and J. D. Hudson. 1991. Fossils of the Oxford Clay 1-286 [R. Benson/R. Benson/R. Benson]
30893 D. M. Unwin. 1996. The fossil record of Middle Jurassic pterosaurs. In M. Morales (ed.), The Continental Jurassic, Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 60:291-304 [R. Butler/R. Butler]