Victoria West District: Artinskian, South Africa
List of taxa
Where & when
Geology
Taphonomy & methods
Metadata & references
Taxonomic list
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Mesosauridae
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Noteosaurus africanus n. gen., n. sp.
Broom 1913
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1 individual | |||||||||
| SAM 2358 (type); originally entered as "Mesosauridae sp." along with the note that the specimen was formerly referred to as Noteosaurus africanus, which is now considered a nomen dubium; entry changed after authority and opinion data on "Noteosaurus" and "Noteosaurus africanus" were entered | ||||||||||
| see common names | ||||||||||
Geography
| Country: | South Africa | State/province: | Northern Cape | County: | Victoria West (Ubuntu) |
| Coordinates: | 31.4° South, 23.1° East (view map) | ||||
| Paleocoordinates: | 62.5° South, 47.6° West (Wright 2013) | ||||
| Basis of coordinate: | based on nearby landmark | ||||
| Geographic resolution: | small collection |
Time
| Period: | Permian | Epoch: | Cisuralian |
| Stage: | Artinskian | 10 m.y. bin: | Permian 2 |
| *Period: | Early/Lower Permian | *Epoch: | Rotliegendes - Rotliegendes |
| Key time interval: | Artinskian | ||
| Age range of interval: | 290.1 - 283.3 m.y. ago | ||
| * legacy (obsolete) database fields | |||
Stratigraphy
| Geological group: | Ecca | Formation: | Whitehill | ||
| Stratigraphic resolution: | bed | ||||
| Stratigraphy comments: Stratigraphic range originally entered as >>Rotliegend<<.
The name "Dwyka", formerly applied to the Permo-Carboniferous glacial deposits als well as to the shales directly overlying them ("Upper Shales" = Prince Albert and Whitehill Formations; cf., e. g., Chapter VII "The Karroo System" in Rogers & Du Toit, 1909, An Introduction to the Geology of Cape Colony, 2nd ed.; Catuneanu et al., 2005, J. Afr. Earth Sci. 43), now is exclusively restricted to the glacial deposits and all the overlying shales are entirely included in the Ecca Group (Catuneanu et al., 2005 fig. 2). Also, Broom (1909 in Rogers & Du Toit) and later Oelofsen & Araujo (1987, S. Afr. J. Sci. 83) say that the occurrence of mesosaurs in South Africa is exclusively restricted to the Whitehill Formation ("the White Band") of the Ecca Group. Thus, the type locality of Noteosaururus africanus is tentatively assigned to the Whitehill Formation in the present collection record. Radiometric ages of the Collinson Fm. (overlying the Whitehill Fm.) vary between 270 and 275 Ma (Turner, 1999, J. Afr. Earth Sci. 28(1); Fildani et al., 2007 J. Sedim. Res. 77), and radiometric ages of the basal beds of the Prince Albert Fm. (underlying the Whitehill Fm.) vary between 293 and 285 Ma (Bangert et al., 1999, J. Afr. Earth Sci. 29(1)), implying an Artinskian age for the Whitehill Fm. (see time scales of Gradstein et al. (2004) and Ogg et al. (2008)). Radiometric dating within the Whitehill Fm. of southern Namibia (Werner, 2006, PhD thesis, http://www.opus-bayern.de/uni-wuerzburg/volltexte/2007/2175/pdf/00-Complete_thesis-STD.pdf) corroborates an assigment to the Artinskian. | |||||
Lithology and environment
| Primary lithology: | not reported | ||
| Lithology description: not reported but probably a dark, whitish weathering shale | |||
| Environment: | marine indet. | Tectonic setting: | foreland basin |
| Geology comments: There is no consensus about the true nature (lacustrine/brackish/fully marine) of the water body in which the mesosaurs lived. The environment is tentatively chosen to have been marine. | |||
Taphonomy
| Modes of preservation: | mold/impression |
| Size of fossils: | macrofossils |
| Preservation of anatomical detail: | variable |
| Temporal resolution: | time-averaged |
| Spatial resolution: | autochthonous |
Collection methods and comments
| Collection methods: | survey of museum collection |
| Reason for describing collection: | taxonomic analysis |
| Collection method comments: SAM = South African Museum, Cape Town | |
| Taxonomic list comments:Two other mesosaurid taxa are present in the "Dwyka Formation", Mesosaurus tenuidens, and Stereosternum tumidum (otherwise known from South America). Specific localities are not indicated. | |
Metadata
| Also known as: | ("Dwyka Formation") Karoo, Karroo | ||
| Database number: | 13083 | ||
| Authorizer: | J. Alroy | Enterer: | R. Whatley |
| Modifier: | E. Dunne | Research group: | vertebrate |
| Created: | 2002-01-18 16:09:01 | Last modified: | 2025-02-22 15:12:02 |
| Access level: | the public | Released: | 2002-01-18 16:09:01 |
| Creative Commons license: | CC0 | ||
Reference information
Primary reference:
| 4307. | 5% 8500 | S. P. Modesto. 1996. Noteosaurus africanus Broom is a nomen dubium. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 16(1):172-174 [J. Alroy/R. Whatley/J. Alroy] |