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Uncommon preservation of dinosaur footprints in a tidal breccia: Eubrontes giganteus from the Early Jurassic Mongisty tracksite of Aveyron, southern France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2021

Jean-David Moreau Open the ORCID record for Jean-David Moreau [Opens in a new window] ,
Jacques Sciau ,
Georges Gand  and
Emmanuel Fara
Jean-David Moreau*
Affiliation:
Biogéosciences, UMR 6282 CNRS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 6 Boulevard Gabriel, 21000Dijon, France
Jacques Sciau
Affiliation:
Association Paléontologique des Causses, 643, avenue Kennedy, 12100Millau, France
Georges Gand
Affiliation:
Biogéosciences, UMR 6282 CNRS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 6 Boulevard Gabriel, 21000Dijon, France
Emmanuel Fara
Affiliation:
Biogéosciences, UMR 6282 CNRS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 6 Boulevard Gabriel, 21000Dijon, France
*
Author for correspondence: Jean-David Moreau, Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

A recent excavation yielded 118 large tridactyl footprints in the Lower Jurassic Dolomitic Formation of the Causses Basin, at Mongisty in southern France. Most of the tracks are ascribed to Eubrontes giganteus Hitchcock, 1845. They are preserved on a surface of 53 m2 and form parallel rows with a preferential orientation towards the north. Such an abundance and density of E. giganteus is observed for the first time in the Early Jurassic from the Causses Basin. Sedimentological and ichnotaphonomical analyses show that the footprints were made at different time intervals, thus excluding the passage of a large group. In contrast to all other tracksites from the Dolomitic Formation, where tracks are preserved in fine-grained sediments corresponding to low-energy depositional palaeoenvironments, the tracks from Mongisty are preserved in coarse-grained sediment which is a matrix- to clast-supported breccia. Clasts consist of angular to sub-rounded, millimetric to centimetric-scale (up to 2 cm), poorly sorted, randomly oriented, homogeneous dolostone intraclasts floating in a dolomudstone matrix. Sedimentological analysis shows that the depositional environments of Mongisty varied from subtidal to intertidal/supratidal settings in a large and protected flat marsh. The lithology of the track-bearing surfaces indicates that the mudflat of the Causses Basin was sporadically affected by large mud flows that reworked and redeposited mudstone intraclasts coming from the erosion of upstream, dry and partially lithified mud beds. Throughout the world, this type of preservation of dinosaur tracks in tidal matrix- to clast-supported breccias remains rare.

Keywords

theropod footprintsEubrontesLower JurassicHettangianCausses BasinAveyron
Type
Original Article
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 158 , Issue 8 , August 2021 , pp. 1403 - 1420
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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