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A Dinosaur Ichnocoenosis from the Waterberg Plateau \(Etjo Formation

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A Dinosaur Ichnocoenosis from the Waterberg Plateau \(Etjo Formation Ichnos An International Journal for Plant and Animal Traces ISSN: 1042-0940 (Print) 1563-5236 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gich20 A Dinosaur Ichnocoenosis from the Waterberg Plateau (Etjo Formation, Lower Jurassic), Namibia Alexander Wagensommer, Marianna Latiano, Helke B. Mocke, Simone D'Orazi Porchetti & Ansgar Wanke To cite this article: Alexander Wagensommer, Marianna Latiano, Helke B. Mocke, Simone D'Orazi Porchetti & Ansgar Wanke (2016) A Dinosaur Ichnocoenosis from the Waterberg Plateau (Etjo Formation, Lower Jurassic), Namibia, Ichnos, 23:3-4, 312-321 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10420940.2016.1168739 Published online: 06 Sep 2016. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gich20 Download by: [Nipissing University] Date: 07 September 2016, At: 19:55 ICHNOS 2016, VOL. 23, NOS. 3–4, 312–321 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10420940.2016.1168739 A Dinosaur Ichnocoenosis from the Waterberg Plateau (Etjo Formation, Lower Jurassic), Namibia Alexander Wagensommera, Marianna Latianoa, Helke B. Mockeb, Simone D’Orazi Porchettic, and Ansgar Wanked aDinosaur Footprint Research Group, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy; bGeological Survey of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia; cUniversity of Sao Paulo, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Humanities at Ribeirao Preto, Department of Biology, Ribeirao Preto, SP, Brazil; dDepartment of Geology, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia ABSTRACT KEYWORDS About a hundred dinosaur tracks, mostly preserved as isolated footprints, have been recorded at a Dinosaur footprints single site within the borders of the Waterberg National Park, Otjozondjupa Region, north-central Waterberg Plateau; Namibia; Namibia. They are found in an interdune setting within the Lower Jurassic Etjo Formation and Etjo Formation; Early Jurassic; represent medium-sized theropods with slender digits and high projection of digit three. From an tridactyl dinosaur tracks ichnotaxonomic point of view, the Namibian tracks are intermediate in morphology between Grallator (which is known to occur at other localities within the same Etjo Formation) and Anchisauripus, being otherwise in a size range that is usually considered typical for the latter ichnotaxon or even for Eubrontes. The Waterberg tracks do not match the allometric growth model proposed by Olsen et al. (1998) for the Early Jurassic theropod track assemblage of the North American Connecticut Valley, and they highlight the difficulties of consistently discriminating between theropod ichnotaxa in the Grallator-Anchisauripus-Eubrontes plexus. The Waterberg ichnosite adds important data to our understanding of the ichnological diversity of the Etjo Formation, raising to three the dinosaur localities in Namibia with revised and updated ichnofaunas. The dinosaur ichnofauna from Namibia, of which the Waterberg tracksite is a basic component, shows high ichnotaxonomic similarity with coeval assemblages from the northern hemisphere. This points to an overall homogeneity of the global ichnofaunistic composition, even at lower latitudes. Introduction to hyper-arid paleoenvironments. In all cases, dinosaur The presence of dinosaur footprints in the Waterberg tracks are found in interdune settings and represent Plateau has been known for decades (Cosburn, 1980, small to medium bipedal dinosaurs. So far, no quadrupe- 1990; Pickford, 1994, 1995), albeit a detailed description dal trackways have been found. The Etjo ichnofauna and interpretation of these ichnites has never been reveals a strong overall resemblance to coeval ichnoas- attempted so far. The importance of this site is both sci- semblages from North America, pointing to a relatively entific and historical, as it is one of the few windows on homogeneous distribution of trackmakers in the Early the Early Jurassic vertebrate life of this region and a sig- Jurassic. A comparison with the geographically closer nificant addition to the ichnological record from the Etjo and coeval ichnofauna of Lesotho (Ellenberger, 1972, Formation, which has a long research history dating 1974; Olsen and Galton, 1984; Smith et al., 2009) is not back to the first decades of the 20th century (Huene, attempted herein, as the ichnotaxonomy of this assem- 1925;Gurich,€ 1926) and is recognized by the Namibian blage needs to be revised. A major problem is that the government as part of the natural and cultural heritage monumental pioneering work of Ellenberger focused of the country. The whole Namibian dinosaur track mainly on somehow defining idealized track types with- record is in the process of being reevaluated in a series of out assessing their morphological ranges. This makes works that focus on the occurrences in the Waterberg any comparison with other occurrences problematic. range, such as the Omuramba Omambonde tracksite Being inside the borders of the Waterberg National (D’Orazi Porchetti et al., 2015) and the historical occur- Park, and being one of the few dinosaur records from rence at the Otjihaenamaparero 92 Farm (Wagen- Namibia, the Waterberg Plateau tracksite should be con- sommer et al., 2016). All these tracksites occur in the sidered part of a potential paleontological heritage system, Etjo Formation, a Lower Jurassic unit representing arid and as such, it deserves to be protected and promoted. CONTACT Alexander Wagensommer [email protected] Gruppo di Ricerca sulle Impronte di Dinosauri, Via Santa Rita 4, 71013 San Giovanni Rotondo, (FG), Italy. © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ICHNOS 313 Geological framework well-sorted, massive sandstone interbedded with thin pebbly gravel layers. The Middle Unit is dominated by The Großer Waterberg is a large plateau in the Otjo- massive and homogeneous sandstone beds and reaches a zondjupa Region, north-central Namibia, which reaches thickness of about ten meters in the Waterberg area. The a maximum height of 1885 meters in the area of the Upper Unit is dominant in terms of thickness, being Waterberg National Park (Fig. 1). Its reddish, vertical about 100 meters thick on the northern part of the cliffs originate from erosive processes of the Etjo and Waterberg. Cross-bedded sandstone is the dominant fea- underlying Omingonde formations. The Etjo Formation ture of this member of the Etjo Formation, testifying to forms the high and steep walls at the top of the plateau, the presence of a large erg (Holzforster€ et al., 1999; reaching a maximum thickness of about 140 meters in Wanke, 2000)(Fig. 2A). outcrop (Wanke, 2000), while the more erodible mud- Footprints have been found on a flat surface (Fig. 2B), stones of the Omingonde Formation (Lower to Middle exposed over a few hundred square meters, moderately Triassic) form the gentle slopes of the Waterberg and are to highly weathered, depending on the sectors. Dinotur- mostly covered by debris. The two formations are sepa- bation occurred on a package of thin parallel sandstone rated by a sharp erosive contact thought to represent a layers, interpreted here as an interdune deposit. Above hiatus of about 35 myr (Smith and Swart, 2002). The Pla- the printed surface, columnar remains of cross-bedded teau stretches along a northeast-southwest line, bordered sandstone are preserved, which are similar to those to the north by the Omaruru-Waterberg fault. The Etjo observed at the Omuramba Omambonde tracksite Formation is dominated by siliciclastic rocks, deposited (Wiechmann, 1983; Grote, 1984;D’Orazi Porchetti et al., in semi-arid to hyper-arid environments. It has been 2015)(Fig. 2C,D). They represent the remnants of a divided into three informal members (Lower, Middle, dune deposit that eventually covered the track-bearing and Upper Units) by Holzforster€ et al. (1999), who dis- interdune surface. Here at the Waterberg tracksite, as tinguish three main depositional phases with increasing well as at the Omuramba Omambonde locality, the foot- aridity. The Lower Unit is represented by 25 meters of print-bearing layer belongs to the uppermost member of Figure 1. Geographic location of the dinosaur tracksite at the Waterberg Plateau (red star). Base map generated in GeoMapApp (http:// www.geomapapp.org). 314 A. WAGENSOMMER ET AL. Figure 2. A. The steep cliffs of the Etjo Formation as visible from the Waterberg Plateau Campsite. A large talus hides the contact with the Omingonde Formation, densely covered by vegetation. B. North to South view of the track-bearing surface. The surface is better pre- served on the left side of the photograph, where large blocks of cross-bedded sandstone are visible. C. Detail of the first-order contact between the trampled surface, interdune, and cross-bedded strata of a dune. Hammer in the centre of the photograph (white circle) for scale. D. One tridactyl footprint is highlighted here in order to show the quality of preservation. Delamination is visible around the foot- print itself. Difference in color depends on the presence of sand inside the digit traces, removed before shooting. The scale is set on 20 cm. the Etjo Formation (Fig. 3A), and these two sites can be However, the surface appears to be medium-to-highly correlated stratigraphically. The historical Otjihaenama- trampled, according to the dinoturbation index proposed parero 92 locality, which is discussed in detail elsewhere by Lockely (1991). Selected tracks have been reproduced (Wagensommer et al., 2016), is more difficult to relate in on transparent peels, photographed,
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