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Forwarded: Re: Discoveries



I sent the following message to Ray McAllister, but he suggested that I 
should send it to the whole group.  I have answered several individual 
requests for more info as well....so here is a little more on the tracks.

> tell 
>us more about the trackway; age, details of the tracks, anything special 
>or unusual, are there more back under the cliffs?

I expect that there will be more in the cliffs, but I'm not going to 
look. I'll wait until the rocks come to me (or at least slide down to the 
beach).  It took me four days to make a crack in the rock using pneumatic 
drills, rock saws, and sledgehammers.  I would hate to think how long it 
would take to work at the cliff!  The rock I was working on was only 
about 1.5 metres square of bedded bioclastic sandstone.  The tracks are 
similar to the Triassic/Lower Jurassic trackways of Connecticut and are 
not known from the UK as far as I know.  I will need to do a little bit 
of research though, but this kind of track appears to be restricted to 
the Lower Jurassic and Triassic.  The Scottish find is in rocks of Middle 
Jurassic.  When added to other evidence from the same horizon, it becomes 
even more interesting as I have found a tail bone that is identical to 
the tail bone of _Coelophysis_ which is also from the Triassic.  I Have 
looked at a very large number of dinosaur tails and have not found any 
with similar structures except _Coelophysis_.  The tracks in Connecticut 
are thought to have been produced by a _Coelophysis_-like dinosaur too.  
So what is happening in the US during the Late Triassic/Lower Jurassic is 
happening in Scotland in the Middle Jurassic!

I hope to find out more though....and soon.

Neil