Re: Acrocanthosaurus in Utah?

[dis@gj.net]

anatomy@acl.nyit.edu wrote:
> 
> I heard that Acrocanthosaurus is now known from Utah. Can anyone provide me
> with any details or information on a relevant publication?
>       I have reported on it (SVP 1996, Abstracts) and I (and others) 
have more info coming out in an upcoming (this fall) Guidebook to the 
middle Cretaceous dinosaurs of Utah and Dave Gillette's book(s) on the 
vertebrate fossils of Utah. 
        The Guidebook is for the big GSA meeting in Salt Lake City in 
October and is being published as a BYU pub. and as such gives us the 
opportunity to name four new members of the Cedar Mountain Formation.
        The Yellow Cat Member is Barremian in age and preserves a fauna 
dominated by polacanthine ankylosaurs, Iguanodon, camarasaurids ans true 
titanosaurids.
        The Poison Strip Sandstone and overlying Ruby Ranch Member is 
Aptian-Albian in age with Pleurocoelus, Sauropelta, Tennontosaurus, and 
teeth comparible to Deinonychus. DeCourten reported on an 
Acrocanthosaurus from the Long Walk Quarry based on teeth and some 
postcrania (no verts.) The large teeth are clearly not like those of 
Acrocanthosaurus in having much coarser serrations. Recently Don Burge 
has found an isolated very large tooth exactly like those from the Texas 
and OK specimens of Acro. So we are now sure there are two large 
theropods in the Ruby Ranch.

        The Mussentuchit Member is very basal Cenomanian in age.  Rich 
Cifelli now lists a total of 80 vertebrate taxa from what he has 
described as the Mussentuchit local fauna. It preserves pretty much 
representatives of every dino family known from the later Cretaceous. We 
lose the Cloverly fauna except for tiny Sauropods and Dromaeosaurs and 
add in such things as Pachycephalosaurs, Ceratopsians, Lambeosaurines, 
and Tyrannosaurids. It dates the first land-bridge connection 
to Asia via Alaska. Obviously lots of new taxa. We have another new 
large dromaeosaur for example. The new little nodosaur Ken Carpenter and 
I have named Anamantarx (living fortress) ramaljonesi in a paper coming 
out this fall (Gillette vol.)

        The overlying Dakota Fm. (mid-upper Cenomanian) has a very 
similar fauna except lacking in Sauropods. (And stay tuned for our press 
release on the new dinosaur discoveries in the Middle Turonian, later 
this summer.)

        You might want to come on the field trip. It is a post meeting 
trip running Oct. 24-26 and cost $240. We will visit every major site in 
the Cedar Mountain, with several under active excavation, during the 
trip. There will also be opportunties to see some of the collections.

Jim Kirkland
Dinamation Int'l Society