Re: Sonorasaurus

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 09:01 PM 6/23/98 -0700, William Gibson Parker wrote:

>> "Middle" (really late Early) K brachiosaurids are hardly a new discovery:
>> Astrodon (aka Pleurocoelus), from the late Early K of Maryland, was known
>> long before Brachiosaurus!  Furthermore, some of the Aptian-Albian sauropod
>> material from northern Africa has been ascribed to brachiosaurids.

>> 
>What I meant was that Sonorasaurus is from the Albian in North America.
>This is the first sauropod of this age found in N. America, correct?

No.  Astrodon/Pleurocoelus is from the upper Aptian/lower Albian (the
Hauterivian-Varremian age was disproved based on pollen and other analyses);
the Paluxy trackways are the same age; and in 1970 Ostrom described sauropod
material from the Cloverly, also the same age.

>Anyways it is a significant find and
>judging from the response I've been getting from the post many people seem
>to wish the description was more accessible rather than in a journal which
>usually never deals much with dinosaurs.

That is indeed true, but occurs a lot in paleo in general.  After all,
regional societies and museums do justifiably want to have important papers
presented in their own journals, too.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661