Geo log i cal Quar terly, 2001, 45 (2): 205–210
New ornithischian di no saur foot prints in the Ju ras sic of Po land
Gerard GIERLIŃSKI, Elżbieta GAŹDZICKA, Grzegorz NIEDŹWIEDZKI and Grzegorz PIEŃKOWSKI
Gierliński G., Gaździcka E., Niedźwiedzki G. and Pieńkowski G. (2001) — New ornithischian di no saur foot prints in the Ju ras sic of Po - land. Geol. Quart., 45 (2): 205–210. Warszawa.
New strati graphic ho ri zons with the ornithischian foot prints have been found in cen tral Po land. Basal thyreophoran ichnites are re ported from the mid dle Hettangian Skłoby For ma tion of Gromadzice. They sup port the pre vi ous con clu sion that small and me dium-sized Early Ju ras sic ornithischians pre ferred a coastal hab i tat with low-rise veg e ta tion. An other find, an ornithopod foot print, came from the early Kimmeridgian Głowaczów For ma tion of Ożarów quarry. The track was dis cov ered within the shal low-marine suc ces sion of cal car e ous de pos its, which con trib utes to the in ter pre ta tion of synsedimentary emersion of that area dur ing the early Kimmeridgian.
Gerard Gierliński, Elżbieta Gaździcka and Grzegorz Pieńkowski, Pol ish Geo log i cal In sti tute, Rakowiecka 4, PL-00-975 Warszawa, Po - land, e-mail: gpie@pgi.waw.pl; Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, Piotrowice 91/5, PL 23-107 Strzyżewice, Po land, e-mail:
GrzegorzNiedzwiedzki@poczta.net-line.pl (re ceived: Feb ru ary 14, 2001; ac cepted: March 8, 2001).
Key words: Po land, Hettangian, Kimmeridgian, Ornithischia, di no saurs, foot prints.
INTRODUCTION
The larg est ornithischian track as sem blage in Po land is known from the late Hettangian coastal bar rier-lagoon de pos its of Gliniany Las (Gierliński and Potemska, 1987; Gierliński, 1991, 1999; Gierliński and Pieńkowski, 1999). Less nu mer ous spec i mens of ornithischian foot prints have been also found in the sim i lar coastal palaeoenvironments of the Hettangian of Zapniów (Pieńkowski and Gierliński, 1987) and in so-called lower Gromadzice out crop (Gierliński and Pieńkowski, 1999).
Those pre vi ous finds led to the sup po si tion that small and me - dium-sized Ju ras sic ornithischians pre ferred a coastal (bar - rier-lagoon and delta plain) hab i tat with low and dense veg e ta tion rather than the in land for est hab i tat in vaded by high brows ing adult sauro pods (Gierliński and Pieńkowski, 1999).
The dis cov ery of ornithischian tracks in the up per Gromadzice out crop sup ports such a view point.
The sec ond find re ported herein, the ornitopod foot print from the Up per Ju ras sic of Ożarów, in di cates a tem po rary emer gence of that area dur ing the early Kimmeridgian times and cor re spond with the coastal en vi ron ment sup posed to be a part of the ornitischian hab i tats.
THYREOPHORAN FOOTPRINT FROM GROMADZICE
The up per Gromadzice out crop (Fig. 1B) of the deltaic mid dle Hettangian de pos its of the Skłoby For ma tion (Pieńkowski, 1991) hith erto re vealed only un usu ally small tracks of di min u tive or ju ve nile sauro pods (Gierliński, 1997).
Re cently two ornithischian foot prints have been found in this ho ri zon.
The out crop re veals com plete sec tion of a delta se quence (Fig. 1C). This par tic u lar deltaic en vi ron ment was char ac ter - ised by flat prodelta slope, in ter me di ate wave en ergy, con sid er - able lit to ral drift and in ter me di ate dis charge of flu vial sed i ments. It re sulted in the “com pos ite se quence”, in which the delta cy cle is di vided into two parts sep a rated by the bar rier (delta-front) fa cies formed in the wave-break ing zone. The “in - ner delta fa cies” are rep re sented by de pos its formed in stag nant la goons (interdistributary bays) and marshes, cov ered by quickly prograding distributary (flu vial) fa cies (Pieńkowski, 1991). The foot prints were pre served on the bot tom sur face of the gray sand stone rep re sent ing distributary chan nel fa cies.
The distributary chan nel fa cies cov ers the clayey coal bed with dense plant roots be neath (palaeosoil). It points that the an i mal en tered an area with rel a tively high wa ter-ta ble level and
Fig. 1. A — Lo ca tion of the stud ied area
B — Geo log i cal sketch of the north east ern slope of the Holy Cross Moun tains (HCM)
P — Perm ian, T — Tri as sic, J1 — Lower Ju ras sic, J2 — Mid dle Ju ras sic, Jo — Oxfordian, Jk — Kimmeridgian, K — Cre ta ceous C — Sedimentological sec tion of the Hettangian de pos its in the up per Gromadzice out crop (af ter Pieńkowski, 1991)
1 — par al lel bed ding, 2 — large-scale cut-and-fill trough cross-bedding, 3 — small- and me dium-scale trough cross-bedding, 4 — hummocky cross strat i - fi ca tion, 5 — wave rip ples, 6 — flaser bed ding, 7 — wavy bed ding, 8 — len tic u lar bed ding, 9 — par al lel lam i na tion in mudstones, 10 — plant roots, 11 — coal and coal-bearing mudstone; lith o logic scale: m. — mudstone, st. — siltstone, sd. — sand stone, c — pres ence of mud clasts; fa cies: o.s. — off shore, s.f.
— shoreface, p.d. — prodelta, f.d.-b. — delta front-barrier, b.b. — backbarrier, L-i.b.-m. — la goon-interdistributary bay-marsh sys tem, d.ch. — distributary chan nel
D — Sim plified lithostratigraphic sec tion of the Kimmeridgian de pos its in Ożarów quarry (af ter Gutowski, 1998)
12 — biogenic and intraclastic grainstones and packstones, 13 — clays and marls, 14 — oys ter shell-beds, 15 — micritic lime stones, 16 — oo lites, 17 — chalky lime stones, 18 — ammonite (d — Divisum, h — Hypselocyclum), 19 — di no saur foot prints; lith o logic units: Oopl — Ożarów oolite and platy lime - stone, Ool — Ożarów oys ter lumachelle
low-rise veg e ta tion. Ero sion at the bot tom of the distributary chan nel was in sig nif i cant due to the weak cur rents, which in - creased the pres er va tion po ten tial of the tracks.
Both ornitischian foot prints are pre served as nat u ral casts in a sand stone slab (MUZ PIG OS-221/35). They may be long to the same trackway or to two par al lel trackways. The ichnites show a typ i cal anomoepodid pat tern, a func tion ally tridactyl pes with rel a tively short and highly divaricated dig its. How - ever, they have ex ceeded the typ i cal Anomoepus size, reach ing the length of 20.7 cm and show ing only two phalangeal pads on digit III. Their mor phol ogy fits al most per fectly be tween the more gracile tracks of Anomoepus Hitch cock, 1848 and the more ro bust Moyenisauropus karaszevskii Gierliński, 1991.
Such a mor pho log i cal pat tern has been de scribed from the Lower Ju ras sic of Le sotho as Moyenisauropus natator Ellenberger, 1974 and it has been also re ported from the Lower Ju ras sic, from the Kayenta-Navajo tran si tion zone of Utah (Lockley et al., 1998a).
Some au thors con sider Ellenberger’s Moyenisauropus as ju nior syn onym of Anomoepus (Olsen and Galton, 1984;
Thulborn, 1994). Gierliński (1991) agreed that most of Moyenisauropus tracks are in deed Anomoepus, ex cept for M.
natator and pos si bly M. levicauda. Re cently, Lockley and Meyer (2000) con tended that all seven ichnospecies of Moyenisauropus should be trans ferred to Anomoepus, while the Pol ish form of M. karaszevskii should be classed as a com - pletely dif fer ent, new ichnogenus. How ever, the pres ent au - thors share the opin ion of Gierliński and Pieńkowski (1999).
Moyenisauropus natator is mor pho log i cally in ter me di ate be - tween Anomoepus and M. karaszevskii. Even if M. karaszevskii would fall into a dif fer ent ichnogenus, the ichnogenus Moyenisauropus sensu Gierliński (1991) would be valid to com prise such an in ter me di ate form.
The dis cussed sam ple of M. natator from the up per Gromadzice out crop (Fig. 2A) shows digit divarication as fol - lows: I–II = 86°, II–III = 36°, III–IV = 27°, II–IV = 63°. Dig its II and III are subequal in length, whereas digit IV is the lon gest.
Their length ra tios mea sured ac cord ing to the method of Olsen et al. (1998) equal III/II = 1.10 and III/IV = 0.62, thus fit ting closely those of the foot of Scelidosaurus harrisonii Owen, 1861 (see Gierliński and Pieńkowski, 1999, tab. 1).
ORNITHOPOD FOOTPRINT FROM OŻARÓW
The sec ond ichnite re ported herein, the spec i men MUZ PIG 1663.II.2, came from the Late Ju ras sic lime stones of Ożarów quarry (Fig.1B). The tridactyl foot print is a well pre served nat - u ral cast of the right pes im pres sion (Fig. 2B). This print dem - on strates mor phol ogy clearly dif fer ent from the Early Ju ras sic Anomoepus-Moyenisauropus morphotypes. The im print is nearly as long as wide (18 cm long and 19 cm wide), very sym - met ri cal with al most the same an gle be tween the axes of digit II and III (40°) as be tween digit III and IV (41°). Very sim i lar ornithopod foot prints from the Kimmeridgian Mor ri son For - ma tion of Utah have been named Dinehichnus by Lockley et al.
(1998b). How ever, the type ma te rial from Utah shows the
“heel” pad im pres sion, a dis tinc tive meta tar sal-phalangeal pad
of the fourth digit, more cir cu lar and dis crete than the Pol ish spec i men. If the shal low posteromedial mark was pro duced there by a hallux, it might be an other char ac ter dif fer ing it from the typ i cal Dinehichnus tracks.
The digit length ra tios (III/II = 1.35 and III/IV = 0.75) of the Pol ish ichnite re sem ble those of sup posed dryosaur foot print from the Mor ri son For ma tion of Como Bluff in Wy o ming (III/II = 1.32 and III/IV = 0.78) re ported by Bakker (1996).
How ever, the pres ence of prob a ble hallux im print in the Ożarów spec i men speaks against its dryosaur or i gin, sug gest - ing rather camptosaurid af fin ity of its trackmaker.
Highly in trigu ing is the palaeoenvironmental back ground of this find. Ornithischian di no saurs were not de mon stra bly as - so ci ated with aquatic en vi ron ments and Bakker (1996) even con cluded that the com pact-footed her bi vores such as camptosaurus and dryosaurus pre ferred rather ar eas with well-drained soil than swampy ter rain. How ever, the sed i ment that has pre served (casted) the dis cussed foot print has been ev i - dently de pos ited in ma rine en vi ron ment.
Dur ing the Late Ju ras sic the northeastern mar gin of the Holy Cross Mts. (HCM) as well as the sur round ing re gions of the Cen tral Po land were pre dom i nantly cov ered by shal low epicontinental seas. The near est lands sit u ated to the south-east (the Ukrai nian shield) and to the north (the Bal tic shield) lied some hun dreds kilo metres away from the HCM (Ziegler, 1990). Dur ing the mid dle Oxfordian an ex ten sive car bon ate ramp de vel oped on the sta ble base ment of the East Eu ro pean Craton, prob a bly close to the Ukrai nian shield (Kutek, 1994). It prograded to the north-west and (to gether with smaller ones that grew on the lo cal el e va tions) was a source of car bon ates in the Pol ish Ba sin. Thus from the mid dle Oxfordian un til the early Kimmeridgian sed i men ta tion was dom i nated by car bon - ates on the sub stan tial part of this area. Dif fer ent types of cal - car e ous rocks with biogenic, intraclastic, micritic and oolithic lime stones, coral and sponge-algal bioherms, gaizes and marls build to day a huge se ries of de pos its, reach ing ap prox i mately 600 metres thick ness in the neigh bour hood of Ożarów quarry.
Lithological di ver sity and a pres ence of stra tal dis con ti nu ities sug gest changes in depositional re gime dur ing this time and al - low to dis tin guish sed i men tary se quences of var i ous sig nif i - cance. Depositional se quences can also be re cog nised on geo phys i cal logs (e.g. gamma rays) of bore holes drilled in this re gion like Bąkowa IG1 and Ciepielów IG1 (Niemczycka, 1974, 1975). The find of ornithischian di no saur foot print sug - gests a re gional sur face of depositional dis con ti nu ity.
The sur face into which the di no saur track was printed has not been found. Thus, there is no pos si bil ity of check ing up if it shows any signs of ero sional struc tures, karstification or pedogenic mod i fi ca tion. The nat u ral cast of the ornithopod foot print found in the Ożarów quarry came from the shal - low-ma rine suc ces sion of mostly cal car e ous de pos its. A fifty centi metres thick layer of pale micritic lime stone was qual i fied by M. Połońska from the Pol ish Geo log i cal In sti tute (PGI) as a mudstone/wackestone. Be sides car bon ates it con tains quartz (about 2%) and mica grains, ferrum ox ides and hy drox ides, ag - gre gates of some opaque min er als, lidites and plant re mains.
The microfossil anal y sis, kindly done by J. Smoleń (from PGI), re vealed con tent of ben thic foraminifers shells as well as very abun dant frag ments of echinoderms. Among the foraminifers
New ornithischian dinosaur footprints in the Jurassic of Poland 207
Fig. 2. A — Moyenisauropus natator Ellenberger, 1974 from the Early Ju ras sic Skłoby For ma tion of Gromadzice, MUZ PIG OS-221/35A; B — cf.
Dinehichnus sp. from the Late Ju ras sic Głowaczów For ma tion of Ożarów, MUZ PIG 1663.II.2
dom i nant ones are these of the ge nus Spirillina (S. tenuissima Gümbel) and Trocholina. The whole se quence, about fifty eight metres thick, con tains also cross-bed ded grainstones and in ter ca la tions of oo lites (Fig.1D). It was dis tin guished by Gutowski (1998) as the “Ożarów oolite and platy lime stone”
(Oopl) in his in for mal lithostratigraphic scheme. This au thor des ig nated also an early Kimmeridgian age for that se quence cor re spond ing to the ammonite Hypselocyclum Zone. The fau - nal con tent does not al low to ac cu rately date the bound ary be - tween the Oxfordian and Kimmeridgian in the men tioned sec tion. Within the su per im posed se quence of lumachelle lime - stone (Oll), the Divisum Zone of the lower Kimmeridgian was re cog nised (Gutowski, 1998). Ear lier in the north west ern part of the Lublin Up land and ad ja cent area of the HCM Niemczycka (1976) dis tin guished some for mal lithostrati - graphic units. A shal low-wa ter suc ces sion con tain ing cal car e - ous and dolomitic oo lites, lumachelles, intraclastic and oncolithic lime stone as well as storm in duced de pos its has been named the Głowaczów For ma tion. The early Kimmeridgian age have also been in di cated for it. Dąbrowska (1983) emphasised an ex tremely shal low-wa ter (nearshore) en vi ron - ment for the early Kimmeridgian sed i men ta tion in the vi cin ity of Iłża that is sit u ated some forty kilo metres north-west wards to Ożarów. More over, she pos tu lated a tem po rary emersion in this part of the sed i men tary ba sin. In the lower Kimmeridgian sed i men tary suc ces sion, she ob served abun dant shellbeds, wave re lated struc tures and in creased in put of terrigenous ma - te rial to the ba sin re sulted in de po si tion of sand beds and con - glom er ates.
It is also note wor thy that Liszkowski (1972) found well pre served and abun dant plant re mains in the Up per Ju ras sic of this area. Be sides branches and seeds, they in cluded del i cate leaves, pieces of flow ers and cones, ex clud ing long trans port.
The fos sils were at trib uted to some groups of the Gymnospermophyta; the dom i nance of rep re sen ta tives of the Coniferales pointed to an arid cli mate. These fos sil plants oc - curred in transgressive shal low-marine suc ces sion of car bon ate de pos its con tain ing basal con glom er ate, oo lites and platy lime - stones with len tic u lar-shape in ter ca la tions of oo lites.
Lithological fea tures of de pos its in di cate near-shore sed i men - ta tion and give ev i dences for synsedimentary emersion. The au thor sug gested the late Oxfordian age for this se quence, but no fos sils of strati graphic im por tance have been found there.
The suc ces sion stud ied is very sim i lar to these of the lower Kimmeridgian.
Of course, fur ther and more de tailed in ves ti ga tions, es pe - cially in the terms of se quence stra tig ra phy, should be car ried on in the Up per Ju ras sic sec tions of HCM. How ever, we can con clude, that sed i men tary suc ces sion of the lower Kimmeridgian in the northeastern mar gin of the HCM gives ev i dences of tem po rary emer gence of the area. The di no saur foot print re veal ev i dence of a re gional sea level fall. It had to be pro nounced enough to re sult in con nec tion of this area with dis - tant land(s). Ac cord ing to Haq et al. (1988), the con sid er able fall of sea level caused by eustasy in the early Kimmeridgian is dated for 144 Ma. This event is cor re lated with the lower part of bo real ammonite Cymodoce Zone. The find of the ornithopod foot print in the lower Kimmeridgian of HCM con trib utes to the in ter pre ta tion of sed i men tary pe ri od ic ity and a suc ces sion of palaeoenvironments in this re gion.
Ab bre vi a tions of cited re pos i to ries: MUZ PIG — Geo - log i cal Mu seum of the Pol ish Geo log i cal In sti tute, War saw, Po land; MUZ PIG OS — Holy Cross Mts. Branch of the Pol ish Geo log i cal In sti tute, Kielce, Po land.
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