Intra-trackway morphological variations due to substrate consistency: the El Frontal dinosaur tracksite (Lower Cretaceous, Spain).

Intra-trackway morphological variations due to substrate consistency: the El Frontal dinosaur tracksite (Lower Cretaceous, Spain).

Blog Article

An ichnological and sedimentological study of the El Frontal dinosaur tracksite (Early Cretaceous, Cameros basin, Soria, Spain) highlights the pronounced intra-trackway variation found in track morphologies of four theropod trackways.Photogrammetric 3D digital models revealed various and distinct intra-trackway morphotypes, 1101 which reflect changes in footprint parameters such as the pace length, the track length, depth, and height of displacement rims.Sedimentological analyses suggest that the original substrate was non-homogenous due to lateral changes in adjoining microfacies.Multidata analyses indicate that morphological differences in these deep and shallow tracks represent a part of a continuum of track morphologies and geometries produced by a gradient of substrate consistencies across the site.

This implies that the large range of track morphologies at this site resulted from similar trackmakers crossing variable facies.The trackways at the El Frontal site present Bath an exemplary case of how track morphology, and consequently potential ichnotaxa, can vary, even when produced by a single trackmaker.