Palaeontologia africana

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ISSN (print): 0078-8554 ISSN (electronic): 2410-4418 For queries regarding content of Palaeontologia africana collections please contact Jonah Choiniere by email : jonah.choiniere@wits.ac.za or Tel : 011 717 6684

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1990 - 19942

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Lower Cretaceous

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    Fossil wood of Cretaceous age from the Namaqualand continental shelf, South Africa
    (Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1994) Bamford, Marion K; Corbett, Ian B
    Fossil wood was collected from sediments on the Namaqualand shelf, West Coast, South Africa, between the Orange River mouth and just to the south of Kleinzee. Forty three of these samples are here described. All the woods are gymnospermous and have abietinian tracheid pitting. Nineteen of them are well enough preserved to be identified to species level: Podocarpoxylon cf. umzambense, Mesembrioxylon cf. stokesii, M. cf. sahnii, M. cf. woburnense and Protocupressinoxylon cf. purbeckensis. The remainder of the woods have been placed in the artificial genus Mesembrioxylon without species names. The woods are probably primitive members of the Podocarpaceae growing during the Lower Cretaceous. They indicate a seasonal climate and inhabited the extensive low-lying coastal regions.
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    A dinosaur trackway from the Purbeck Beds of Swanage, England
    (Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1990) Newman, B H
    During 1962 a dinosaur trackway was unearthed in a quarry of Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous building-stone at Langton Maltravers near Swanage. The primary tracks had been removed initially but secondary impressions were still visible and these were marked with black paint. It was concluded that the prints were made by a tridactyl bipedal species of dinosaur, probably of megalosaurian type. A quantity of overburden covered part of the trackway and it was arranged for this to be removed so that the primary tracks could be collected. The trackway, which was 22 metres long as preserved, showed a somewhat sinuous gait of a true biped with no tail-drag and only occasional evidence of what may have been front foot impressions. Two individuals had made the footprints, walking on a similar course about one metre apart. The tracks of these two were collected, as was a third trackway which went off at an angle to the right. Above the stratum containing the prints was another layer which contained prints of an undoubted iguanodontid type.