Palaeontologia africana
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/13253
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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Item A review of the Stormberg Group and Drakensberg volcanics in southern Africa(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1984) Visser, J. N. J.The Molteno Sandstone, Red Beds and Cave Sandstone comprising the Stormberg Group (siliciclastics) in South Africa and their correlatives, based on lithology, depositio- nal environments and tectonic cycles, in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia are described. The Drakensberg Volcanics with radiometric ages of 114 My to 194 My cap the sedimen- tary sequence. A major unconformity separates the Stormberg sedimentary rocks from the lower Karoo strata. Four Late Triassic depositional basins which were tectonically controlled are recognised. The Molteno Sandstone and Red Beds filling these basins represent braided and meandering stream deposits respectively. The Cave Sandstone covering the fluvial deposits formed as desert sand sheets reworked by westerly winds. Deposition was ended by the outpouring of the Drakensberg Volcanics.Item Postcranial remains of Fabrosauridae (Reptilia: Ornithischia) from the Stormberg of southern Africa(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1984) Santa Luca, A. P.The postcranial skeletons of three fabrosaurids from the upper Elliot Formation "Red Beds" of the Stormberg Group in southern Africa are described. The material demonstrates details of fabrosaurid anatomy previously unknown, particularly a short, deep prepubic process which is undoubtedly primitive for the Ornithischia. Besides the short prepubis, fabrosaurids are characterized by 1) a reduced manus; 2) an ilium having a lateral extension of the supra-acetabular margin and a deep nearly vertical brevis shelf; and 3) an elongated hindlimb. Postcranial morphology excludes the fabrosaurids from the ancestry of the contemporaneous heterodontosaurids. Neither can the fabrosaurids be considered ancestral to the 'juvenile scelidosaurid' (BMNH R6704) as has been suggested. On the contrary, the 'scelidosaurid' is more primitive in structure than fabrosaurids. The assignment of Nanosaurus agilis Marsh to the Fabrosauridae is not substantiated after morphological comparisons between the postcranial material of both. The taxonomic status of Scutellosaurus lawleri is regarded as uncertain. The fabrosaurids are more similar to the Morrison Formation camptosaurids, than to Hypsilophodon. Finally, it is argued that ornithopods were not a basal stock for the phylogenesis of non-ornithopods but represent an independent radiation comparable to the other ornithischian suborders. The fabrosaurids were an early development of the ornithopod radiation itself.