Carnivore and Artiodactyl Mammal Footprints from the Karaj Formation (Eocene), Taleghan Valley, Alborz Mountains, North
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RESEARCH PAPER
Carnivore and Artiodactyl Mammal Footprints from the Karaj Formation (Eocene), Taleghan Valley, Alborz Mountains, North Iran Nasrollah Abbassi1
•
Saeed Mashhadizadeh Maleki2
Received: 29 March 2020 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 Ó Shiraz University 2020
Abstract Eocene vertebrate footprints from the uppermost layers of the Karaj Formation have been discovered in the Taleghan valley, Alborz Mountains, northern Iran. Trackways comprise carnivore and artiodactyl footprints. Footprints of primitive and small artiodactyl are assigned to Gambapes hastatus, with 16–18 mm footprint length. Carnivore trackways belong to the Felidae or Mesonychidae, recognized as Pycnodactylopus cf. achras. These footprints and previous reports of track sites from the Alborz Mountains document a high diversity of Eocene track-makers in this region of the Iranian Plateau. Keywords Ichnology Mammal Eocene Alborz Mountains Iran
1 Introduction The sinuous-trending Alborz Mountains between the Caspian Sea and Central Iran extend about 2000 km throughout northern Iran, along the Lesser Caucasus in the northwest and the Paropamisus Mountains of Afghanistan in the east (Fig. 1). These mountains comprise different lithological and structural units, which deformed during several tectonic events since the Paleozoic Era, and have been uplifted as an active deformation zone within the broad Arabia–Eurasia collision (Alavi 1996; Berberian and King 1981; Sto¨cklin 1974; Zanchi et al. 2006). The Alborz Mountains are divided into three morphotectonic zones, the western, central and eastern along its length, or northern and southern zones across its width, although there are not clean-cut boundaries between them (Alavi 1996; Sto¨cklin 1974). The western Alborz Mountains are located in the northern Zanjan–Qazvin–Abyek faults and include the & Nasrollah Abbassi [email protected] Saeed Mashhadizadeh Maleki [email protected] 1
Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, University of Zanjan, Zanjan 45371-38791, Iran
2
Department of Geomatics Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Transportation, University of Isfahan, Isfahan 81746-73441, Iran
tectono-stratigraphically complex zones of the North Qazvin, Talesh and Tarom Mountains (Fig. 1). There are, however, local inter-mountain basins, which are known as Neogene red bed basins in the Taleghan, Alamut and Tarom valleys between the southern and northern parts of the Alborz Mountains (Fig. 1). The Eocene Karaj Formation is the main rock unit in the southern part of the western Alborz Mountains, cropping out either in the Tarom Mountains or in the northern Qazvin Mountains. The Eocene volcanic and volcaniclastic complex of the Karaj Formation, more than 3000 m in thickness, records the activation, in an extensional regime, of an intracontinental volcanic arc related to northward subduction along the Zagros suture (Alavi 1996). The Neogene red beds (up to 200 m) consist of continental, coastal, fine-grained terrigenous rock u
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