Dinosaur Tracks from the Caucasian Mineral Waters Country in the Context of the Study of Lower Cretaceous Paleosols of T
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inosaur Tracks from the Caucasian Mineral Waters Country in the Context of the Study of Lower Cretaceous Paleosols of This Region S. V. Naugolnykha, b, * aGeological
Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119017 Russia b Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia *e-mail: [email protected]
Received September 20, 2019; revised September 24, 2019; accepted September 24, 2019
Abstract—This article examines the geological and stratigraphic context of several types dinosaur tracks discovered in Lower Cretaceous deposits exposed in the vicinity of city of Kislovodsk (Caucasian Spa Country; Stavropol Krai). The tracks occur on the bedding surfaces of Lower Cretaceous (Valanginian) limestones, dolostones and marls. Two track morphotypes are described. Some ideas are proposed on the paleoclimatic and environmental conditions in the region during Early Cretaceous times. We suggest that the tracks were produced in a coastal plain in the littoral zone of a marine basin (possibly, a brackish lagoon) during a warm, seasonally dry climate. Keywords: paleoecology, dinosaurs, ornithopods, theropods, Lower Cretaceous, Valanginian, Northern Caucasus DOI: 10.1134/S0031030120070096
INTRODUCTION The importance of studying trace fossils generally, and vertebrate trace fossils in particular, is self-evident and does not require further justification. Trace fossils enable reconstruction of important behavioral characteristics of extinct organisms, their type of locomotion, ecological preferences and in some instances, even their feeding (Mikuláš and Dronov, 2006). Traces of movement and feeding of fossil invertebrates are quite common and are the subject of a vast literature (for a review see: Yanin, 2016). Vertebrate tracks occur more rarely, and every discovery of a tracksite becomes an important event in paleontology. This article describes dinosaur tracks discovered in the Lower Cretaceous (Valanginian, for more details see the “Geological Context” below) deposits exposed in the vicinity of the city of Kislovodsk (Stavropol Krai). The first of these discoveries was widely reported in the mass media (for more details, see Naugolnykh, 2010). The author first visited the dinosaur tracksite in the Olkhovka River valley (locality Olkhovka 1, see below for more details), near the protected intake of the waterworks of the city of Kislovodsk, in 2008 (Naugolnykh, 2010; Sennikov and Naugolnykh, 2010). The tracks were photographed, measured and sketched.
The site could only be revisited ten years later, thanks to the assistance of the employees of the Kislovodsk Regional Museum. During the second visit, we had the opportunity to prepare casts of all well-preserved tracks using a technique developed by the author for this type of object. In addition to work on the tracks from the Olkhovka 1 tracksite, we explored the same deposits exposed downstream along the Olkhovka River, as well as in the Berezovka River valley (in the Berezovka gorge), located west of the first locality. As a result, in the lower course of the Olkhovka River
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