A partial ornithischian dinosaur skeleton discovered near the Sustut River in 1971 has, to date, represented the only vertebrate fossil remains recovered from the Sustut Basin in northern British Columbia, Canada, but the geological provenance and age of this specimen has remained unclear. We provide new data on the age of this dinosaur specimen based on reconnaissance palaeontological prospecting along the Sustut River, and also report new vertebrate and plant fossils from this region. A skeletal fragment of a species of the turtle Basilemys Hay, 1902 was discovered at a site closely matching field notes describing the initial collection of the ornithischian dinosaur, suggesting that the new turtle fossil derives from the same locality as the dinosaur. Palynomorphs collected from this site include the marker taxon Pseudoaquilapollenites bertillonites (Sriv.), found in the lower Hell Creek Formation, and suggesting an age range of between 68.2 and 67.2 Ma for the locality. To the west of this locality we discovered multiple new fossil plant sites preserving wood and the leaves of Metasequoia Miki and several angiosperms, and one site preserved fronds resembling a species of the tree fern Coniopteris Brong., suggesting a Cenomanian or older age for sites in the area. The complex translational history of the Intermontane Terrane means that the newly discovered turtle may not represent a northern range extension for Basilemys, but it does represent one of the westernmost occurrences of this genus. The discovery of new vertebrate fossil remains in a region with relatively little accessible outcrop at present indicates the potential for future discoveries in the higher elevation outcrops of the Sustut Basin in this mountainous region of British Columbia.
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Research Article|
October 16, 2019
Cretaceous flora and fauna of the Sustut Group near the Sustut River, northern British Columbia, Canada
Victoria M. Arbour;
a
Department of Knowledge, Royal BC Museum, 675 Belleville St, Victoria, BC V8V 9W2, Canada.Corresponding author: Victoria M. Arbour (email: [email protected]).
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David C. Evans;
David C. Evans
b
Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queens Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C6, Canada.
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D. Jade Simon;
D. Jade Simon
b
Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queens Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C6, Canada.c
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 25 Willcocks St, Toronto, ON M5S 3B2, Canada.
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Thomas M. Cullen;
Thomas M. Cullen
d
Department of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 South Lake Shore Dr, Chicago, IL 60605, USA.f
Paleontology, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, 11 W. Jones, St. Raleigh, NC 27601, USA.
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Dennis Braman
Dennis Braman
e
Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, 1500 North Dinosaur Trail, Drumheller, AB T0J 0Y0, Canada.
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a
Department of Knowledge, Royal BC Museum, 675 Belleville St, Victoria, BC V8V 9W2, Canada.
David C. Evans
b
Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queens Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C6, Canada.
D. Jade Simon
b
Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queens Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C6, Canada.c
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 25 Willcocks St, Toronto, ON M5S 3B2, Canada.
Thomas M. Cullen
d
Department of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 South Lake Shore Dr, Chicago, IL 60605, USA.f
Paleontology, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, 11 W. Jones, St. Raleigh, NC 27601, USA.
Dennis Braman
e
Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, 1500 North Dinosaur Trail, Drumheller, AB T0J 0Y0, Canada.Corresponding author: Victoria M. Arbour (email: [email protected]).
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
Received:
22 Feb 2019
Accepted:
09 Aug 2019
First Online:
09 Jun 2020
Online ISSN: 1480-3313
Print ISSN: 0008-4077
Published by NRC Research Press
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (2020) 57 (6): 671–680.
Article history
Received:
22 Feb 2019
Accepted:
09 Aug 2019
First Online:
09 Jun 2020
Citation
Victoria M. Arbour, David C. Evans, D. Jade Simon, Thomas M. Cullen, Dennis Braman; Cretaceous flora and fauna of the Sustut Group near the Sustut River, northern British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 2019;; 57 (6): 671–680. doi: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2019-0031
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Index Terms/Descriptors
- Anapsida
- Angiospermae
- Archosauria
- assemblages
- British Columbia
- Canada
- Chordata
- Coniferales
- Cretaceous
- Cryptodira
- Diapsida
- dinosaurs
- Gymnospermae
- leaves
- lithostratigraphy
- Mesozoic
- Metasequoia
- microfossils
- miospores
- morphology
- Ornithischia
- palynomorphs
- Plantae
- pollen
- Reptilia
- Spermatophyta
- Sustut Basin
- Taxodiaceae
- Testudines
- Tetrapoda
- Upper Cretaceous
- Vertebrata
- Western Canada
- Basilemys
- Coniopteris
- Sustut River
- Nanhsiungchelyidae
Latitude & Longitude
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