MACNBR   00242
MUSEO ARGENTINO DE CIENCIAS NATURALES "BERNARDINO RIVADAVIA"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
A new tetrapod-bearing assemblage from the late Middle Triassic Chañares Formation, La Rioja Province, Argentina
Autor/es:
LUCAS FIORELLI; MARTÍN EZCURRA; JEREMÍAS TABORDA; JIMENA TROTTEYN; BELÉN VON BACZKO; JULIA DESOJO
Lugar:
Lujan
Reunión:
Jornada; Reunión Anual de Comunicaciones de la APA; 2011
Resumen:
The Ladinian Chañares Formation is one of the most fossiliferous Middle Triassic tetrapod-bearing assemblages around the world. Its best sampled locality is the classic Los Chañares locality which yielded hundreds of tetrapod specimens. Cynodonts are the most common elements (82%), in which Massetognathus Romer is the most abundant taxon, and archosauriforms (13%) and dicynodonts (5%) are less numerous. During the Fall of 2011, field work was conducted in a locality, coined here as Brazo del Puma, which is situated within the dawning of the Gualo River in the upper-most levels of the Lower Member of the Chañares Formation. Brazo del Puma formed part of a fluvial system with some meandering paleocanals in a fluvial plain, showing paleofloristic and paleofaunistic differences and diverse taphonomic attributes in each microenvironment. In this locality were recovered several fragmentary tetrapod remains of parautochthonous origin housed at the Centro Regional de Investigaciones La Rioja. In contrast with the classic assemblage, Brazo del Puma depicts a greater proportion of dicynodonts (59%), being followed by archosauriforms (27%) and cynodonts (14%), respectively. Among the archosauriforms, we identified small specimens assigned to proterochampsids and doswelliids and a medium-sized indeterminate form. Brazo del Puma strongly differs from the classic locality in the high abundance of dicynodonts, but resembles the condition documented in the co-eval Dinodontosaurus Assemblage Zone of southern Brazil. Accordingly, the new explorations conducted in the Chañares Formation indicate that its tetrapod assemblages were more disparate than previously thought showing paleoecological differences between them.