Some Observations on the Dinosaur Tracks at Münchehagen (Lower Cretaceous), Germany

Abstract

Dinosaur tracks at the Dinosaurier-Freilichtmuseum Münchehagen are well-known and are the reason the site is designated part of the German National Monument system. Although both sauropod and ornithopod tracks have been described in some detail, additional observations are presented herein. These include observations on the gauge and heteropody of sauropods and evidence for quadrupedal progression by ornithopods. Theropod tracks are also recorded in the region at this time and have proven to be taxonomically controversial.

Most of the in situ tracks on the “main” surface are those of sauropods preserved on a single large ripple-marked sandstone bedding plane. The sauropod tracks are nearly parallel but the trackmakers were evidently going in two different directions and therefore not travelling together. The presence of ornithopod tracks in close stratigraphic proximity to the main sauropod track layer, (and perhaps on the same layer) is interesting and raises questions about the close spatial and temporal co-occurrence of two large, well-known herbivore groups that are often found in quite separate paleoenvironments. This co-occurrence may be explained in part as a regional paleogeographical phenomenon, but may also be associated with faunal turnover at the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary. The local depositional environment is thought to have been a barrier sandstone complex beside a coastal lagoon: a similar palaeoenvironment but a different lithology to that of the English Purbeck. The Münchehagen ichnofaunas are comparable to those from contemporaneous sites in Europe such as the Purbeck Limestone Group and Wealden of England.

Keywords:

• Lower Cretaceous
• Münchehagen
• ornithopod tracks
• sauropod tracks

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Herrn B. Wolter, director of the Dinosaurier-Freilichtmuseum Münchehagen, for his invitation to visit the site and study the tracks, and for support of travel expenses. We also thank Joaquin Moratalla, Geological and Mineral Institute of Spain, Madrid, and Roldand Gangolf University of Alaska Museum of the North, Fairbanks, for their helpful reviews.