Dinosaur Trackways in the Cretaceous Glen Rose Formation of South Central Texas
Institution
University of Kentucky
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Frank R. Ettensohn
Abstract
The Cretaceous Glen Rose Formation in Texas has long been made famous for its content of superbly preserved dinosaur trackways. The most famous of which are found near the city of Glen Rose itself in Dinosaur Valley. The trackways preserved there have been interpreted by ichnologists in a number of ways over the years; the most dramatic and most popular of which tells the story of an attack by a predatory dinosaur (a mid-sized Carnosaur) on a sauropod, the gargantuans of the Cretaceous world. The work that I am currently a part of, however, is not focused on working out the ichnological details of a track site. My goal for this project is to gain an understanding of the geologic environments in which these creatures lived and some insight into the processes that influenced and/or dominated their lives. This is being done primarily through analysis of stratigraphic relationships between lithologies within the study area, as well characterizing the paleoenvironments that those lithologies represent. The study area is located in Canyon Lake, Texas in the heart of the hill country. Unfortunately this portion of Texas has not been mapped geologically, and the Glen rose itself has not been broken down and described on a depositional environment scale. Hopefully, this project will produce at least one more portion of the Glen Rose Formation in which depositional environments are firmly attached to the ichnoilogical record.
Dinosaur Trackways in the Cretaceous Glen Rose Formation of South Central Texas
The Cretaceous Glen Rose Formation in Texas has long been made famous for its content of superbly preserved dinosaur trackways. The most famous of which are found near the city of Glen Rose itself in Dinosaur Valley. The trackways preserved there have been interpreted by ichnologists in a number of ways over the years; the most dramatic and most popular of which tells the story of an attack by a predatory dinosaur (a mid-sized Carnosaur) on a sauropod, the gargantuans of the Cretaceous world. The work that I am currently a part of, however, is not focused on working out the ichnological details of a track site. My goal for this project is to gain an understanding of the geologic environments in which these creatures lived and some insight into the processes that influenced and/or dominated their lives. This is being done primarily through analysis of stratigraphic relationships between lithologies within the study area, as well characterizing the paleoenvironments that those lithologies represent. The study area is located in Canyon Lake, Texas in the heart of the hill country. Unfortunately this portion of Texas has not been mapped geologically, and the Glen rose itself has not been broken down and described on a depositional environment scale. Hopefully, this project will produce at least one more portion of the Glen Rose Formation in which depositional environments are firmly attached to the ichnoilogical record.