How to translate text using browser tools
7 April 2022 Diverse Assemblage of Middle Triassic Continental Tetrapods from the Newark Supergroup of Nova Scotia (Canada)
Hans-Dieter Sues, Paul E. Olsen, Tim J. Fedak, Rainer R. Schoch
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Triassic strata of the Economy Member of the Wolfville Formation (Newark Supergroup) exposed along the shorelines in Colchester County, Nova Scotia, have yielded an assemblage of continental tetrapods that is clearly different from other Triassic tetrapod communities in eastern North America, including the Late Triassic (Carnian) one from the overlying Evangeline Member of the Wolfville Formation. Although dissociated and fragmentary, the skeletal elements document the presence of a lonchorhynchine trematosaurid and at least two taxa of capitosauroid temnospondyls, procolophonid parareptiles, several taxa of archosauromorph reptiles, and a kannemeyeriiform dicynodont synapsid. Particularly noteworthy is the first definite record of the long-necked archosauromorph Tanystropheus from eastern North America. The strata of the Economy Member were deposited in a semiarid setting but the presence of various temnospondyls indicates the existence of perennial bodies of water. The age of this unit has long been regarded as Middle Triassic (Anisian to Ladinian) based on the tetrapod record, and the present study supports this assessment. The tetrapod assemblage most closely resembles those from the upper Moenkopi Formation of the American Southwest and the upper Middle to Upper Buntsandstein of Germany. The Economy Member is the oldest known Triassic tetrapod-bearing stratigraphic unit as well as the first occurrence of Middle Triassic continental tetrapods in eastern North America.

© Published with license by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The work of Hans-Dieter Sues was authored as part of his official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 USC. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under US Law. Paul E. Olsen, Tim J. Fedak and Rainer R. Schoch hereby waive their right to assert copyright, but not their right to be named as co-authors in the article.
Hans-Dieter Sues, Paul E. Olsen, Tim J. Fedak, and Rainer R. Schoch "Diverse Assemblage of Middle Triassic Continental Tetrapods from the Newark Supergroup of Nova Scotia (Canada)," Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 41(4), (7 April 2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2021.2023168
Received: 3 November 2021; Accepted: 15 December 2021; Published: 7 April 2022
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top