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Late Cretaceous mosasauroids (Reptilia, Squamata) of the Big Bend region in Texas, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2013

Gorden L. Bell Jr. ,
Kenneth R. Barnes  and
Michael J. Polcyn
Gorden L. Bell Jr.
Affiliation:
PO Box 38, Baker, NV 89311, USA. Email: gorden_bell@nps.gov
Kenneth R. Barnes
Affiliation:
Mosasaur Ranch Museum, Lajitas, TX 79852, USA Email: kbarnes@bigbend.net
Michael J. Polcyn
Affiliation:
Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, USA. Email: mpolcyn@mail.smu.edu
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Abstract

Upper Cretaceous marine rocks of the Big Bend Region of trans-Pecos Texas preserve a number of marine-adapted mosasauroids. At least three unnamed taxa of basal mosasauroids are represented by remains from shaly limestones in the middle Turonian portion of the Boquillas Formation. These occur along with remains of larger derived mosasaurs referable to Russellosaurina and an undescribed tylosaurine. Derived mosasaurs from the middle to late Coniacian include the first report of Tylosaurus kansasensis outside of Kansas, T. nepaeolicus, Platecarpus planifrons, and Platecarpus aff. P. planifrons. Clidastes liodontus is found in the latest Coniacian or early Santonian part of the Pen Formation. An undescribed species of Ectenosaurus, Clidastes sp. and an indeterminate plioplatecarpine occurs in the middle Santonian to early Campanian interval of the Pen Formation. The mosasaur fauna from the Big Bend region is quite similar to that from the Smoky Hill Chalk of Kansas, a thousand kilometres to the north. We refine the position of the Cenomanian–Turonian boundary within the Ernst Member of the Boquillas Formation, based on ammonite faunas. We also corroborate previous interpretations describing the time-transgressive nature of the onset of deposition of the Pen Formation based on a west-to-east descending level of the Inoceramus (Cremnoceramus) undulatoplicatus FAD.

Keywords

Boquillas FormationCenomanianmarine squamatesMosasauridaeMosasauroideaPen FormationRusselosaurinaSantonianTuronian
Type
Articles
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 103 , Issue 3-4: The Full Profession: A Celebration of the Life and Career of Wann Langston, Jr., Quintessential Vertebrate Palaeontologist , September 2012 , pp. 571 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Society of Edinburgh 2013 

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