The vertebrate-bearing Late Triassic Fleming Fjord Formation of central East Greenland revisited: stratigraphy, palaeoclimate and new palaeontological data

Abstract

In Late Triassic (Norian–Rhaetian) times, the Jameson Land Basin lay at 40° N on the northern part of the supercontinent Pangaea. This position placed the basin in a transition zone between the relatively dry interior of the supercontinent and its more humid periphery. Sedimentation in the Jameson Land Basin took place in a lake–mudflat system and was controlled by orbitally forced variations in precipitation. Vertebrate fossils have consistently been found in these lake deposits (Fleming Fjord Formation), and include fishes, dinosaurs, amphibians, turtles, aetosaurs and pterosaurs. Furthermore, the fauna includes mammaliaform teeth and skeletal material. New vertebrate fossils were found during a joint vertebrate palaeontological and sedimentological expedition to Jameson Land in 2012. These new finds include phytosaurs, a second stem testudinatan specimen and new material of sauropodomorph dinosaurs, including osteologically immature individuals. Phytosaurs are a group of predators common in the Late Triassic, but previously unreported from Greenland. The finding includes well-preserved partial skeletons that show the occurrence of four individuals of three size classes. The new finds support a late Norian–early Rhaetian age for the Fleming Fjord Formation, and add new information on the palaeogeographical and palaeolatitudinal distribution of Late Triassic faunal provinces.

Empirical evidence for stability of the 405-kiloyear Jupiter–Venus eccentricity cycle over hundreds of millions of years

“…The Fleming Fjord Fm. bone and track assemblages from Greenland (paleolatitude, ∼43°N) have both abundant large-bodied sauropodomorph skeletons and footprints (28) and correlate to chrons possibly only as old as E14n (∼216 Ma) (29), similar in age to the La Esquina assemblage in the Los Colorados Fm. as well to the Revueltian assemblages in the Chinle and contemporaneous assemblages in the Newark and Fundy basins.…”

Cyclotosaurus naraserluki,sp. nov., a new Late Triassic cyclotosaurid (Amphibia, Temnospondyli) from the Fleming Fjord Formation of the Jameson Land Basin (East Greenland)

“…The Fleming Fjord Formation is exposed in East Greenland at the Jameson Land Basin, between 70 and 73 N (Clemmensen, 1980a(Clemmensen, , 1980bClemmensen et al, 1998Clemmensen et al, , 2016 (Fig. 1).…”

“…1A-B). These lacustrine deposits have yielded a rich and diverse vertebrate fauna, including most of the main vertebrate groups known from the Late Triassic (Jenkins et al, 1994(Jenkins et al, , 1997(Jenkins et al, , 2001(Jenkins et al, , 2008Clemmensen et al, 1998Clemmensen et al, , 2016Gatesy et al, 1999;Mil an et al, 2012;Mateus et al, 2014;Sulej et al, 2014;Hansen et al, 2016;Marzola et al, 2016). The amphibian fauna reported from the Jameson Land Basin includes the plagiosaurid Gerrothorax pulcherrimus Fraas, 1913(Jenkins et al, 2008, and remains tentatively associated with the capitosaurid Cyclotosaurus Fraas, 1889 (Jenkins et al, 1994;Sulej et al, 2014).…”

An introduction to the Mesozoic biotas of Scandinavia and its Arctic territories

“…Here, body fossils and footprints evidence various dinosaurian taxa, especially sauropodomorphs, together with plagiosaurid and capitosaurian temnospondyl amphibians, rare rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurians, and early mammaliforms (e.g. Bendix-Almgreen 1976;Jenkins et al 1994;Milàn et al 2012a;Sulej et al 2014;Clemmensen et al 2015;Hansen et al 2015;Klein et al 2015). Fragmentary Late Triassic (CarnianRhaetian) temnospondyls are likewise known from both Svalbard and southern Sweden and references therein), and coincide with lush vegetation comprising ginkgoes, cycads and bennettites, lycophytes, sphenophytes, and ferns (Vajda et al 2013).…”