New discovery of dinosaur footprints in the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous Houcheng Formation at Shangyi， northwestern Hebei Province and its biogeographical implications
Liu Yongqing Kuang Hongwei Peng Nan Xu Huan Chen Jun Xu Jialin Liu Hai Zhang Peng
Institute of Geology，Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences，Beijing 100037
Abstract：A number of dinosaur footprints have been discovered recently from the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous Houcheng Formation in Shangyi，Zhangjiakou，northwestern Hebei Province.The trackways and footprints display a east-west trend on the rock surface of the top of the Houcheng Formation.The preliminary research indicates that these trackways comprise theropod and probably swimming sauropod footprints.One trackway consisted of fifteen sauropod footprints and the other footprints cluster including more than seventy theropod footprints were both recognized.The Tuchengzi/Houcheng Formation was deposited in the transitional period from the Yanliao Biota to the Jehol Biota，which was previously considered as poor palaeogeography and palaeoecology and rare dinosaur bone fossils have been found.Frequent discoveries of dinosaur footprints from the Tuchengzi/Houcheng Formation in northern areas of North China suggest that vertebrate of dinosaur mainly was the survival in the transitional period from the Yanliao Biota to the Jehol Biota in the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous，and greatly enrich the knowledge on the diversity of dinosaur species and biogeography of the Tuchengzi/Houcheng Formation.Study on the palaeogeography，palaeoecology and dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous is beneficial to reveal the enigma of replacement of terrestrial biotas and environment.
Liu Yongqing,Kuang Hongwei,Peng Nan et al. New discovery of dinosaur footprints in the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous Houcheng Formation at Shangyi， northwestern Hebei Province and its biogeographical implications[J]. JOPC, 2012, 14(5): 617-627.
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