Syncrude Base Mine, West side (Cretaceous of Canada)

Also known as Wapuskanectes betsynichollsae type locality

Where: Alberta, Canada (57.0° N, 111.7° W: paleocoordinates 56.4° N, 57.6° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Wabiskaw Member (Clearwater Formation), Early/Lower Albian (112.0 - 109.0 Ma)

• Lower Albian age based on angiosperm palynomorphs and Foraminifera

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: transition zone or lower shoreface; medium, glauconitic sandstone

• 2-3 metre thick, heterolithic, very fine- to medium-grained glauconitic sandstone unit... deposition of the uniti in which TMP 98.49.02 was found occured under fully marine conditions, as demonstrated by its laterally extensive deposits, trace fossil assemblages, and sedimentology... facies analysis of cores from the region around the type locality...suggests that deposition of the fossil-bearing unit occured in the lower shoreface-offshore transition zone.

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by Syncrude, Canada in ?1992-2006; reposited in the TMP

Collection methods: quarrying

• Oil sand mining

Primary reference: P. S. Druckenmiller and A. P. Russell. 2006. A new elasmosaurid plesiosaur (Reptilia: Sauropterygia) from the Lower Cretaceous Clearwater Formation, Northeastern Alberta, Canada. Paludicola 5(4):184-199 [R. Benson/R. Benson]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 117448: authorized by Roger Benson, entered by Roger Benson on 20.09.2011

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Reptilia
 Plesiosauria - Elasmosauridae
Wapuskanectes betsynichollsae n. gen. n. sp. Druckenmiller and Russell 2006 elasmosaur
TMP 98.49.02 (holotype)