UALVP locality 526, Watino (Cretaceous of Canada)

Where: Alberta, Canada (55.7° N, 117.6° W: paleocoordinates 59.5° N, 73.8° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Vimy Member (Kaskapau Formation), Early/Lower Turonian (93.5 - 89.3 Ma)

• At Watino, Cretaceous sandstone is exposed at river level and the bone bed material is known only from loose blocks in heavily slumped debris. The nearest well-exposed section is at Hunting Creek, located 8 km NNE of Watino, where the upper part of the Dunvegan Formation and lower part of the overlying Kaskapau Formation are exposed. Using sea-level as a datum, the top of the Dunvegan Formation can be traced southward from Erin Lodge on the Peace River, to Hunting Creek near the Smoky River, and then projected south to Watino where the Dunvegan-Kaskapau contact is predicted to lie about 70 m above the level of the Smoky River. Therefore, rocks exposed near water level in the vicinity of Watino are probably part of the Dunvegan Formation, while those above, including the sediments with the fossil material, are part of the Kaskapau Formation.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: transition zone or lower shoreface; poorly lithified, phosphatic sandstone

• On this basis, it is concluded that the Hunting Creek phosphatic sandstone and the bone-bearing sandstone recovered from slumped debris at Watino are the same bed. Correlation of the phosphatic sandstone bed from Howard Creek to wells to the south and west suggest that the bed marks the top of Kaskapau unit II (Varban & Plint 2005). This bone bed is interpreted as a winnowed lag deposit and suggests a period of increased wave energy at the sea floor, an interpretation supported by the presence of forced-regressive shoreface sandstones at the top of unit II in the British Columbia Foothills. At Hunting Creek, the phosphatic sandstone, which is highly lenticular, forms wave ripples, hummocky cross-stratification and gutter casts, suggestive of at least intermittent storm wave action.

Size class: macrofossils

Collection methods: chemical, mechanical, acetic

• Repository: Laboratory for Vertebrate Paleontology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (UALVP)

Primary reference: M. V. H. Wilson and Y. Chalifa. 1989. Fossil marine actinopterygian fishes from the Kaskapau Formation (Upper Cretaceous: Turonian) near Watino, Alberta. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 26:2604-2620 [M. Clapham/J. Mordaunt]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 221341: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Josh Mordaunt on 26.07.2021

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Actinopteri
 Ichthyodectiformes - Ichthyodectidae
Ichthyodectes ctenodon, cf. Xiphactinus sp.
cf. Xiphactinus sp. Leidy 1870
 Ichthyodectiformes - Saurodontidae
cf. Gillicus sp.
 Teleostei -
Leucichthyops sp.
Leucichthyops sp. Cockerell 1919
 Elopiformes - Osmeroididae
Osmeroides cf. delicatus
Osmeroides cf. delicatus Cockerell 1919