Conant Creek, Lander (Cretaceous of the United States)

Also known as Stegopelta type

Where: Fremont County, Wyoming (42.8° N, 108.0° W: paleocoordinates 43.2° N, 68.7° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Belle Fourche Member (Frontier Formation), Early/Lower Cenomanian (99.6 - 93.5 Ma)

• lower part of member; originally described as the "Hailey Shale" Formation

•The lower unit is of Early Cenomanian age, whereas the upper unit is of Late Cenomanian age (Bloch et al., 1993).

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: estuary or bay; blue shale and brown, sandy claystone

• Beds "plainly show littoral and river disturbances...the invertebrates are of a fresh-water or brackish-water facies."
• "the lowest beds are several hundred feet of dark-colored shale, usually containing toward the base a deposit of sandstone from 2 to 20 feet thick...In most of their extent the Hailey beds have numerous brown sandy clay concretions which very often contain vertebrate remains. These concretions vary in size from a few inches to many feet in diameter...[and often are] stratified into distinct layers...remains described herein were once encased in one of the brown sandy clay concretions so abundant in this formation."

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Collected by S. Williston in the 1900s; reposited in the FMNH

Collection methods: surface (float), mechanical,

Primary reference: S. W. Williston. 1905. A new armored dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Wyoming. Science 22(564):503 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano/M. Carrano]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 27889: authorized by Matthew Carrano, entered by Matthew Carrano on 15.01.2003

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Gastropoda
  -
Gastropoda indet. Cuvier 1795 snail
Bivalvia
 Ostreida - Ostreidae
Ostrea sp. Linnaeus 1758 oyster
  -
"Pelecypoda indet." = Bivalvia
"Pelecypoda indet." = Bivalvia Linnaeus 1758 clam
Reptilia
 Loricata - Teleosauridae
Teleosauridae indet. Geoffroy 1831 marine crocodile
 Ornithischia - Nodosauridae
Stegopelta landerensis n. gen. n. sp.
Stegopelta landerensis n. gen. n. sp. Williston 1905 ankylosaur
FMNH UR88
 Plesiosauria -
Plesiosauria indet. de Blainville 1835 plesiosaur
 Plesiosauria - Polycotylidae
Polycotylus sp. Cope 1869 plesiosaur