Also known as Albertonectes vanderveldei type locality (Elasmosauridae)

Where: Alberta, Canada (49.5° N, 112.9° W: paleocoordinates 57.2° N, 78.4° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Baculites compressus ammonoid zone, Bearpaw Shale Formation, Late/Upper Campanian (83.5 - 70.6 Ma)

• TMP 2007.011.0001 was excavated from dark gray mudstone (claystone) in a concretionary horizon about 15 m above the base of the Bearpaw Formation and about 2 m below an ash bed known by mine workers as the ‘10 inch bentonite.’ The depositional environment for the gray mudstones at this horizon was an open offshore marine setting with benthic conditions that were poorly oxygenated (Tsujita, 1995; Tsujita and Westermann, 1998). This places TMP 2007.011.0001 in the lower part of Muddy Unit 1 of the St. Mary River Section described by Tsujita (1995:fig. B3).

•...the specimen was found just below the lowest known local occurrence of Baculites compressus in the area. This indicates that TMP 2007.011.0001 is no younger than this ammonite zone. The B. compressus zone is in the middle of the upper Campanian, about 73.5 Ma (Cobban et al., 2006), and the underlying Dinosaur Park Formation is from the lower part of the upper Campanian (Eberth, 2005). Therefore, the stratigraphic position of TMP 2007.011.0001 is approximately in the middle of the upper Campanian.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore; concretionary, gray mudstone

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by Korite International Ltd. in <2012

Collection methods: quarrying,

• The specimen (TMP 2007.011.0001) was found in the Upper Cretaceous Bearpaw Formation during mining for gem-quality ammonite shell (‘Ammolite’) by Korite International Ltd. along the St. Mary River near Lethbridge in southern Alberta (Fig. 1, locality 10).

Primary reference: T. Kubo, M. T. Mitchell, and D. M. Henderson. 2012. Albertonectes vanderveldei, a new elasmosaur (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32(3):557-572 [R. Benson/R. Benson]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 127257: authorized by Roger Benson, entered by Roger Benson on 04.05.2012

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)