The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Fondevilla acknowledges support from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, (FPI grant, BES-2012-052366). Vila acknowledges support from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Subprograma Juan de la Cierva (MICINN-JDC) 2011). This paper is a contribution to the projects CGL2011-30069-C02-01,02/BTE and CGL2010-16447, subsidized by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain, the European Regional Development Fund, and the Governments of Catalonia (“Direcció General de Patrimoni Cultural, Departament de Cultura”) and Aragón (“Grupos Consolidados”, and the “Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural”). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: The research was partially funded by a grant from the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society. Received: MaAccepted: JPublished: September 3, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Vila et al. Butler, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom (2013) The Latest Succession of Dinosaur Tracksites in Europe: Hadrosaur Ichnology, Track Production and Palaeoenvironments. The highest abundance is found noticeably found in the late Maastrichtian, with tracks occurring in the C29r magnetochron, within about the latest 300,000 years of the Cretaceous.Ĭitation: Vila B, Oms O, Fondevilla V, Gaete R, Galobart À, Riera V, et al. The track succession, with more than 40 distinct track levels, indicates that hadrosaur footprints in the Ibero-Armorican region occur predominantly in the late Maaastrichtian (at least above the early Maastrichtian–late Maastrichtian boundary). The hadrosaur tracks are significantly smaller in size than, but morphologically similar to, those of North America and Asia and are attributable to the ichnogenus Hadrosauropodus. The footprint discoveries mostly represent hadrosaurian and, less abundantly, to sauropod dinosaurs. These new track localities represent various facies types within a diverse set of fluvial environments. A description of some 30 new tracksites and data on sedimentary environments, track occurrence and preservation, ichnology and chronostratigraphy are provided. A comprehensive review and study of the rich dinosaur track record of the Tremp Formation in the southern Pyrenees of Spain (Southwestern Europe) shows a unique succession of footprint localities prior to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event.