Remains of Triassic vertebrates discovered in the Villány Hills (SW Hungary) are described here. After the well-documented Late Cretaceous Iharkút locality, this material represents the second systematically collected assemblage of Mesozoic vertebrates from Hungary. Fossils were collected from both the classical abandoned road-cut at Templom Hill (Templom-hegy) and a newly discovered site at a construction zone located 200 meters west of the road-cut. Macrofossils of the construction site are mainly isolated bones and teeth of nothosaurs from the Templomhegy Dolomite, including a fragmentary mandible referred to as Nothosaurus sp. and placodont teeth tentatively assigned here to cf. Cyamodus sp. Affinities of these fossils suggest a Middle Triassic (Ladinian) age of these shallow marine deposits.New palynological data prove for the first time a Late Triassic (Carnian) age of the lower part of the Mészhegy Sandstone Formation. Vertebrate remains discovered in this formation clearly represent a typical Late Triassic shallow-marine fauna including both chondrichthyan (Lissodus, Palaeobates, Hybodus) and osteichthyan (cf. Saurichthys, ?Sphaerodus sp.) fish fossils. The presence of reworked nothosaur and placodont tooth fragments as well as of possible archosauriform teeth, suggest an increase of terrestrial influence and the erosion of underlying Triassic deposits during the Late Triassic.A belemnite rostrum collected from the lowermost beds of the Somssichhegy Limestone Formation proves that this Lower Jurassic (Pliensbachian) layer was deposited in a marine environment. Most of the vertebrate remains (nothosaurs, placodonts, hybodont shark teeth, perhaps Palaeobates, Lissodus) recovered from these beds are also reworked Triassic elements strongly supporting an erosive, nearshore depositional environment.
There are two Triassic vertebrate sites in Villány Hills (Southern Hungary), where productive and continuous excavations have been carried out in the last six years resulting in a rich and diversified assemblage of shallow marine to coastal animals. The studied formations belong to the Villány–Bihor Unit of the Tisza Megaunit, which was located at the passive margin of the European Plate during the Triassic. The relatively diverse vertebrate assemblage was collected from a Road-cut on Templom Hill and a newly discovered site at a construction zone located on the Somssich Hill. Four main lithofacies were identified and interpreted in the newly discovered Construction vertebrate site consisting of dolomite (deposited in a shallow, restricted lagoon environment), dolomarl (shallow marine sediments with enhanced terrigenous input), reddish silty claystone (paleosol) and sandstone (terrigenous provenance) indicating that the sediments of the Construction vertebrate site were formed in a subtidal to peritidal zone of the inner ramp environment, where the main controlling factor of the alternating sedimentation was the climate change. However, the recurring paleosol formation in the middle part of the section also indicates a rapid sea-level fall when the marine sediments were repeatedly exposed to subaerial conditions. In the Road-cut site the siliciclastic sediments of the Mészhegy Sandstone Formation are exposed, representing a nearshore, shallow marine environment characterized by high siliciclastic input from the mainland.
In the Villány Hills, the southernmost exposed basement block of Hungary, Cenozoic rocks have been known to be represented mostly by Late Pliocene -Quaternary terrestrial sediments, red clays and loess. Cleaning of a classic exposure, the cable-car cut on Templom Hill in the village of Villány, at the eastern termination of the Villány Hills, revealed a hitherto unknown Quaternary deposit overlying the Mesozoic basement rocks, which may add important information to the Cenozoic evolution history of the area. This paper aims at describing this deposit, identifying its sedimentary environment and concluding on the palaeogeographic conditions.The strongly tilted Mesozoic succession is overlain by coarse gravel with a sand interbed, then after an erosional unconformity by slope loess with gravel seams. Clast lithologies indicate that the gravel has a local origin. Its source rocks are Middle Triassic Templomhegy Dolomite, Upper Triassic Mészhegy Sandstone, Lower Jurassic Somssichhegy Limestone and Pliocene-Quaternary cavity-filling red clay and calcite, all occurring within Templom Hill and along the northern side of the Villány Hills. The heavy mineral assemblage of the sand interbed in the gravel is similar to that of the directly underlying Mészhegy and Somssichhegy Formations. The wide range of the rounding of clasts (poor to good) also points to short transport. The age of the gravel is not older than Pleistocene based on the Early Pleistocene age of the cavity-filling red clays in the area; the sand interbed is older than 400 ka according to OSL dating results. Based on the above points, the gravel can be interpreted as a fluvial terrace, a deposit of a watercourse flowing in the area during the Early and/or Middle Pleistocene. This watercourse was probably the ancestor of the modern Villány-Pogány Stream, flowing along and eroding the northern margin of the Villány Hills. Due to the slow uplift of the basement, the stream incised, the gravel got exposed and eroded. A gentle-sloped small valley incised into it and became filled up during the Riss glaciation (MIS 6) with loess and sandy-gravelly sheet wash deposits. The uplift rate of the area in the younger Quaternary did not exceed ~0,05 mm/year. Keywords: Pleistocene, fluvial terrace, uplift rate, OSL, post-IR IRSL, heavy mineral Összefoglalás A Villányi-hegységben eddigi ismereteink szerint a kainozoos képződményeket elsősorban késő-pliocén-kvarter szárazföldi üledékek, vörösagyagok és lösz képviselik. A villányi Templom-hegy siklóbevágásának közelmúltbeli letisztítása eddig ismeretlen kvarter képződményt tett hozzáférhetővé, amely fontos adalékot jelenthet a Villányi-hegység kainozoos fejlődéstörténetéhez. A cikk célja a mezozoos rétegekre települt fedőképződmények leírása, képződési körül -ményeinek, valamint korának meghatározása és ősföldrajzi viszonyainak felvázolása.A kibillent alaphegységi rétegsorra homokbetelepüléses durva kavics, majd eróziós határral kavicszsinóros aleurit települ. A durva kavics a kőzetanyagok vizsgálata alapján a közvet...
A gyermekek természettudományi érdeklődésének felkeltésére, illetve fokozására a nagykanizsai Soós Ernő Víztechnológiai Kutató-Fejlesztő Központ Gyerekegyetem Nyári Tábor elnevezéssel indított útjára egy tehetséggondozó programsorozatot az általános iskolás korosztály számára. A nyári tábor során a gyerekek egy héten keresztül tematikus napokon vettek részt, ahol kémiai, biológiai kísérleteket próbáltak ki, a természetben barangolva ismerték meg környezetük élővilágát, betekintést nyertek az ásvány-és gyógyvizek világába, valamint megismerkedtek a fenntartható fejlődés fogalmával. A tábor a tehetséggondozás egy kezdeti lépése, melyet a jövőben további foglalkozásokkal, szakkörökkel, előadássorozatokkal kívánnak bővíteni a kutatóközpont kollégái.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.