Isolated Archosaur teeth from the green sandstone capping the Coralline Limestone (Bagh Group) of the Narmada valley: Evidence for the presence of pre‐Late to Late Maastrichtian abelisaurids in <scp>India</scp>

Prasad, G. V. R.; Verma, Vishal; Grover, Pooja; Rajkumari, Priyadarshini; Sahni, Ashok; Lourembam, Ranjit Singh

doi:10.1111/iar.12142

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…have also been recorded from this unit . The topmost part (Green Sandstone) of the Bagh beds has also produced isolated theropod teeth (Prasad et al, 2016).…”

Section: Cretaceousmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dinosaur fossil records from India and their palaeobiogeographic implications: an overview

Khosla

Bajpai

2021

JPS

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The complex palaeogeographic history of India involving a gradual transition from Gondwana to Laurasia with an intervening phase of prolonged physical isolation, and the biotic signatures of this complex history as preserved in India’s Mesozoic fossil record are of much current interest and continue to be debated. Seen in this context, the fossil record of dinosaurs from India provides a unique opportunity to study their diversity and palaeobiogeographic distribution in time and space. The Indian fossil record, as currently documented, is patchy and restricted mainly to three intervals of the Mesozoic era: Late Triassic, Early/Middle Jurassic and Late Cretaceous. The Late Triassic–Jurassic record, representing a Pangean setting, is known primarily from the Gondwana formations of Pranhita–Godavari (P–G) Valley in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, although sporadic Jurassic occurrences are also known from Kutch (Gujarat) and Rajasthan. The earliest Late Triassic dinosaur fauna of India comes from the rhynchosaur–dominated Lower Maleri Formation of Carnian age. Known from fragmentary and isolated specimens, the Late Triassic dinosaur fauna is currently represented by the sole species Alwalkeria maleriensis, which is possibly a basal saurischian with uncertain relationships. A slightly younger dinosaur fauna from the archosaur–dominated Upper Maleri Formation of late Norian–earliest Rhaetian age consists of a more diverse assemblage including the two named basal sauropodomorphs (Nambalia roychowdhurii and Jaklapallisaurus asymmetrica). In contrast to the Late Triassic, the Early Jurassic record of Indian dinosaurs described from the Upper Dharmaram and Lower Kota formations of P–G Valley, is far more abundant, diverse and based on more nearly complete material that is currently referred to four named taxa of stem sauropodomorphs or basal sauropods (Lamplughsaura dharmaramensis, Pradhania gracilis, Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis, Barapasaurus tagorei) plus an ornithischian (Ankylosauria). Kotasaurus, one of the earliest known sauropods, is more primitive than Barapasaurus and shared numerous plesiomorphic characteristics with prosauropods. Together, the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic sauropods dinosaurs of India document the early radiation of this group. Amongst the other important records of Jurassic dinosaurs in India is the oldest known camarasauromorph sauropod whose identification is based on a metacarpal, a first pedal paw and a fibula from the Middle Jurassic (Bajocian) strata of Khadir Island, Kutch. Fragmentary postcranial skeletal material of an unidentified Middle Jurassic dinosaurs is also known from Kuar Bet (Patcham Island) in the Rann of Kutch and the Jumara area of Kutch Mainland.Post–Gondwana, the Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of India occur in a different geodynamic setting in which the Indian Plate, as traditionally considered, was a northward drifting island continent in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Apart from the solitary record of a Cenomanian–Turonian sauropod from Nimar Sandstone, Cretaceous dinosaurs from India are documented mainly by skeletal remains and eggs/eggshells from the Maastrichtian infratrappean (=Lameta Formation) and intertrappean deposits in the Deccan Volcanic Province of eastern, western and central peninsular India, and from broadly coeval Kallamedu Formation of Cauvery Basin, southern India. Skeletal remains of the Lameta dinosaurs belong to two major groups, titanosaur sauropods and abelisaurid theropods, plus a possible ankylosaur, whereas the Cauvery records include fragmentary titanosaur bones and a solitary tooth of a troodontid theropod. Apart from bones and teeth, a number of dinosaur egg–bearing nesting sites are also known to occur in the Lameta Formation of east–central and western India, extending for more than 1,000 km across the states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Close phylogenetic relations of the Lameta titanosaurs and theropods with corresponding taxa from the Maastrichtian of Madagascar (Vahiny, Majungasaurus) and the rare occurrence of Laurasian elements such as a troodontid, pose interesting palaeobiogeographic problems in the context of India’s supposed oceanic isolation, especially after its separation from Madagascar at ~ 88 Ma.

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“…have also been recorded from this unit . The topmost part (Green Sandstone) of the Bagh beds has also produced isolated theropod teeth (Prasad et al, 2016).…”

Section: Cretaceousmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dinosaur fossil records from India and their palaeobiogeographic implications: an overview

Khosla

Bajpai

2021

JPS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As the Indian plate separated from Madagascar ~88 Ma, it became a continental island for a relatively short time and provided greater more opportunities for allopatric speciation, and therefore peaks in biological diversity. Unfortunately, the tetrapod record from this crucial, post-Gondwana (pre-Maastrichtian) interval is virtually non-existent in India except for the recent record (Prasad et al, 2016) of a few fragmentary teeth of abelisaurid dinosaurs from the uppermost unit (Green Sandstone) unit of the Bagh Group or the 'Supra-Bagh'.…”

Section: Rifting Of Madagascar From India (~88 Ma)mentioning

confidence: 99%

India’s Northward Drift from Gondwana to Asia During the Late Cretaceous-Eocene

Chatterjee¹,

Bajpai²

2016

Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy

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The northward drift of the Indian plate from its original Gondwana home in the late Jurassic to its current position in Asia since the Early Cenozoic provides a unique natural laboratory for tracking its changing geography, climate, tectonics, and biotic evolution for the past nearly 150 million years. With the breakup of Gondwana, India began to disintegrate into a smaller plate, becoming partially isolated during the Early Cretaceous Period, but possibly retaining a biotic link with Africa via Madagascar. Around 80 Ma, as the Indian plate collided with the Kohistan-Ladakh (KL) Arc and Arabia collided with the Oman Arc, a continuous accreted terrane-the Oman-Kohistan-Ladakh (OKL) Arc-was formed that possibly served as a biotic filter bridge between India and Africa. The biotic connectivity with Africa and South America helps to resolve a major conundrum of Indian paleobiogeography, namely the lack of endemism among Late Cretaceous Indian tetrapods. Later, two catastrophic events at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary, with possible links to the dinosaur extinction, marked the terminal phase of India's northward drift. The Deccan volcanism and the possible Shiva impact. Around the same time, Seychelles was separated from India. During the Late Cretaceous (~67 Ma), the Indian plate suddenly accelerated its motion to 20 cm/year between two transform faults that facilitated its northward movement: the Owen-Chaman Fault on the west and the Wharton Ridge-Sagaing Fault on the east. As a result, the Neotethyan plate, bordered by these two transform faults, became a separate oceanic plate (Kshiroda plate). India continued its acceleration during the Paleocene as a passenger ship with a mobile gangplank of the OKL Arc, carrying its impoverished Gondwanan fauna. A pronounced global warming took place during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when India collided with Asia causing significant changes to tectonics and tetrapod radiation. India slowed down dramatically to 5 cm/year during its initial collision, and its tetrapod fauna underwent an explosive evolution in response to a new ecological opportunity resulting in the Indo-Eurasian interchanges. The occurrence of several stem groups of tetrapods supports the Gondwanan Indian origin (i.e. the Out-of-India hypothesis) of several modern mammal orders such as the perissodactyls, primates, artiodactyls and whales whose antiquity can now be traced phylogenetically to the Indian taxa.

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The Age of Dinosaurs in the Land of Gonds

Chatterjee

2020

Biological Consequences of Plate Tectonics

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Isolated Archosaur teeth from the green sandstone capping the Coralline Limestone (Bagh Group) of the Narmada valley: Evidence for the presence of pre‐Late to Late Maastrichtian abelisaurids in India

Cited by 8 publications

References 35 publications

Dinosaur fossil records from India and their palaeobiogeographic implications: an overview

Dinosaur fossil records from India and their palaeobiogeographic implications: an overview

India’s Northward Drift from Gondwana to Asia During the Late Cretaceous-Eocene

The Age of Dinosaurs in the Land of Gonds

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