The First Upper Triassic Vertebrate Locality in Antarctica

Abstract

In December 1999 we collected bones of two small reptiles from Upper Triassic mudstone on Mount Dearborn in southern Victoria Land, Antarctica. One specimen includes indeterminate limb fragments of a small reptile and the other is a tusk of a small dicynodont. We found both specimens in loose clasts on a slope of fine-grained strata above the second major channel-form sandstone above the base of member C in the Lashly Formation. The fossils occur in medium gray mudstone of the same lithology as the surrounding bedrock. Lashly member C at Mount Dearborn and in southern Victoria Land is composed of fining-upward cycles. At Mount Dearborn the cycles begin with channel-form, medium- to fine-grained sandstone. Quartz pebbles and cobbles occur at the base and in lenses with mudstone clasts. Lenses of coal occur along bedding planes and scours. The cycles fine upward gradually from sandstone to siltstone and carbonaceous mudstone with coal at the top. The Dicroidium flora is better preserved in the upper part of the cycles. A palynomorph assemblage from one of the bone-bearing samples suggests a Late Triassic (Carnian) age for the locality. This is the first report of Upper Triassic vertebrates in Antarctica and also of terrestrial vertebrates in Victoria Land. All previous vertebrate localities have been in non-carbonaceous beds in the central Transantarctic Mountains. The discovery expands the sequence of tetrapod occurrences in Lower, Middle and Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic rocks in the Transantarctic Mountains. It appears that reptilian faunas managed to inhabit high latitudes (>60°), at least intermittently, for a period of 50 million years, suggesting a relatively warm climate for parts of Antarctica during those times.