The Irhazer Shale (french: Argiles de l'Irhazer) or Irhazer II Formation is a

Middle Jurassic The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare, but geological formations co ...

geologic

formation Formation may refer to: Linguistics * Back-formation, the process of creating a new lexeme by removing or affixes * Word formation, the creation of a new word by adding affixes Mathematics and science * Cave formation or speleothem, a secondar ...

of the Irhazer Group in the

Agadez Region Agadez Region is one of the seven regions of Niger. At , it covers more than half of Niger's land area, and is the largest region in the country, as well as the largest African state subdivision. The capital of the department is Agadez. Histo ...

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesornithopod Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (), that started out as small, bipedal running grazers and grew in size and numbers until they became one of the most successful groups of herbivores in the Cretaceous world ...

tracks have been reported from the formation.Weishampel, et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution." Pp. 517-607. The dinosaur ''

Spinophorosaurus ''Spinophorosaurus'' is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Niger during the Middle Jurassic period. The first two specimens were excavated in the 2000s by German and Spanish teams under difficult conditions. The skeletons w ...

'' is known from the formation.

Description

As the overlying Tiouraren Formation of the Irhazer Group, the formation previously had been assigned an

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pro ...

age.North of Aderbissinat
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Fossilworks Fossilworks is a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database The Paleobiology Database is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals ...

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Fossil content

The following fossils were reported from the formation: * '' Elaphrosaurus iguidiensis'' * Ornithopoda indet. * Spinosauridae or Megalosauridae indet. * ''

Spinophorosaurus nigerensis ''Spinophorosaurus'' is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Niger during the Middle Jurassic period. The first two specimens were excavated in the 2000s by German and Spanish teams under difficult conditions. The skeletons w ...

References

Bibliography

* Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.): The Dinosauria, 2nd, Berkeley: University of California Press. 861 pp. {{ISBN, 0-520-24209-2.

Description

Fossil content

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading