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Lexovisaurus
''Lexovisaurus'' is a genus of stegosaur from mid-to-Late Jurassic Europe, 165.7-164.7  mya. Fossils of limb bones and armor fragments have been found in middle to late Jurassic-aged strata of England. Discovery and taxonomy In the early 1880s collector Alfred Nicholson Leeds acquired a skeleton of a dinosaur excavated at a small brick pit at the hamlet of Tanholt, close to Eye, Cambridgeshire. In September 1885 the remains were shown to paleontologist Henry Woodward whose notes form the first documentation on the subject. Later it was mistakenly assumed the find had been made at the industrial brick pits at Fletton, the usual source of Leeds' specimens.Leslie F. Noè, Jeff J. Liston and Sandra D. Chapman, 2010, "‘Old bones, dry subject’: the dinosaurs and pterosaur collected by Alfred Nicholson Leeds of Peterborough, England", ''Geological Society, London, Special Publications'' 343: 49-77 In 1887 the fossil was described by John Whitaker Hulke and named as a new spe ...
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Oxford Clay Formation
The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specifically, the Callovian and Oxfordian ages, and comprises two main facies. The lower facies comprises the Peterborough Member, a fossiliferous organic-rich mudstone. This facies and its rocks are commonly known as lower Oxford Clay. The upper facies comprises the middle Oxford Clay, the Stewartby Member, and the upper Oxford Clay, the Weymouth Member. The upper facies is a fossil poor assemblage of calcareous mudstones. Oxford Clay appears at the surface around Oxford, Peterborough and Weymouth and is exposed in many quarries around these areas. The top of the Lower Oxford Clay shows a lithological change, where fissile shale changes to grey mudstone. The Middle and Upper Oxford Clays differ slightly, as they are separated by an argillaceo ...
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Dacentrurus
''Dacentrurus'' (meaning "tail full of points"), originally known as ''Omosaurus'', is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous (154 - 140 mya) of Europe. Its type species, ''Omosaurus armatus'', was named in 1875, based on a skeleton found in a clay pit in the Kimmeridge Clay in Swindon, England. In 1902 the genus was renamed ''Dacentrurus'' because the name ''Omosaurus'' had already been used for a crocodylian. After 1875, half a dozen other species would be named but perhaps only ''Dacentrurus armatus'' is valid. Finds of this animal have been limited and much of its appearance is uncertain. It was a heavily built quadrupedal herbivore, adorned with plates and spikes, reaching in length and in body mass. Discovery and species On 23 May 1874, James Shopland of the Swindon Brick and Tyle Company reported to Professor Richard Owen that their clay pit, the Swindon Great Quarry below Old Swindon Hill at Swindon in Wiltshire, had again produc ...
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Stegosaur
Stegosauria is a group of herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. Stegosaurian fossils have been found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, predominantly in what is now North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. Their geographical origins are unclear; the earliest unequivocal stegosaurian, '' Huayangosaurus taibaii'', lived in China. Stegosaurians were armored dinosaurs (thyreophorans). Originally, they did not differ much from more primitive members of that group, being small, low-slung, running animals protected by armored scutes. An early evolutionary innovation was the development of spikes as defensive weapons. Later species, belonging to a subgroup called the Stegosauridae, became larger, and developed long hindlimbs that no longer allowed them to run. This increased the importance of active defence by the thagomizer, which could ward off even large predators because the tail was in a higher position, po ...
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Alfred Nicholson Leeds
Alfred Nicholson Leeds (9 March 184725 August 1917) was an English amateur palaeontologist. Biography Leeds was born at Eyebury, Peterborough, the youngest of the eight children of Edward Thurlow Leeds (180251) and Eliza Mary Leeds (née Nicholson). He was educated at Warwick School. He had wanted to become a doctor, but circumstances meant that from 1868 he had to take on the management of Eyebury Farm (in The Fens, and historically attached to Peterborough Abbey) as a gentleman farmer. His elder brother Charles, a student at the University of Oxford, had been encouraged by Professor John Phillips to persevere in collecting fossils from near his home. Alfred joined him in these searches, and between them they developed better methods of disinterring, and of scientifically recording, fossils in soft clay than had been used before. (They rewarded the workmen at the clay pits (which served a brickworks in Fletton, Peterborough) for not doing so themselves, but instead sending no ...
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Leedsichthys
''Leedsichthys'' is an extinct genus of pachycormid fish that lived in the oceans of the Middle to Late Jurassic.Liston, JJ (2004). An overview of the pachycormiform ''Leedsichthys''. In: Arratia G and Tintori A (eds) Mesozoic Fishes 3 - Systematics, Paleoenvironments and Biodiversity. Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, München, pp 379–390. It is the largest ray-finned fish, and amongst the largest fish known to have ever existed. The first remains of ''Leedsichthys'' were identified in the nineteenth century. Especially important were the finds by the British collector Alfred Nicholson Leeds, after whom the genus was named "Leeds' fish" in 1889. The type species is ''Leedsichthys problematicus''. ''Leedsichthys'' fossils have been found in England, France, Germany and Chile. In 1999, based on the Chilean discoveries, a second species was named ''Leedsichthys notocetes'', but this was later shown to be indistinguishable from ''L. problematicus''. ''Leedsichthys'' fossils have been ...
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Callovian
In the geologic timescale, the Callovian is an age and stage in the Middle Jurassic, lasting between 166.1 ± 4.0 Ma (million years ago) and 163.5 ± 4.0 Ma. It is the last stage of the Middle Jurassic, following the Bathonian and preceding the Oxfordian. Stratigraphic definitions The Callovian Stage was first described by French palaeontologist Alcide d'Orbigny in 1852. Its name derives from the latinized name for Kellaways Bridge, a small hamlet 3 km north-east of Chippenham, Wiltshire, England. The base of the Callovian is defined as the place in the stratigraphic column where the ammonite genus '' Kepplerites'' first appears, which is the base of the biozone of '' Macrocephalites herveyi''. A global reference profile (a GSSP) for the base had in 2009 not yet been assigned. The top of the Callovian (the base of the Oxfordian) is at the first appearance of ammonite species '' Brightia thuouxensis''. Subdivision The Callovian is often subdivided into three substages ...
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Peterborough Member
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until 1974, when county boundary change meant the city became part of Cambridgeshire instead. The city is north of London, on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea to the north-east. In 2020 the built-up area subdivision had an estimated population of 179,349. In 2021 the Unitary Authority area had a population of 215,671. The local topography is flat, and in some places, the land lies below sea level, for example in parts of the Fens to the east and to the south of Peterborough. Human settlement in the area began before the Bronze Age, as can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the current city centre, also with evidence of Roman occupation. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the establishment of a monastery, Medeshamsted ...
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Kosmoceras
''Kosmoceras'' is a moderately evolute ammonite genus from the upper Callovian (Middle Jurassic) of Europe with a simple apterure and irregular ribbing interrupted by an irregular row of lateral tubercles. Strong ventral tubercles are separated by a smooth depression running along the rim. ''Kosmoceras'' belongs to the Stephanoceratoidea and is the type genus for the Family Kosmoceratidae and for the subfamily Kosmoceratinae. ''Kosmoceras spinosum'' Waagen is the type species. '' Lobokosmoceras'' and '' Gulielmiceras'' have been regarded as subgenera of ''Kosmoceras''. ''Gulielmites'' is a fine-ribbed variety of ''Kosmoceras jason'' Species This genus includes more than 100 species, including: * ''K. aculeatum'' * ''K. balticum'' * ''K. cromptoni'' * ''K. bizeti'' * ''K. fibuliferum'' * ''K. geminatum'' * ''K. gemmatum'' * ''K. grossouvrei'' * ''K. interpositum'' * ''K. jason'' * ''K. lithuanicum'' * ''K. medea'' * ''K. obductum'' * ''K. ornatum'' * ''K. phaeinum'' * ''K. pronia ...
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Biozone
In biostratigraphy, biostratigraphic units or biozones are intervals of geological strata that are defined on the basis of their characteristic fossil taxa, as opposed to a lithostratigraphic unit which is defined by the lithological properties of the surrounding rock. A biostratigraphic unit is defined by the zone fossils it contains. These may be a single taxon or combinations of taxa if the taxa are relatively abundant, or variations in features related to the distribution of fossils. The same strata may be zoned differently depending on the diagnostic criteria or fossil group chosen, so there may be several, sometimes overlapping, biostratigraphic units in the same interval. Like lithostratigraphic units, biozones must have a type section designated as a stratotype. These stratotypes are named according to the typical taxon (or taxa) that are found in that particular biozone. The boundary of two distinct biostratigraphic units is called a ''biohorizon''. Biozones can be f ...
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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 containing land animal fossils include the Forest Marble Formation in England, the Kilmaluag Formation in Scotland,British Geological Survey. 2011Stratigraphic framework for the Middle Jurassic strata of Great Britain and the adjoining continental shelf: research report RR/11/06 British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham. the Daohugou Beds in China, the Itat Formation in Russia, and the Isalo III Formation of western Madagascar. Paleogeography During the Middle Jurassic Epoch, Pangaea began to separate into Laurasia and Gondwana, and the Atlantic Ocean formed. Eastern Laurasia was tectonically active as the Cimmerian plate continued to collide with Laurasia's southern coast, completely closing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean. A subd ...
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Kimmeridge Clay Formation
The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for North Sea oil. The fossil fauna of the Kimmeridge Clay includes turtles, crocodiles, sauropods, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs, as well as a number of invertebrate species. Description Kimmeridge Clay is named after the village of Kimmeridge on the Dorset coast of England, where it is well exposed and forms part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. Onshore, it is of Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) age and outcrops across England, in a band stretching from Dorset in the south-west, north-east to North Yorkshire. Offshore, it extends into the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian Stage) and it is found throughout the Southern, Central and Northern North Sea. The foundations of the Humber Bridge on the southern (Barton) side of the bridge ...
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British Museum Of Natural History
The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed a ''cathedral of nature''—both exemplified by the large '' Diplodocus'' cast t ...
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