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Dinosaur sanctuary on the Chatham Islands, Southwest Pacific: First record of theropods from the K–T boundary Takatika Grit |
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| Authors: | Jeffrey D. Stilwell Christopher P. Consoli Rupert Sutherland Steven Salisbury Thomas H. Rich Patricia A. Vickers-Rich Philip J. Currie Graeme J. Wilson |
| Affiliation: | aSchool of Geosciences, Monash University, Clayton Victoria 3800 Australia bCentre for Evolutionary Research, Australian Museum, 6 College St., Sydney NSW Australia cInstitute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, P. O. Box 30-368, Lower Hutt, New Zealand dSchool of Life Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane Qld 4072 Australia eMuseum Victoria, P. O. Box 666E, Melbourne Victoria 3001 Australia fRoyal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Drumheller, Alberta TOJ OYO Canada |
| Abstract: | Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary (ca. 65 Ma) sections on a Southwest Pacific island containing dinosaurs were unknown until March 2003 when theropod bones were recovered from the Takatika Grit on the remote Chatham Islands (latitude 44° S, longitude 176° W), along the Chatham Rise. Tectonic and palaeontologic evidence support the eastward extension of a ca. 900 km land bridge that connected the islands to what is now New Zealand prior to the K–T boundary. The Chathams terrestrial fauna inhabited coastal, temperate environments along a low-lying, narrow, crustal extension of the New Zealand subcontinent, characterised by a tectonically dynamic, volcanic landscape with eroding hills (horsts) adjacent to flood plains and deltas, all sediments accumulating in grabens. This finger-like tract was blanketed with a conifer and clubmoss (Lycopodiopsida) dominated forest. The Chatham Islands region would have, along with New Zealand, provided a dinosaur island sanctuary after separating from the Gondwana margin ca. 80 Ma. |
| Keywords: | Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary Dinosaur Theropoda Palaeobiogeography Chatham Islands New Zealand |
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