Original articleThe dinosaur tracksite of Loulle (early Kimmeridgian; Jura, France)☆
Introduction
The “Carrière du Bois aux salpêtriers” of Loulle (literally “the quarry of the saltpeter workers’ wood”), an ancient quarry of limestone disused since the years 1960, has been converted for a long time as a car park or for storage of logs (Fig. 1, Fig. 2). Thus, the floor of the quarry had to endure a lot of damage, and was covered with gravel and locally various waste products. In 2006, a local naturalist, Jean-François Richard, noted the presence of subcircular depressions under the gravel, which evoked to him dinosaur prints of various sizes. A superficial cleaning of a small area confirmed the presence of numerous sauropod footprints, some of them being organized along trackways (Fig. 2). Excavations were conducted from 2007 to 2009, leading to the discovery of an ichno-assemblage of nearly 1500 prints on an area of 3800 m2. Eighteen main sauropod trackways and four theropod trackways have been identified. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze this unique set of trackways, the most complete sauropod trackway assemblage identified so far in France.
Section snippets
Geographical and geological settings
The dinosaur tracksite is located in the central French Jura Mountains, in the ancient quarry of the “Bois aux salpêtriers” (46°42’51 N; 5°53’32 E), near the village of Loulle (Département du Jura), four kilometers south of the town of Champagnole (Fig. 1). During the Late Jurassic, this region was located at the southeastern margin of the carbonate-dominated Jura platform. The stratigraphical and sedimentological analysis of the Loulle section was the aim of a previous detailed study (Cariou et
Material and methods
The 18 main sauropod trackways and 4 main theropod trackways of this site are described as the base of this study. They are labelled from LOU 01 to LOU 22 (Fig. 5; Appendix A). The numerous isolated prints and the very short trackways are not considered here. All the specimens have been prepared in the field, either by cleaning the surface in the areas naturally exposed or, after excavation, in areas covered by limestone beds. The trackway-bearing surface extends to the north and east, where it
Measurements and used parameters
Since the first attempt to synthesize and define biometric treatment of the tracks and trackways (Leonardi, 1987), several parameters and indices have been regularly suggested, discussed or modified. All the Loulle tracks and trackways have been systematically measured, according to the commonly used and recently discussed parameters (Leonardi, 1987, Thulborn, 1990, Lockley, 1991, Lockley and Hunt, 1995, Lockley and Meyer, 2000, Marty et al., 2003, Marty et al., 2010). These biometrical data
Sauropod trackways
At first sight, the general observation of the site reveals a large zone of trampling with ca. 1500 footprints referable to sauropod. All the footprints occur as negative epichnia and are rather well-preserved, except in few areas where the quarry floor was damaged by cars and logs. They are more or less deeply marked with a more or less prominent rim, depending on the substratum competence. Among these apparently non-organized prints, it has been possible to identify 18 sauropod trackways,
Conclusion
Dated from the earliest Kimmeridgian, the site of Loulle is the earliest known sauropod tracksite in France. With more than 1500 tracks recorded so far, it exhibits a crossing area rather than the passage of a herd. Thus, it can be considered as one of the richest dinosaur tracksites in the world. As pointed out by Lockley et al. (2015), there are relatively few large dinosaur tracksites yielding more than 1000 tracks. But the main feature of interest of the Loulle site lies in the range of
Acknowledgements
The authors thank J-F. Richard who discovered the site of Loulle and actively worked for its protection. We are grateful to the reviewers, G. Gand and M. Romano, who provided useful comments. Excavations have been supported by local public councils: the Région Franche-Comté, the Département du Jura, the Communauté de Communes de Champagnole and the Municipalité de Loulle. The legal and physical preservation of this print-bearing quarry is supported by the local public councils (Municipality,
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2018, Journal of Asian Earth SciencesCitation Excerpt :Parallel trackways, that is a common phenomenon observed and interpreted at many sauropod tracksites, are regarded as gregarious behavior (Lockley et al., 1986; Zhang et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2009; Kukihara and Lockley, 2012). By contrast, those sauropod trackways with diversified orientations could represent unorganized herds (Mazin et al., 2016). The Guxian sauropod trackways are quite different regarding trackway direction and orientation.
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Corresponding editor: Emmanuel Fara.