Journal
GONDWANA RESEARCH
Volume 81, Issue -, Pages 445-460Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.gr.2019.12.008
Keywords
Phytosauria; Gondwana; Zimbabwe; Karoo; Late Triassic
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Funding
- Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST), South Africa NRF, South Africa Natural History Museum, UK University of Johannesburg, South Africa and its `Scatterlings of Africa' programmes
- Departmental Investment Fund of the Natural History Museum, London
- NRF African Origins Platform Grant
- UJ-GES Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
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Correlations between continental sequences within the Karoo-aged basins of southern and eastern Africa are difficult due to the dearth of shared index fossils and a lack of radioisotopic dates for key formations. Here we describe four sites along the southeastern shoreline of Lake Kariba. Zimbabwe. within the Mid-Zambezi Basin, that yield material of phytosaurs (Archosauromorpha: Phytosauria) from within the informal Tashinga Formation (Upper Karoo Group). These phytosaur remains are the first to be recovered from sub-Saharan mainland Africa, representing a major geographic range extension for this group into high southern latitudes. Furthermore, an LA-ICPMS maximum depositional age of 209.2 +/- 4.5 Ma (late Norian/early Rhaetian) derived from detrital zircons provides the first absolute age estimate for any of these sites. The phytosaurs are associated with lungfish and metoposaurid amphibians, forming part of a terrestrial-aquatic dominated biota, a previously undocumented biome from the Late Triassic of southern Africa. (C) 2020 International Association for Gondwana Research. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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