ammonites
Loma de la Catalina I, 6km west of Leiva (UCMP loc. V-4540) (Cretaceous of Colombia)

Also known as Callawayasaurus colombiensis type locality

Where: Boyacá, Colombia (5.6° N, 73.6° W: paleocoordinates 3.2° N, 42.5° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Early/Lower Aptian (125.5 - 122.5 Ma)

• Bürgl (1954) lists the associated ammonites as Deshayesites colombianus Riedel, D. sp. indet., Procheloniceras albrechti austriae (Hohenegger), and Cheloniceras subnodoscostatum (Sinzow).

Environment/lithology: marine; concretionary, gypsiferous, hematitic, gray, calcareous siltstone

• Most of the matrix is a gray-buff siltstone that scratches reddish; so the whole has a slight purplish cast. Casts of pelycypods and ammonites are common in the matrix near the bones, and a good Lower Aptian invertebrate fauna has been collected and determined (Bürgl, 1954, p. 16) from this general horizon. Red and yellow iron concretions are common, often more than 5 cm in diameter, with hard red oxide forming a shell around the softer limonite. Gypsum occurs as veins in cracks and in crystals throughout the matrix surrounding the skull... Limestone formed concretions around some of the bones, especially the skull, and between the pectrum... red iron oxide coated much of the bone surface.

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by Dr R. A. Stirton in 1945; reposited in the UCMP

Collection methods: quarrying,

Primary reference: S. P. Welles. 1962. A new species of elasmosaur from the Aptian of Colombia and a review of the Cretaceous plesiosaurs. University of California Publications in Geological Sciences 44(1):1-96 [R. Benson/R. Benson] more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 116639: authorized by Roger Benson, entered by Roger Benson on 10.09.2011