The Botucatu Formation is an

Aptian The Aptian is an age in the geologic timescale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early or Lower Cretaceous Epoch or Series and encompasses the time from 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma to 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma (million years ag ...

geologic

formation Formation may refer to: Linguistics * Back-formation, the process of creating a new lexeme by removing or affixes * Word formation, the creation of a new word by adding affixes Mathematics and science * Cave formation or speleothem, a secondary ...

of the Paraná and

Pelotas Basin The Pelotas Basin ( pt, Bacia de Pelotas, es, Cuenca de Pelotas) is a mostly offshore sedimentary basin of approximately in the South Atlantic, administratively part of the southern states Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul of Brazil and the ...

s in southern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and northern

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. The formation is composed of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

itic

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

s, deposited in an eolian

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

.Petrolli & Pimentel, 2014, p.1 Fossil

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally ...

tracks have been reported from the formation.Weishampel, et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution." Pp. 517-607.

Description

The sandstone is fine-textured and well sorted, containing no pebbles; its colour is occasionally white, yellowish, and reddish, but more commonly it is pinkish. Nearly always it is silicified and therefore compact and hard. The formation was deposited in an arid desert

, characterized by

sabkha A sabkha ( ar, سبخة) is a coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of semiarid to arid climate. Sabkhas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coastal p ...

s and

wadi Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet ( ephemeral) riverbed that contains water on ...

s.Leonardi, 1994, p.50

Fossil content

Among the following fossils were reported from the Botucatu Formation:São Bento quarry, Araraquara
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks is a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cre ...

.org * Coelurosauria indet. * Lacertilia indet. * Mammalia indet. * Ornithopoda indet. * Theropoda indet. * ''

Vespersaurus ''Vespersaurus'' (meaning "western lizard") is a genus of noasaurid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Rio Paraná Formation in the Paraná Basin, Brazil. The type and only species is ''V. paranaensis'', which would have lived in the giant ...

'' * ?Tritylodontoidea indet. ;

Ichnofossil A trace fossil, also known as an ichnofossil (; from el, ἴχνος ''ikhnos'' "trace, track"), is a fossil record of biological activity but not the preserved remains of the plant or animal itself. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, ...

s * '' Brasilichnium elusivum''

References

Bibliography

* * * {{ISBN, 0-520-24209-2

Description

Fossil content

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading