GEODIGEST
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Magma conveyor belt
Research led by geologists from Curtin University (Perth,
Australia) has discovered that a volcanic province in the
Indian Ocean was the world’s most continuously active
large igneous province (LIP), erupting for 30 Myr and
was fuelled by a constantly moving ‘conveyor belt’ of
magma (VolcanoDiscovery, 19 November 2020).
LIPs are massive crustal emplacements of volcanic
rock and are a dominant form of near-surface mag-
matism, typically consisting of subaerial basalt flows.
Such long-lasting supervolcanic eruptions (capable
of producing volume deposits exceeding 1000 cubic
km) require very particular geological conditions.
This research indicates a magma ‘conveyor belt’ was
created by shifts in the seabed, thereby continuously
making space available for the molten rock to flow for
millions of years (activity from c. 122 to 90 Ma).
After the partial breakup of the supercontinent
Gondwana, to form the land masses now known as
Australia, India, and Antarctica, the Kerguelen Pla-
teau (Fig.  1; Kerguelen LIP) began forming on top of
a mushroom-shaped mantle upwelling (mantle plume,
the Kerguelen hot-spot) as well as along deep sea,
mid-oceanic mantle ridges. The volcanism was pro-
longed because magmas caused by the mantle plume
were continuously flowing out through the mid-oce-
anic ridges, which successively acted as a channel, or
a ‘magma conveyor belt’. In other volcanic systems,
this channel would become blocked by cooled magma
therefore causing activity to cease but in the Kerguelen
Plateau, the mantle plume allowed constant melt and
an unusually long period of eruptive activity.
The Kerguelen Plateau covers approximately
1250  000 sq km and rises 2000 m above the sur-
rounding oceanic basin. ‘The Kerguelen Plateau is
gigantic, almost the size of Western Australia’ said
research lead Qiang Jiang ‘Now imagine this area of
land covered by lava, several kilometres thick, erupt-
ing at a rate of about 0.2 mm every year. 0.2 mm of
lava a year may not sound like much but, over an area
the size of Western Australia, that’s equivalent to fill-
ing up 184 000 Olympic-size swimming pools to the
brim with lava every single year. Over the total erup-
tive duration, that’s equivalent to 5.5 trillion lava-filled
swimming pools.’
2 © John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021
The Kerguelen Plateau records the longest, contin-
uous high-magma-flux emplacement interval of any
LIP. Argon–argon dating was used to date the basalts.
Intermittent volcanism continues to this day on the
Heard and McDonald islands. The findings from this
study help provide further insight into the factors that
may control the start and end of this style of volcanic
activity, as well as facilitating understandings of gen-
eral magmatism, both on Earth and other planets.
Meteorite millionaire?
A 34-year-old man in North Sumatra who sold a mete-
orite that smashed through his roof for Rp 200 mil-
lion (US$14 000) found out later that he could have
received 100 times the sum as the space rock is actu-
ally worth around $1.85 million (Apriadi Gunawan,
Jakarta Post, 20 November 2020).
Joshua Hutagalung (Fig.  2) is said to have felt
‘cheated’ after selling the rock to a US meteorite expert
for a much cheaper price than has been reported,
despite international media painting him as a sudden
multimillionaire after making the sale. ‘I have spent all
the Rp 200 million I got from selling the meteorite on
helping my family and orphans, building a church and
repairing my parents’ graves’, said the coffin maker.
On 1 August 2020, Joshua was working on a cof-
fin when the ‘space rock’ suddenly smashed through
the roof of his living room in his house at Setahi Nauli
village. Joshua said he was surprised by the booming
sound and was at first afraid to approach the fallen
object. He then found that it was a meteorite that had
left a large hole in his roof and was embedded 15 cm
deep in the ground.
‘I lifted it up, and it was warm. That’s when I
thought that it must be a meteorite falling from the sky
because it was impossible for someone to throw a rock
Fig. 1.  Volcan du Diable,
south of the Central Plateau of
Grande Terre, the main island
of Kerguelen, and part of the
Kerguelen LIP. (Channer, CC-BY-
SA 3.0.)

of that size onto the roof ’, he said. Joshua immediately
shared his discovery with his friends on Facebook, and
his post soon went viral.
Two days after the discovery, a local resident offered
Rp 1 billion for the space rock, which Joshua rejected
after thinking he was not serious. Two weeks later, an
American meteorite expert told Joshua that he learned
of the latter’s discovery through the media. ‘He offered
Rp 200 million for the meteorite. I refused. He then
added Rp 14 million for repairing the roof that had
been damaged by the meteorite’, said the father of two,
‘After considering it, I agreed with the offer’. A number
of international media outlets, including UK tabloids,
called Joshua an ‘instant multimillionaire’, saying that
he had been given the amount equivalent to 30 years
of his salary for the space rock. The ‘space rock’ was
eventually bought by a doctor and meteorite collector
from Indianapolis.
The meteorite is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old
and is classified as CM1/2 carbonaceous Chondrite, an
extremely rare variety. Meteorites are priced by gram
with the cheapest pure-rock varieties fetching 50 US
cents to $5.00 per gram, but those with rare extra-ter-
restrial metals sell for up to $1000 per gram. Joshua
was surprised to know that the price of the meteorite
he had discovered could sell for up to nearly Rp 26 bil-
lion. ‘He admitted that he had sold only 1.8 kg of the
total 2.2 kg of the space rock. Joshua had divided the
remaining with him and his family members, and said
he would not sell the rock despite its value. ‘Let it be a
memento’, Joshua said.
Three further fragments of the meteorite were
reportedly found in nearby areas when the space stone
crashed in August—one was discovered in a paddy
field less than 3 km from Joshua’s home, according to
media reports. The Lunar and Planetary Institute esti-
mated that the meteorite, which has been officially
named Kolang, initially weighed 2.5 kg in total.
Kolang district head Saut Bona Situmeang said
that since the discovery of the meteorite at Joshua’s
home, the village suddenly became crowded with peo-
ple coming from various regions. ‘Many people come
to our area out of curiosity, wanting to see where the
meteorite fell’, Saut told the Post. Shanty Soekowati,
who represents the Meteorite expert, dismissed reports
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021
Fig. 2.  Joshua and his
meteorite. (Joshua Hutagalung.)
Fig. 3.  Sunset over Gale Crater,
Mars, taken from Curiosity rover
in 2015. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/
MSSS/Texas A&M University.)
GEODIGEST
that Joshua had received between Rp 200 million and
Rp 25 billion for the meteorite. ‘The reported figures
for the meteorite purchase were not correct. The real
figure is confidential between the two parties, Joshua
and the American national, based on a mutual agree-
ment’, she said.
Martian floods
Floods of unimaginable magnitude once washed
through Gale Crater (Fig. 3) on Mars’ equator around
4 billion years ago—a finding that hints at the possibil-
ity that life may have existed there, according to data
collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover and analysed in
joint project by scientists from Jackson State Univer-
sity, Cornell University, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
and the University of Hawaii. (ScienceDaily, 20 Novem-
ber 2020).
The raging megaflood—most likely touched off
by the heat of a meteoritic impact that unleashed ice
stored on the Martian surface—set up gigantic ripples
that are tell-tale geological structures familiar to sci-
entists on Earth. ‘We identified megafloods for the first
time using detailed sedimentological data observed by
the rover Curiosity’, said co-author Alberto G. Fairén,
‘Deposits left behind by megafloods had not been previ-
ously identified with orbiter data’.
As is the case on Earth, geological features includ-
ing the work of water and wind have been frozen in
time on Mars for about 4 billion years. These features
convey processes that shaped the surface of both plan-
ets in the past. This case includes the occurrence of
giant wave-shaped features in sedimentary layers of
Gale crater, often called ‘megaripples’ or antidunes
that are about 9 m high and spaced about 135 m
apart, according to lead author Ezat Heydari, professor
of physics at Jackson State University.
The antidunes are indicative of flowing megafloods
at the bottom of Mars’ Gale Crater about 4 billion years
ago, which are identical to the features formed by melt-
ing ice on Earth about 2 Ma, according to Heydari. The
3
 GEODIGEST

most likely cause of the Mars flooding was the melting

of ice from heat generated by a large impact, which
released carbon dioxide and methane from the plan-
et’s frozen reservoirs. The water vapour and release of
gases combined to produce a short period of warm and
wet conditions on the red planet.
Condensation formed water vapor clouds, which
in turn created torrential rain, possibly planet-wide.
That water entered Gale Crater, then combined with
water coming down from Mount Sharp to produce
gigantic flash floods that deposited the gravel ridges
in the Hummocky Plains Unit and the ridge-and-
trough band formations in the Striated Unit. The Curi-
osity rover science team has already established that
Gale Crater once had persistent lakes and streams in
the ancient past. These long-lived bodies of water are
good indicators that the crater as well as Mount Sharp Fig. 4.  Location of the Apollo
within it were capable of supporting microbial life. Lunar missions—and the
‘Early Mars was an extremely active planet from a projected land site of Chang’e-5.
geological point of view’, Fairén said. ‘The planet had the (NASA/JPL.)
conditions needed to support the presence of liquid water
on the surface—and on Earth, where there’s water,
there’s life. Was it inhabited? Well, that’s a question that
the next rover, Perseverance, will help to answer’. Per-
severance, which launched from Cape Canaveral on 30
July, is scheduled to reach Mars on 18 February 2021.

Moon rocks by robot

Its robotic Chang’e-5 spacecraft departed the Wen-
chang launch complex on a Long March 5 rocket
early on Tuesday morning local time and if success-
ful should return to Earth in mid-December (Jonathan
Amos, BBC News, 24 November 2020).
It’s more than 40 years since the Americans—
through the manned Apollo missions (Fig. 4) and the
Soviets—through their un-manned Luna missions,
brought home lunar samples for analysis. With their
new mission, China aims to be only the 3rd country
to achieve this feat. And it is to be achieved through
a complex multi-step process that involves an orbiter,
a lander-ascender and finally a return component
that uses a capsule to survive a fast and hot entry into
Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the mission.
To date, there have been a number of well-executed
Chinese lunar missions with the most recent mission,
Chang’e-4, making a soft touch down on the Moon’s
far-side (Fig.  5), something no other nation had pre-
viously accomplished. The new Chang’e-5 mission is
going to target a near-side location called Mons Rüm-
ker, a high volcanic complex in a region known as
Oceanus Procellarum. The rocks in this location are
thought to be very young compared with those sam-
pled by the US Apollo astronauts and the Soviet Luna
robots—something like perhaps 1.3 billion years old
versus the 3- or 4-billion-year-old rocks picked up on
those earlier missions. This will give scientists another
Fig. 5.  Chang’e-4 touched down
on the Moon’s far-side. (CNSA.)
data point for the method they use to age events in the
inner Solar System.
‘The Moon is the chronometer of the Solar System,
as far as we’re concerned’, explained Dr Neil Bowles at
Oxford University. ‘The samples returned by the Apollo
and Luna missions came from known locations and
were dated radiometrically very accurately, and we’ve
been able to tie that information to the cratering rate and
extrapolate ages to other surfaces in the Solar System’.
The new Chang’e-5 samples should also improve
our understanding of the Moon’s volcanic history, said
Dr Katie Joy from the University of Manchester. ‘The
mission is being sent to an area where we know there
were volcanoes erupting in the past. We want to know
precisely when that was.’ ‘This will tell us about the
Moon’s magmatic and thermal history through time,
and from that we can start to answer questions more
widely about when volcanism and magmatism was
occurring on all of the inner Solar System planets, and

4 © John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021

Fig. 6.  Artist’s impression of the
Chang’e-5 capsule returning.
(CNSA.)
why the Moon could have run out of energy to produce
volcanoes earlier than some of those other bodies’.
When Chang’e-5 arrives at the Moon, it will go into
orbit. A lander will then detach and make a powered
descent. Once down, instruments will characterize the
surroundings before scooping up some surface mate-
rial. The lander has the capacity also to drill into the
Lunar regolith. An ascent vehicle will then carry the
samples back up to rendezvous with the orbiter. It’s at
this stage that a complicated transfer must be under-
taken, packaging the rock and soil into a capsule for
despatch back to Earth (Fig. 6). Every phase is difficult,
but the architecture will be very familiar—very similar
to how human missions to the Moon were conducted
in the 1960s and 1970s.
‘You can certainly see the analogy between what’s
being done on the Chang’e-5 mission—in terms of
the different elements and their interaction with each
other—and what would be required for a human mis-
sion’, said Dr James Carpenter, exploration science
coordinator for human and robotic exploration at the
European Space Agency. We’re seeing right now an
extraordinary expansion in lunar activity. We’ve got
the US-led Artemis programme (to return astronauts
to the Moon) and the partnerships around that; the
Chinese with their very ambitious exploration pro-
gramme; but also, many more new actors as well.’
Irish dinos
Ireland’s only dinosaur fossils have been officially iden-
tified after being discovered in Islandmagee. A team
Fig. 7.  Dr Mike Simms with
the first Irish dinosaur bones
discovered. (Belfast Telegraph.)
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021
GEODIGEST
of experts from the University of Portsmouth and
Queen’s University Belfast, led by Dr Mike Simms, a
curator and palaeontologist at National Museums NI,
confirmed their origins (Steven Alexander, Belfast Tel-
egraph, 25 November 2020).
The two fossil bones were found by the late Roger
Byrne, a schoolteacher and collector, who donated
them along with many other fossils to the Ulster
Museum (Fig.  7). Analysis has confirmed they are
from early Jurassic rocks found in the town, on the
east coast of Co Antrim. The Ulster Museum has
announced plans to put them on display when it reo-
pens after the latest rounds of restrictions are lifted.
Dr Simms said ‘This is a hugely significant discov-
ery. The great rarity of such fossils here is because
most of Ireland’s rocks are the wrong age for dino-
saurs, either too old or too young, making it nearly
impossible to confirm dinosaurs existed on these
shores’. Originally it was assumed the fossils were
from the same animal, but the team were surprised to
discover that they were from two completely different
dinosaurs. ‘The two dinosaur fossils that Roger Byrne
found were perhaps swept out to sea, alive or dead,
sinking to the Jurassic seabed where they were buried
and fossilized.
The study identified the type of dinosaur from
which each came. One is part of a femur of four-leg-
ged plant-eater Scelidosaurus. The other is part of the
tibia of a two-legged meat-eater similar to Sarcosaurus.
The University of Portsmouth team, researcher Rob-
ert Smyth, originally from Ballymoney, and Professor
David Martill used high-resolution 3D digital models
of the fossils, produced by Dr Patrick Collins of Queen’s
University, in their analysis of the bone fragments.
Robert Smyth said ‘Analysing the shape and inter-
nal structure of the bones, we realized that they
belonged to two very different animals. Despite being
fragmentary, these fossils provide valuable insight on
a very important period in dinosaur evolution, about
200 Ma. It’s at this time that dinosaurs really start to
dominate the world’s terrestrial ecosystems’.
The Irish discovery is also helping scientists make
some new suggestions as to habitat. According to Pro-
fessor Martill: ‘Scelidosaurus keeps on turning up in
marine strata, and I am beginning to think that it may
have been a coastal animal, perhaps even eating sea-
weed like marine iguanas do today’.
A round up of media opinion; the views expressed
do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial
board of Geology Today. With thanks to Anthony
Brook, Wendy Cawthorne, June Coles, Alan Holi-
day, David Nowell and Peter Perkins. If you spot a
news item worthy of inclusion send it to the Geology
Today editorial office, or e-mail to geologytoday@
btinternet.com.
5
 GEODIGEST
Fig. 8.  Geoscience Across the
World—the new Activities and
Questions book. (Chris King.)
6
News
Exploring geoscience
Chris King writes The International Geoscience Edu-
cation Organisation (IGEO) is pleased to announce
the online publication of a new companion book to
Exploring Geoscience Across the World—its new Activi-
ties and Questions book (Fig. 8).
Like Exploring Geoscience, Activities and Questions is
free to download at: http://www.igeoscied.org/teach-
ing-resources/geoscience-text-books/. Importantly,
the new book is keyed into the chapter and section
headings of the earlier Exploring Geoscience book and
contains online links to more than 300 geoscience
teaching activities—together with more than 300
questions in order to consolidate pupil understanding.
The questions provided range from those which can be
answered by careful reading of the Exploring geosci-
ence textbook to deep questions that require deep and
creative thinking.
Also published on a hidden part of the Interna-
tional Geoscience Education Organization (IGEO) web-
site is the Activities and Questions: Some Answers book,
with answers to—and discussions about the questions.
To avoid pupils across the world being able to access
these answers, please email me at chris@earthlearnin-
gidea.com to show you are a legitimate teacher, educa-
tor or other interested person. I will then be very happy
to send you the access details for the Some Answers
book.
With the International Geoscience syllabus pub-
lished on the IGEO website, the Exploring Geoscience
across the World textbook to support the syllabus, and
the new Activities and Questions (with the accompa-
nying Some Answers) book, teachers and educators
across the world have access to world class geoscience
knowledge, understanding and teaching materials,
approved by the International Geoscience Education
Organization (IGEO), the International Union of Geo-
logical Sciences (IUGS) and the European Geoscience
Union (EGU). Let us all now use these to educate the
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021
world for geoscience. All three books may be accessed
through the website: http://www.igeoscied.org/teach-
ing-resources/geoscience-text-books/.
The allure of chalk in the First World War
Peter Doyle writes It is accepted that geology has,
and will continue to have, a major influence on the
conduct of military operations—the subject of the
Springer Advances in Military Geosciences series of
books (https://www.springer.com/series/15030), the
most recent of which is E.P.F. Rose’s German Military
Geology and Fortification of the Channel Islands during
World War II. All these matters are all part of the atten-
tion of the International Conference of Military Geo-
science (ICMG), which meets every 2 years to discuss
such affairs.
As a geologist working in the sphere of military
history, and a participant in these conferences, my
attention is usually taken by the nature of ground con-
ditions, and particularly during the First World War.
This involves studying the significance of field fortifi-
cations relative to soils and subsoils; of tunnelling and
mining; of the challenges of ground water and of the
need for good aggregate in order to create concrete. In
some ways, the combatant troops of this war were lit-
erally close to ground; constructing trenches and dug-
outs meant that the need for excavation, and the very
act of sinking a spade into the ground connected each
soldier intimately with the Earth.
On the Western Front, soldiers from all combatant
nations experienced a wide range of challenging con-
ditions (see for example, Geology and the war on the
western front, 1914–1918, Geology Today, v.30, n.5,
2014; or Fortress Wytschaete: geological controls on
the German frontline in Flanders, 1914–1917, Geol-
ogy Today, v.36, n.2, 2020), and it often that we see
those conditions expressed in the context of mud, usu-
ally in the Palaeogene subsoils and Quaternary soils of
Flanders, and often in the brickearth and clay-with-
flints deposits that mantle the chalk of Artois and
Picardy. But beneath this mantle lies the bright white
Cretaceous chalk, a material that was difficult to dis-
guise from the air, and which, when exposed, formed
a scar across the landscape (this was well developed
in the recent Sam Mendes film 1917). Nevertheless,
chalk was a significant material, as it allowed sol-
diers to dig deep tunnels and dugouts—which infa-
mously contributed to the failure of artillery to fully
destroy the capability of the German forces to resist the
Franco-British assault on the Somme, on 1 July 1916.
Chalk offered a different allure to soldiers, who, in
whatever spare time they could access created a spe-
cies of folk craft known as ‘Trench art’. Commonly,
this was made from scrap brass and munitions, and
more often than not, such items were made away from
the frontline, as time and tools permitted. More inti-

Fig. 9.  British regimental
insignia carved in chalk—either
from Salisbury Plain or from the
battlefields of France, c.1916.
(Peter Doyle.)
Fig. 10.  Hannes: German
infantryman and souvenir hunter.
(Rob Schäfer/Peter Doyle.)
Fig. 11.  Hand-carved chalk
war souvenirs, made by Hannes
in 1917–1918. They record his
locations in Arras and on the
Somme, France. (Peter Doyle/Rob
Schäfer.)
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021
mate, and more often associated with the trenches
themselves, are souvenirs made from pieces of chalk.
Chalk graffiti made by the soldiers can be seen under-
ground in tunnels on both sides of the line—such as
at the city of Arras (e.g., see the Wellington Tunnels,
see https://en.carrierewellington.com/), and here and
elsewhere Commonwealth soldiers took time, by can-
dlelight, to scrawl messages on pristine white surfaces
of the tunnels, or to use their clasp knives to carve out
copies of their regimental insignia (Fig. 9).
Souvenir hunting was common to both sides, and
for one German soldier, Hannes (Fig.  10), collecting
and manufacturing artefacts was an important part of
his service. In addition to picking up pieces of military
materiel to send home, as with one of his surviving let-
ters, dated 26 July 1917: ‘In the parcel you will find the
new pieces I have collected myself. You can give the hel-
met to Georg as I already have one myself…’. But Hannes
also kept a diary of his movements across Artois and
Picardy, in locations facing the British, at Arras and on
the Somme. With chalk being so malleable and readily
carved, Hannes created an unknown number of chalk
pieces with names that are familiar—Bapaume, Oppy
(both on the Somme); Roeux, Gavrelle and Bucquoy
GEODIGEST
(near Arras) (Figs  11 and 12). Each was dated, most
adorned with the Iron Cross, all carefully smoothed and
protected from wear. Each is inconsequential on its own,
but together they record one soldier’s intimate associa-
tion with the trenches that he held as a soldier, of the
nature of the ground and the geology that he was hold-
ing, and the fortunes and progress of the war ‘of the
trenches’. Such items show us a direct connection with
the Earth and with geology that, despite being sublimi-
nal, may actually have lain deep in the subconscious, a
desire to escape the terror of the battlefield.
Research
New research in Cretaceous dinosaur studies
That research into iconic Cretaceous dinosaurs
(Fig.  13) is rich and diverse is shown by the follow-
ing three studies from the journal Cretaceous Research,
examining social activity, bone health and behaviour.
Living alone or moving in herds—the social
lifestyle of Cretaceous ankylosaurs
The fossil record generally provides limited informa-
tion on behavioural aspects of extinct animals, but
despite that, gregarious behaviour has been postulated
for a number of dinosaurs, including ceratopsians,
ornithopods, sauropodomorphs and even herbivorous
and predatory theropods. Evidence for dinosaur herds
comes from taphonomic investigations, which can
identify mass death assemblages; the accumulation of
animal remains which died over a brief time span due
to a single cause. Indirectly, these mass death events
suggest that multiple animals must have congregated
before their death. Additional evidence for dinosaur
herds includes unidirectional and subparallel track-
ways interpreted as indirect proof that the dinosaurs
lived and moved in groups, including large herds. Com-
pared with herbivorous dinosaurs, the social lifestyle
of ankylosaurs, heavily armoured, medium-sized her-
bivores with a peak diversity in the Cretaceous Period,
is less clear (Fig.  14). Adult ankylosaurs are often
assumed to have been largely solitary animals because
their skeletons are almost always found as isolated
individuals. However, a few known cases in which
multiple ankylosaur individuals are concentrated in a
single horizon and form true mass death assemblages
suggest that the social structuring in ankylosaurs may
have been more diverse than previously thought and
Gabor Botfalvai and colleagues have just reviewed the
evidence for social behaviour in ankylosaurs (Botfalvai
et al., 2021, Cretaceous Research, v.118, 104633).
Mass death assemblages usually, but not exclu-
sively, consist of animals that tend to aggregate in
7
 GEODIGEST
Fig. 12.  Rouex is near to the
city of Arras, Pas-de-Calais,
France; for much of the latter
part of the war, Arras was in
Commonwealth hands. Hannes
has carved his souvenir from a
piece of local chalk, with date
and place, and the traditional
symbol of the Iron Cross.
groups and reflecting true gregarious behaviour. How-
ever, spontaneous aggregation of animals, irrespective
of their social behaviour, also occurs under sudden
or prolonged, unpredictable and unfavourable cir-
cumstances. For example, a prolonged drought can
keep gregarious and non-gregarious animals together
close to temporary waterholes prior to their death. For
ankylosaurs, the overwhelming majority of their fos-
sils represent solitary animals. For instance, dozens
of ankylosaur skeletons unearthed from the Dinosaur
Park Formation in Alberta, Canada, and belonging to
different taxa (e.g. Euoplocephalus tutus, Edmontonia
rugosidens or Scolosaurus cutleri) were discovered as iso-
lated carcasses representing only one individual per
site or bonebed. The rare occasions where skeletons
of multiple ankylosaur individuals were concentrated
in a single bonebed horizon have been interpreted as
resulting from natural catastrophes. However, to date,
there are six fossil sites known with sufficient tapho-
Fig. 13.  Cast of the most
iconic dinosaur of them all:
Tyranosaurus rex, on display in
Paris. Research into Cretaceous
dinosaurs is alive and well.
(David Monniaux, CC-BY-SA 3.0.)
8 © John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021
nomic information to conclude that the multiple indi-
viduals of ankylosaurs preserved within the same
bonebed represent true mass death assemblages.
Three Lower Cretaceous sites in the Cedar Moun-
tain Formation (USA, Utah) have many individuals
of the ankylosaur genus Gastonia within the same
bonebed mass death assemblages, suggesting that
Gastonia moved in herds. With more than a thousand
isolated bones, and at least twelve associated and/
or articulated partial skeletons, the Late Cretaceous
(Santonian) Csehbánya Formation dinosaur local-
ity at Iharkút, Hungary, provides the richest ankylo-
saur assemblage from Europe. Their taphonomy (i.e.
skeletons found close to each other in the same layer
having almost identical taphonomic features) sup-
ports a uniform depositional history and suggests that
these remains record the simultaneous death of some
members of a herd that attempted to cross a flood-
ing river. In the Alag Teeg Formation (Southern Gobi,
Mongolia), more than 30 skeletons of juvenile Pina-
cosaurus ankylosaurs have been discovered. However,
this assemblage is most likely composed of animals
concentrated around and within drying ponds dur-
ing drought, and their carcasses may have been bur-
ied by a subsequent ephemeral flood event. Finally,
approximately 12 mostly articulated skeletons of Pina-
cosaurus grangeri were discovered from a single site at
Bayan in the Campanian-aged Djadokhta correlative
beds in Inner Mongolia, China. The evidence here sug-
gests that the individuals discovered at this site died in
situ and were buried by sand fans during rain storms
within a stabilized dune field.
Whilst these field studies suggest that at some loca-
tions ankylosaurs were gregarious, Gabor Botfalvai
and colleagues suggest that the ankylosaurian gross
anatomy, such as their heavy armour, barrel-shaped
body and usually stocky limbs, combined with the rar-
ity of mass death assemblages and multiple parallel
trackways, all suggest a solitary adult life with an effi-
cient anti-predator defence system, limited agility and
confined foraging ranges. So why were these particu-
lar ankylosaur groups gregarious? While inefficient
anti-predator defence along with likely higher agility
of juvenile Pinacosaurus living in open habitats could
account for their gregarious behaviour, such ontoge-
netic, anatomical and habitat features are not pre-
sent in Gastonia. Instead, members of each mass death
assemblage likely had their own specific conditions
driving them to form relatively small herds, indicating
a more complex social structure in ankylosaurs than
previously thought.
Blood parasites and acute osteomyelitis in a
Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur
Many modern animals suffer from the effects of par-
asites, but the geological record of palaeo-parasites is
 GEODIGEST

Fig. 14.  Ankylosaur social behaviour. a. and b. Taphonomic

information drawn from a. an isolated carcass indicating solitary
lifestyle and b. a mass death assemblage resulting from a
drowning herd. c. and d. Efficiency of body armour deployed c.
against predators and d. in intraspecific combat and/or display. e.
Comparative anatomy of ankylosaurs, ceratopsians and hadrosaurids
scaled to the same size suggests poor adaptation of ankylosaurs to
running or long-distance walking, as opposed to ceratopsians and
hadrosaurids that are known to have formed massive herds. f. and
g. Ankylosaur gregarious behaviour in the context of their habitat. f.
Open habitat generally favours group formation. g. Although closed,
densely vegetated habitats usually promotes group fission. (Image
courtesy of Edina Prondvai, MTA-MTM-ELTE Research Group for
Paleontology and palaeo-illustrator Márton Szabó.)

very limited. Evidence of fossil endoparasites in ver-

tebrates has been found in coprolites and inverte-
brate vectors preserved in amber, but until now, fossil
parasites preserved directly in vertebrate tissues were
unknown. However, Tito Aureliano and colleagues
have just described in detail the developmental his-
tology of a fossil bone disease, responsible for tissue
deformities in a long bone of an Upper Cretaceous sau-
ropod dinosaur, along with the first record of a para-
site preserved inside fossilized bone tissue (Aureliano
et al., 2021, Cretaceous Research, v.118, 104672).
The authors examined a fragmentary titanosaur fib-
ula from the Upper Cretaceous of Southeast Brazil,
through a combination of CT scanning and detailed
optical microscopy to examine the bone histology.
The bone fragment showed signs of acute osteo-
myelitis (an infection in the bone). CT slices and the
combined 3-dimensional model revealed the presence
of lesions within the bone, with distinct density and
textural variations between the lesioned and healthy
cortical bone tissue. Well-preserved phosphatized
microorganisms were observed inside the vascular
cavities. Osteomyelitis can occur following bone frac-
tures, but there is no sign of ruptured tissue obstruc-
tions in the surrounding areas of the dome-shaped
lesions, which would be expected in bite marks and
other mechanical fractures. In the outer cortex, the
lesions comprise highly vascularized periosteum with
radial to reticulated bone, a condition usually observed
in the fast-growing bone of juvenile amniotes (Fig. 15).

Fig. 15.  Optical microscopy of a fragmentary titanosaur fibula from

the Upper Cretaceous of Southeast Brazil, detailing the bone histology
with the presence of spreading infectious lesions as a result of a
parasitic bone infection. (Image courtesy of Tito Aureliano, University
of Campinas.)

© John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021 9
 GEODIGEST

Fig. 16.  Life reconstruction of the titanosaur LPP-PV-0043 from the

Upper Cretaceous Adamantina Formation in Sao Paulo backcountry,
Southeast Brazil. The animal was reconstructed based on associated
saltasaurid specimens in the area. Ulcerations reconstructed based
on fossil pathologies. (Artist: Hugo Cafasso, Image courtesy of Tito
Aureliano University of Campinas.)

nature of the substrate they were walking on, and in

cross-section a range of sedimentary structures may
be formed. Ismar de Souza Carvalho and colleagues
have just described a range of structures from the
Aptian of the Araripe Basin, Brazil, which they inter-
pret in terms of dinosaur trampling (Carvalho et al.,
2021, Cretaceous Research, v.117, 104626).
The Aptian tracks are found in two distinct units:
the Rio da Batateira and Santana formations where
the tracks are observed as cross-section casts (Fig. 17).
The Rio da Batateira Formation is composed of micro-
conglomerates, coarse to fine sandstones, siltstones,
mudstones and carbonate levels. These deposits are
interpreted as fluvial and lacustrine environments
of Aptian age. It is overlain by the Santana Forma-
tion interpreted as floodplain areas of meandering
rivers and lacustrine environments. The load struc-
tures, interpreted as dinosaur footprints, measure
15–120 cm in length and 20–100 cm in depth and
occur in fine-grained siliciclastic beds, such as shales,
siltstones and fine sandstones. Previous authors
have proposed a ‘dinoturbation index’, defined as the
The boundary between senile secondary tissue and the degree of dinosaur trampling and its intensity over
newly formed lesioned tissue is well marked and anom- a surface as light: 0–33 percent, moderate: 34–66
alous and could only have been formed by a disease. percent, and heavy: 67–100 percent. In the Rio da
Affected tissues are not uniform across the bone and at Batateira Formation, the dinoturbation index can be
the moment of death, the disease was spreading in dis- considered as heavy, while in the Santana Formation
tinct stages in different areas. it is light.
Abundant dark grey to slightly green fusiform The dinosaur tracks in the Rio da Batateira Forma-
shapes, measuring between 100 and 650  μm in tion look similar to load casts but are interpreted as a
length, and 10–80 μm in width, were observed inside level with dinosaur over-trampling, with an associa-
the cortical vascular canals and medullary spongi- tion of bipedal and both small and large quadrupedal
osa of both lesioned areas and healthy cortex. These dinosaur tracks. When these footprints were produced,
represent the exceptional preservation of soft-bodied there was a hyperpycnal stream in an intermittent
parasitical microorganisms. This titanosaur showed lake, and the climate was hot and humid, with the
acute osteomyelitis with elliptical ulcerations, present dinosaur tracks produced at the lake margin. Succes-
throughout all the bone. This bone inflammation was sive flooding, and subsequent sediment influx, with
either caused by the observed parasites or facilitated its stabilization by early cementation and by the microbial
infestation. The dinosaur would have shown signifi- mat fabric over the tracks enabled their preservation.
cant signs of this acute parasitic infection (Fig. 16) and In the Santana Formation, only large sauropod tracks
shows that even the mighty dinosaurs can be affected have been found so far. They were preserved as shaft
by tiny parasites. molds and more superficial deformations, probably
related to the taphonomic process. It is possible that
the surface layers were more rigid (as a result of desic-
Dinosaur trampling from the Aptian of the
cation), and overlying a softer layer that was extruded
Araripe Basin, NE Brazil
up to form a displacement rim (Fig. 18).
As mentioned above, dinosaur trackways can be used Although fossil footprints are generally recog-
as evidence for gregarious behaviour. However, the nized by morphological data from autopodia, in some
preservation of dinosaur tracks will depend on the cases they can also be characterized by a s­equential

10 © John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021
 GEODIGEST

Fig. 17.  Dinosaur soft sediment deformation; cross-sections of

dinosaur tracks from the Rio da Batateira Formation, Araripe Basin.
Such structures can be easily mistaken as a result of loading rather
than their origin as a result of dinosaurs walking over a soft substrate.
(Image courtesy of Ismar de Souza Carvalho, Universidade Federal Do
Rio de Janeiro.)

­eformation of the substrate, since the footprint

d
reaches many sedimentary levels below the surface.
In such cases, these features are preserved as deforma-
tion structures that can be observed in cross-section,
making it difficult to identify their genesis. Thus, they
may be mistakenly interpreted as load or liquefaction
structures related to compaction, tectonism or fluidiza-
tion, without identifying the true cause by trampling
by terrestrial vertebrates, and the pressure generated
during the contact between a tetrapod autopodium
and the substrate, which leads to the origin of the load
structures with successive laminae deformation.

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© John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Geologists’ Association & The Geological Society of London, Geology Today, Vol. 37, No. 1, January–February 2021 11