Fieldwork-campaign Elliot Formation 2008
In the framework of the project „Saurischian dinosaurs from the Elliot Formation of South Africa“, the first fieldwork campaign took place from March 4th to 21st. Sixteen days in the field left the German-South African-British team with a multitude of vertebrate fossils from the Elliot Formation to ponder about in the coming months...
Exposures of the Elliot and Clarens formations near Blikana
The Munich team - led by Oliver Rauhut and including Julia Desojo, Regina Fechner, Tom Hübner, and Stephan Lautenschlager - left Munich on the 1st of March to Johannesburg, where they joined up with a team from the Bernard Price Institute of Palaeontological Research of the University of the Witwatersrand, led by Adam Yates, and Richard Butler from the Natural History Museum in London. The 2nd and 3rd of March were busy with preparations, before we finally left for the field on the 4th.
The Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research on the Campus of Wits University in Johannesburg.
The team of the 2008 expedition to the Elliot Formation before leaving Johannesburg. From left to right: Julia Desojo, Stephan Lautenschlager, Regina Fechner, Tom Hübner, Richard Butler, Joseph Sithole, Charlton Dube, Celeste Yates, and Adam Yates. And Oliver? Well, somebody had to take the photo...
The journey took us from Johannesburg through the provinces of Gauteng and Free State to central-north Eastern Cape. Unfortunately, not all went as planned, and one of the bakkies (the South African word for pick-up truck) had a break-down on the very first day, so that we didn‘t reach our planned destination within one day and had to make an early night in the small but nice town of Ladybrand in Free State. Luckily, though, the truck could be fixed the next day, so that we finally reached the town of Lady Grey in Eastern Cape, where we planned to have our base camp, on the afternoon of the 5th.
The small town of Lady Grey, our home during the three weeks of the campaign. Though idyllically placed, it didn‘t look too inviting on the day we arrived (left), but that turned out to be just the grey sky, and Lady Grey proved to be a good place for a base camp in this part of the Karoo Basin, with hills of Elliot and Clarens Formation on both sides of the town.
The idea of the campaign was to explore the Elliot Formation in the southern part of the Karoo Basin, where no large-scale expeditions had taken place since the British - South African campaigns in the early 1960ies. Especially the area of the former black homelands in northern parts of Eastern Cape were of interest, since important specimens were found in this area by the British expeditions. However, we also wanted to look at some sites where the legendary James Kitching had found dinosaur fossils in the Elliot Formation, such as the farm of Upper Drumbo in the Barkley East district. Thus, after two days of prospecting in the surroundings of Lady Grey, we went to Upper Drumbo, where the Nel Family, the current owners of the farm, allowed us to prospect their land and even supported us in many ways.
Kitching had found one of the best known specimens of Massospondylus and the type of the theropod Dracovenator in Upper Drumbo in the 1980ies. Although he had obviously prospected the area quite thoroughly, some new fossils have weathered out since then, and within the first day of prospecting in Upper Drumbo, Tom found an articulated skeleton of Massospondylus. Excavation of the site showed that the skeleton was curled up, and although we have lost the tail and large parts of the hindlimbs, most of the rest of the animal, nicknamed „Nelly“, seems to be there, including the skull.
Concerning our other main goal, we first had to find out how the areas we wanted to look at are governed at the moment, since most of the former homelands are public land, and not privately owned, as the farms we looked at before. It turned out that one of the areas of major interest, the village and mountain of Blikana, were governed by councillor Kwinana. Mrs. Kwinana turned out to be very helpful and allowed us work in all of her district. Thus, from Tuesday the 11th we also started work in the area of Blikana.
Sacral vertebra of „Nelly“ pointing out of the slope, when the specimen was found.
The skull of „Nelly“ exposed in the sediment in dorsal view. The snout points to the left, and the dorsal rim of the left orbit and left supratemporal fenestra are visible.
Blikana mountain as seen from the road between Sterkspruit and Blikana. All of the Stormberg series is exposed in this area; the floor of the valley is fomed by the sandstones of the Molteno Formation, whereas the slopes of the mountain include both the Lower and Upper Elliot Formation. The top, finally, is made up by the Clarens Formation. To the left, the village of Blikana is seen at the foot of the mountain. This was the area we mainly worked in.
Richard Butler on top of Blikana Mountain: clearly a man with perspective...
...but also with eyes for the small things in life: theropod femur in a locality found by Richard in the Upper Elliot Formation, close to the contact with the Clarens Formation
We mainly chose Blikana because the British - South African Expeditions had found wonderful specimens in this area, including the type of the basal sauropod Blikanasaurus from the Lower Elliot Formation and one of the best specimens of the ornithischian Heterodontosaurus from the Upper Elliot.
Working in two teams, one climbing all the 250 m or so to the Upper Elliot and one following the outcrops of the Lower Elliot around the base of the mountain, we soon found plenty of fossils, too. Highlights included a bonebed with small vertebrates, including theropod, sauropodomorph, and probably ornithischian remains in the Upper Elliot Formation, and an extensinve bonebed of mainly sauropodomorph dinosaurs, including several articulated remains, in the Lower Elliot. Though the weather was not always kind to us (we got rained out on the first day there, and were lucky to make it back home over the flooded dust roads between Blikana and Sterkspruit), we stayed working in Blikana until the end of the campaign. Preparation of the materials will have to show how important our spoils are, but they are certainly numerous!
Although mainly working in Blikana, we also made some trips to outrcrop areas of the Elliot Formation south of Lady Grey, but with only limited success.
The joys of camp life: Adam and Regina ordering specimens and keeping track of field notes, field specimen numbers, and coordinates in the evening.