山东沭河裂谷带由北至南发育8个早白垩世晚期(大盛期)的恐龙足迹群化石点,其中5处为本研究首次报道。沭河裂谷带足迹化石点多,分布广,层位多,足迹数量和造迹恐龙种类丰富。郯城新发现的单个蜥脚类巨型足迹直径近1.0m,可能仅次于前人描述过的兰州西南盐锅峡下白垩统河口群内中国最大的蜥脚类足迹化石。沭河裂谷带的恐龙足迹产出于大盛群田家楼组,地质年代为110~100Ma,属于早白垩世晚期Ap—tian晚期-Albian期。恐龙足迹一般为凹形印痕,造迹者以蜥脚类恐龙为主,其次为鸟脚类和兽脚类。足迹多保存在发育波痕、泥裂、雨痕等沉积构造的细砂一粉砂岩沉积物层面。足迹和行迹特征显示造迹恐龙为群居和在栖息地漫步行走状态。足迹原位保存特征及赋存地层沉积学研究表明,早白垩世中晚期气候处于由温暖潮湿变得炎热干旱的过渡期,湖泊、三角洲广布,恐龙栖息于湖滨环境。沭河裂谷带早白垩世晚期恐龙足迹群的发现和综合研究进一步证实,中国早自垩世恐龙动物群有着更广阔的地理分布和相似的古地理环境。
Eight dinosaur track sites in the upper Lower Cretaceous (Dasheng Group) were found along the 300 km long northeasttrending Shuhe Rifting Zone in the southcentral Shandong Province according to the recent field investigations. Five track sites among them were newly discovered. Especially, the huge sauropod footprints with the diameter about 1.0 m in Tancheng, may be the second to the biggest sauropod footprints from Yanguoxia, Gansu, China. The footprints were marked in the Tianjialou Formation of Dasheng Group during the maximum flooding period, about 110 100 Ma ( AptianAlbian). The footprints were mostly concave, mainly from sauropod, secondly from theropod and ornithopod. Most dinosaurs meandered slowly. Generally, footprints existed in the fine sandstone and siltstone, always accompanied by ripples, mud cracks and rain prints. The insitu preservation of footprints and the sedimentary characteristics showed that dinosaurs lived in the lake shore environments where would be the better preservation sites for footprints. The climate at the late Early Cretaceous in this area were from warm humid to hot arid. Comparing with other preservation environment in the same period, it proved that dinosaur faunas had distributed in an even wider area with similar palaeogeography in the Early Cretaceous.