The age of the Tashinga Formation (Karoo Supergroup) in the Mid-Zambezi Basin,Zimbabwe and the first phytosaur from mainland sub-Saharan Africa |
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| Institution: | 2. Petrified Forest National Park, Petrified Forest, AZ, United States;3. University of Houston–Downtown, Houston, TX, United States;1. Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom;2. School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, Lewes Road, Brighton BN1 4JG, United Kingdom;3. Laboratoire Géosystèmes, Environnement et Développement Durable, Département de Géologie, Faculté des Sciences Dhar El Mahraz, Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, BP 1796, Atlas, 30 000, Fès, Morocco |
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| Abstract: | Correlations between continental sequences within the Karoo-aged basins of southern and eastern Africa are difficult due to the dearth of shared index fossils and a lack of radioisotopic dates for key formations. Here we describe four sites along the southeastern shoreline of Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, within the Mid-Zambezi Basin, that yield material of phytosaurs (Archosauromorpha: Phytosauria) from within the informal Tashinga Formation (Upper Karoo Group). These phytosaur remains are the first to be recovered from sub-Saharan mainland Africa, representing a major geographic range extension for this group into high southern latitudes. Furthermore, an LA-ICPMS maximum depositional age of 209.2 ± 4.5 Ma (late Norian/early Rhaetian) derived from detrital zircons provides the first absolute age estimate for any of these sites. The phytosaurs are associated with lungfish and metoposaurid amphibians, forming part of a terrestrial-aquatic dominated biota, a previously undocumented biome from the Late Triassic of southern Africa. |
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