A Unique Burial Site of Early Cretaceous Vertebrates in Western Siberia (the Shestakovo 3 Locality, Kemerovo Province, Russia)

摘要

The Shestakovo locality (Shestakovo, Chebula region, Kemerovo oblast, Fig. 1) is known for rich occurrences of Early Cretaceous continental fauna [1-3]. A fragment of a skeleton of the Psittacosaurus was first found in 1953 [4]. Since 1995, the locality has been studied by specialists of several research organizations, including the Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences |5, 6].Vertebrate remains in Shestakovo are found in the deposits of the Ilek Formation [7]. Modern data allow this locality to be dated as Barremian [8]. The locality includes three sites, referred to as Shestakovo-1 (Shestakovo Bluff on the Kiya River), Shestakovo-2, and Shestakovo-3. Shestakovo-3 located about 3 km east of the village of Shestakovo, 2 km northeast of the Shestakovo Bluff and represents a roadcut outcrop. Two skeletons of dinosaurs of the genus Psittacosaurus, assigned to the new species P.sibiricus Voronkevich et Averianov, 2000, were found in Shestakovo-3 in 1997 [9]. Shestakovo-3 is one of two dinosaur localities in Russia where skeletons are preserved complete and with the bones in situ, in their anatomical positions (the first such locality is the Late Cretaceous Kundur in the Far East).