Re: Triassic Sauropods

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2001, Jerry D. Harris wrote:

> >This dating is based only on the faunal composition, right? Could it be
> >that Madagascar, then as now, preserved forms which had gone extinct on
> >the mainland? (Or was it an island at all back then?)
>
>    Madagascar was nicely sandwiched between Africa and India at the time.
> For excellent paleogeographic reconstructions, see Chris Scotese's site at
> http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm.  Other nice ones (that aren't cluttered by
> outlines of modern landmasses) can be found at
> http://vishnu.glg.nau.edu/rcb/paleogeographic.html.

It looks like Madagascar was half underwater and caught between two large
mountain ranges, so maybe the fauna was somewhat isolated (old forms,
e.g., the _Dicynodontia_ [right?], plus new forms, e.g., the
_Sauropodomorpha_).

I guess we won't know for sure until the strata are dated.
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