Australian dinosaur stampede "ornithopod" scenario challenged

[Ben Creisler <bscreisler@yahoo.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bscreisler@yahoo.com
 
 A new online paper:
 
Richard A. Thulborn (2011) 
Lark Quarry revisited: a critique of methods used to identify a large 
dinosaurian track-maker in the Winton Formation (Albian–Cenomanian), western 
Queensland, Australia.
Cretaceous Research (advance online publication)
doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2011.11.006 
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667111001844

Abstract
A remarkable assemblage of dinosaur tracks in the Winton Formation 
(Albian–Cenomanian) at Lark Quarry, a site in western Queensland, Australia, 
has long been regarded as evidence of a dinosaurian stampede. However, one 
recently published study has claimed that existing interpretation of Lark 
Quarry is incorrect because the largest track-maker at the site was 
misidentified and could not have played a pivotal role in precipitating a 
stampede. That recent study has claimed that the largest track-maker was 
actually an ornithopod (bipedal plant-eating dinosaur) similar or identical to 
Muttaburrasaurus and not, as originally supposed, a theropod (predaceous 
dinosaur) resembling Allosaurus. Those iconoclastic claims are examined here 
and are shown to be groundless: they are based partly on misconceptions and 
partly on fabricated data which has been assessed uncritically using 
quantitative measures of questionable significance. Such ill-founded claims do 
not
 reveal any substantial flaw in the existing interpretation of the Lark Quarry 
dinosaur tracks.