Jurassic crocodile unearthed in eastern Oregon

Tuesday, 20 March 2007

An ancient sea-going crocodile has surfaced from the rocks of Crook County in eastern Oregon. It's discovery by the North American Research Group (NARG), whose members were digging for Jurassic-age mollusks known as ammonites, is another confirmation that the Blue Mountains consist of rocks that traveled from somewhere in the Far East, says retired University of Oregon geologist William Orr, who was called in to examine the find for the state. The remains - about 50 percent of a 6- to 8-foot reptile, including long, needlepoint teeth - were found imbedded in Jurassic rock on private property in the Snowshoe Formation of the Izee Terrane south of Dayville, Ore. Rocks containing the fossils were slowly cut out of the rock, after NARG members realized that the linear appearance of the fossils in the region's hard rocks suggested that a whole creature had been found, Orr said. "This taxon was a crocodile-like creature but had a fish tail," said Orr, a NARG adviser and director of the Thomas Condon State Museum of Fossils at the University of Oregon. "This creature lived in Jurassic times, so it's 150 to 180 million years old. It probably lived in an area from Japan to East Timor, somewhere in the western Pacific in a tropical estuarine environment." The remains of the crocodile, believed to be from the species Thalattosuchia and member of the Metriorhynchids group, now belong to the state, Orr said. The remains will be displayed on loan to the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals in Hillsboro, Ore., after undergoing an expected two-year analysis at the University of Iowa. The Hillsboro museum is operated by NARG, whose members are private researchers with experience and interests in paleontology, paleonbotany and geology who study the Pacific Northwest.

 

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