The Main Brijun island tracks, again

Although, the Pogledalo track site has been described more than once, still one can find many tracks and traces the previous authors overlooked. Here is a part of the outcrop, showing multiple rock layers. The ripple marks are nicely visible in the lower half of the photo, while a theropod footprint is present in the upper half to the left side.

Some tracks from the Main Brijun island site. The left pes (near my feet) of a large theropod (length of the footprint is about half a meter) and the smaller probably theropod track to the right, going in the opposite direction are clearly visible in the photograph below.

My interpretation of the upper photo tracks.

Some Istrian tracks and fossils

This is a piece of a Cretaceous rudist reef I have found on the dry wall somewhere near Banjole in southern Istria. There were even larger pieces of these extinct mollusks. Some big ones reminded me of the elephant tusks. They were to big for me to take them with me.

 In the photograph below is another strange track from one of Pula's beaches. I am not what is it exactly. Was it a small theropod track or a sea bird footprint? It even seems to have been left by a webbed foot.

Observe the possible resemblance with the recent sea gull tracks in the cement.

A theropod track from Solaris outcrop

"The field work in the late Albian track site of the Solaris Campground near Cervera/Červar (Torre/Tar municipality, Istria, Croatia) was undertaken during the years 1995-96 thanks to a grant of The Dinosaur Society and the collaboration of the local authorities. The field work at the site has been described in DALLA VECCHIA (1996). A description of the site before the cleaning of the main footprint-bearing surface and its detailed mapping and description can be seen in DALLA VECCHIA (1994). The detailed description has been published by DALLA VECCHIA et al. (2000)."
What's interesting about the Solaris track sites is that they are represented with relatively small dinosaur tracks. Dalla Vecchia speculates that the dinosaurs were of a diminutive size due to their habitat. They lived isolated on an island, whose resources couldn't provide for the "full-size" large dinosaurs that inhabited the mainlands. On the other hand, although roughly from the same age and just some 40-50km away, dinosaur tracks from Pula beaches are of many size classes, the biggest of which are among the world record breakers.

In the image below, you can see one of small theropod tracks from the Solaris beach. Red outline is my interpretation. This one wasn't described in any paper, yet.

There is probably more than one footprint in this image, but I have outlined only the best one.

More examples of large sauropod tracks from Pula

Like I wrote before, sauropod tracks are the most common on Pula beaches. In the first photo is one of the outcrops-dinoturbations. The rest of the photographs feature titanosaur tracks from various places along the beaches of Pula.

The last photograph might in fact be an iguanodontoid pes footprint.

Back from Pula

This weekend in Pula (17-19 October 2014) was a nice trip. It was warm, although, a bit too humid for my taste and the sea was still good enough (21°C) for swimming. The water was crystal clear, by the way.
Of course, I managed finding some more dinosaur tracks on the beach. Here is a decent small theropod footprint with my interpretation.

After snorkeling and enjoying the mid-October sun, the berries from the  strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) locally known as "planika", were a nice fresh snack. They are abundant at this tourist resort grounds. It was peaceful and quiet with only a few people on the beach and in the water. The premises of the resort Zlatne stijene are closed until the next season (2015).

The Saturday market in Pula was well stocked and visited as usually.

Pula titanosaur tracks

The titanosaur sauropod tracks are perhaps the most common on the Pula beaches. Here are a few examples. However, the circle in the top photograph might in fact be a concretion.

 

A small theropod footprint is shaped a bit strange. A pterosaur footprint is near by, but not visible in this photo.

Paleoart odds and ends

About 16 or 17 years ago, while surfing the ancient Internet, I have accidentally found a set of 9 postal stamps from Republique du Niger. To my great surprise,
6 of the images were ripped off my web site. Several online philatelist sites were selling them legally. I never got credited, let alone paid nor even got a sample of my used artwork. Although, I have filed a protest, after which some of the of the distributors stopped selling them online. The two b/w images are from the NHM in NY and the last one is by my friend Brian Franczak.

Once again on Grakalovac

The Grakalovac promontory on the south Istrian Cape Kamenjak is famous for his medium sized theropod trackway from the late Cretaceous (Cenomanian). Every single footprint of this trackway is encircled by the (ugly) black paint. However, there are many more theropod tracks at the same outcrop, but they are less preserved and less visible. The image at the bottom shows the smaller footprints of a theropod that might have been related to the dromaeosauridae or noasauridae. The toe #2 seems to be reduced and baring a larger claw. But that is only an assumption. The dromaeosaurid tracks are extremely rare. This footprint is about 14,5 cm long.

I have done a bit different interpretation of this track before:

Back to Grakalovac (2)

It is a part of the trackway. However, in my first interpretation, which may be more detailed and better I didn't draw the surrounding poorly preserved prints. Which may be the prints that were placed a bit later, when the substrate was drier.

More new tracks from Pula

A nice manus-pes set track on one of Pula's numerous dinoturbations. A large theropod tracks are near by, but not visible in this photograph.

The bottom feeding fish traces from Pula beach. Probably by some large sturgeon or similar fish. It is funny that it looks like a trackway left by a big foot man in flip-flops. However, this rocks and traces are about 100 million years old!

I have found the new dinosaur tracks again.

It seems that almost every visit I make to the Pula beaches must end with my discovery of the new mid-Cretaceous, Pula ichnofauna tracks. It happened again in September 2014.
Here is one of the outcrops with my interpretation of the probable theropod tracks. The foot length is about 30 cm.

One of Pula's outcrops.

Some of my old illustrations

In the first days of Internet the web space was precious and I had to be very careful not to exceed the very limited file size, which nowadays seems ridiculously small. Thus the images were very grainy and small. I have scanned them with a clumsy device: a hand held scanner.
Here are some of the first images from my early sites  (1995-1997)