Palaeoenvironments of the Lameta beds (late Cretaceous) at Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India: soils and biotas of a semi-arid alluvial plain

Abstract

The late Cretaceous Lameta Group consists of sandstones, marls and limestones which have variously been interpreted as marine or continental. The choice affects views on the late Cretaceous paleogeography of India, and the mode of life and life habitats of Indian dinosaurs. New sedimentological and paleoecological observations indicate that the Lameta Group sediments were deposited in an arid terrestrial environment with a through flowing river. Point bar sandstones are succeeded by marls with pedogenic calcrete nodules and two layers of massive calcrete (the "limestones"). Vertebrate-bearing lenses are associated with probable shallow floodplain drainage channels, and in one instance with a more permanent standing body of water-possibly a meander cut-off lake. Thus, the vertebrates recorded inhabited an arid environment, with probably only shrub cover near the main stream.