Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called glauconies and consist of a mixture of mixed-layer clay minerals, such as smectite and glauconite. Greensand is also loosely applied to any glauconitic sediment.
Weald Clay or the Weald Clay Formation is a Lower Cretaceous sedimentary rock unit underlying areas of South East England, between the North and South Downs, in an area called the Weald Basin. It is the uppermost unit of the Wealden Group of rocks within the Weald Basin, and the upper portion of the unit is equivalent in age to the exposed portion of the Wessex Formation on the Isle of Wight. It predominantly consists of thinly bedded mudstone. The un-weathered form is blue/grey, and the yellow/orange is the weathered form, it is used in brickmaking.
Ornithodesmus is a genus of small, dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Isle of Wight in England, dating to about 125 million years ago. The name was originally assigned to a bird-like sacrum, initially believed to come from a bird and subsequently identified as a pterosaur. More complete pterosaur remains were later assigned to Ornithodesmus, until recently a detailed analysis determined that the original specimen in fact came from a small theropod, specifically a dromaeosaur, making it one of the first dromaeosaurs known to science. All pterosaurian material previously assigned to this genus has been renamed Istiodactylus.
Martin I. Simpson is a British palaeontologist, a geologist best known for his work in the Whitby area. He lives on the Isle of Wight and runs Island Gems at Isle of Wight pearl. Though perhaps best known for his appearances in the British news media, he is also an established expert on Cretaceous fossil crustaceans and has produced important papers on the Cretaceous Lower Greensand Group. His proposal that the five units of the Atherfield Clay Formation be formally recognised as local members has been widely adopted. He has produced a popular book on fossil hunting, titled Fossil Hunting on Dinosaur Island, and was heavily involved in the excavation of a significant specimen of the ankylosaur Polacanthus.
Mantellisaurus is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur that lived in the Barremian and early Aptian ages of the Early Cretaceous Period of Europe. Its remains are known from Belgium (Bernissart), England, Spain and Germany. The type and only species is M. atherfieldensis. Formerly known as Iguanodon atherfieldensis, the new genus Mantellisaurus was erected for the species by Gregory Paul in 2007. According to Paul, Mantellisaurus was more lightly built than Iguanodon and more closely related to Ouranosaurus, making Iguanodon in its traditional sense paraphyletic. It is known from many complete and almost complete skeletons. The genus name honours Gideon Mantell, the discoverer of Iguanodon.
Istiodactylus is a genus of pterosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 120 million years ago. The first fossil was discovered on the English Isle of Wight in 1887, and in 1901 became the holotype specimen of a new species, O. latidens, in the genus Ornithodesmus. This species was moved to its own genus, Istiodactylus, in 2001; this name is Greek for "sail finger". More specimens were described in 1913, and Istiodactylus was the only pterosaur known from three-dimensionally preserved fossils for much of the 20th century. In 2006, a species from China, I. sinensis, was assigned to Istiodactylus, but it has also been suggested to belong to a different genus.
Lonchodectes was a genus of lonchodectid pterosaur from several formations dating to the Turonian of England, mostly in the area around Kent. The species belonging to it had been assigned to Ornithocheirus until David Unwin's work of the 1990s and 2000s. Several potential species are known; most are based on scrappy remains, and have gone through several other generic assignments. The genus is part of the complex taxonomy issues surrounding Early Cretaceous pterosaurs from Brazil and England, such as Amblydectes, Anhanguera, Coloborhynchus, and Ornithocheirus.
Lonchodectidae or Lonchodraconidae is a group of pterosaurs within the clade Pterodactyloidea. It has variously been considered to be within Ctenochasmatoidea, Azhdarchoidea and Pteranodontoidea. They are notable for their high, conical tooth sockets and raised alveolar margins.
Brook Brick Pit is a 0.9-hectare (2.2-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Wormley Surrey. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.
The Vectis Formation is a geological formation on the Isle of Wight and Swanage, England whose strata were formed in the lowermost Aptian, approximately 125 million years ago. The environment of deposition was that of a freshwater coastal lagoon with occasional marine influence after the early Aptian marine transgression, transitioning from the floodplain environment of the underlying Wessex Formation. The primary lithology is of laminated grey mudstones. The Vectis Formation is composed of three geological members: the Shepherds Chine member, the Barnes High Sandstone member, and the Cowleaze Chine member. It is overlain by the fully marine Atherfield Clay Formation, part of the Lower Greensand Group. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.
The Lower Greensand Group is a geological unit present across large areas of Southern England. It was deposited during the Aptian and Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous. It predominantly consists of sandstone and unconsolidated sand that were deposited in shallow marine conditions.
Archaeoistiodactylus is an extinct genus of wukongopterid pterosaur from the Middle Jurassic of China.
The Wadhurst Clay Formation is a geological unit which forms part of the Wealden Group and the middle part of the now unofficial Hastings Beds. These geological units make up the core of the geology of the High Weald in the English counties of West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent.
Pteranodontoidea is an extinct clade of ornithocheiroid pterosaurs from the Early to Late Cretaceous of Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and South America. It was named by Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner in 1996. In 2003, Kellner defined the clade as a node-based taxon consisting of the last common ancestor of Anhanguera, Pteranodon and all its descendants. The clade Ornithocheiroidea is sometimes considered to be the senior synonym of Pteranodontoidea, however it depends on its definition. Brian Andres in his analyses, converts Ornithocheiroidea using the definition of Kellner (2003) to avoid this synonymy.
Vectidraco, is a genus of azhdarchoid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of England.
The geology of West Sussex in southeast England comprises a succession of sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous age overlain in the south by sediments of Palaeogene age. The sequence of strata from both periods consists of a variety of sandstones, mudstones, siltstones and limestones. These sediments were deposited within the Hampshire and Weald basins. Erosion subsequent to large scale but gentle folding associated with the Alpine Orogeny has resulted in the present outcrop pattern across the county, dominated by the north facing chalk scarp of the South Downs. The bedrock is overlain by a suite of Quaternary deposits of varied origin. Parts of both the bedrock and these superficial deposits have been worked for a variety of minerals for use in construction, industry and agriculture.
Ornithocheiromorpha is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. Fossil remains of this group date back from the Early to Late Cretaceous periods, around 140 to 92.5 million years ago. Ornithocheiromorphs were discovered worldwide except Antarctica, though most genera were recovered in Europe, Asia and South America. They were the most diverse and successful pterosaurs during the Early Cretaceous, but throughout the Late Cretaceous they were replaced by better adapted and more advanced pterosaur species such the pteranodontids and azhdarchoids. The Ornithocheiromorpha was defined in 2014 by Andres and colleagues, and they made Ornithocheiromorpha the most inclusive clade containing Ornithocheirus, but not Pteranodon.
Wightia is a genus of tapejarid pterosaur recovered from the Lower Cretaceous (Barremian) aged Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight of England, from which it gets its name. The only species within this genus is W. declivirostris.
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