Ischigualasto Information & Ischigualasto Links at HealthHaven.com

Ischigualasto / Talampaya Natural Parks
Ischigualasto / Talampaya Natural Parks*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
State Party	Argentina
Type	Natural
Criteria	viii
Reference	966
Region**	Latin America and the Caribbean
	Inscription history
Inscription	2000 (24th Session)
	* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.; ** Region as classified by UNESCO.

Ischigualasto is a geological formation and a natural park associated with it in the province of San Juan, north-western Argentina, near the border with Chile. The Ischigualasto Provincial Park is located in the north-east of the province (30°S 68°W / 30°S 68°W / -30; -68), and its northern border is the Talampaya National Park, in La Rioja, both of which belong to the same geological formation.

[edit] Description

It has an area of 603.7 km² (233 sq mi), most of them within the Valle Fértil Department, with a minor part in the Jachal Department of San Juan, at an altitude of about 1,300 m (4,265 ft) above mean sea level. The park is part of the western border of the Pampean Hills, and it features typical desert vegetation (bushes, cacti and some trees) which covers between 10 and 20% of the area. The climate is very dry, with rainfall mostly during the summer, and temperature extremes (minimum -10 °C, maximum 45 °C). There is a constant southern wind with a speed of 20-40 km/h after noon and until the evening, sometimes accompanied by an extremely strong zonda wind.

[edit] Paleontology

The Ischigualasto Formation contains Late Triassic (Carnian) deposits (230 million years before the present), with some of the oldest known dinosaur remains, which are the world's first with regards to quality, number and importance. It is the only place in the world where nearly all of the Triassic is represented in an undisturbed sequence of rock deposits. This allows for the study of the transition between dinosaurs and ancient mammals; research is ongoing.

Badlands of the Valle de la Luna

The arid badlands around the formation are known as Valle de la Luna ("Valley of the Moon") due to their rugged, otherworldly appearance. In the Carnian this area was a volcanically active floodplain dominated by rivers and had a strongly seasonal rainfall. Petrified tree trunks of Protojuniperoxylon ischigualastianus more than 40 m (131 ft) tall attest to a rich vegetation at that time. Fossil ferns and horsetails have also been found.

Rhynchosaurs and cynodonts are by far the predominant findings among the tetrapod fossils in the park. Dinosaurs comprise only 6% of the findings, but these include early samples of the two major lineages of dinosaurs (ornithischians and saurischians). The carnivorous archosaur Herrerasaurus is the most numerous of these dinosaur fossils. Another important putative dinosaur with primitive characteristics is Eoraptor lunensis, found in Ischigualasto in the early 1990s.

[edit] Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs of the Ischigualasto Formation
Taxa	Presence	Notes	Images
Genus: Eoraptor^[1] E. lunensis^[1]	Geographically present in San Juan Province.^[1]		Eoraptor Herrerasaurus Herrerasaurus Panphagia
Genus: Herrerasaurus^[1] H. ischigualastensis^[1]	Geographically present in San Juan Province.^[1]	Includes Ischisaurus cattoi, Frenguellisaurus ischigualastensis, and cf. Staurikosaurus sp.^[1]
Genus: Panphagia^[2] P. protos^[2]	Geographically present in San Juan Province.^[1]	The basalmost known genus of sauropodomorph.^[2]
Genus: Pisanosaurus^[1] P. mertii^[1]	Geographically present in the La Rioja Province.^[1]
Suborder: Theropoda^[1] Undescribed theropod.^[1]	Geographically present in San Juan Province.^[1]

[edit] See also

List of dinosaur-bearing rock formations

[edit] References

UNESCO World Heritage Centre - Description of the Ischigualasto-Talampaya site.
Berkeley University - Localities of the Triassic: Ischigualasto Formation, Argentina.

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Late Triassic, South America)." In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.): The Dinosauria, 2nd, Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 527–528. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
^ ^a ^b ^c Martinez RN, Alcober OA (2009) A Basal Sauropodomorph (Dinosauria: Saurischia) from the Ischigualasto Formation (Triassic, Carnian) and the Early Evolution of Sauropodomorpha. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4397. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004397

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Parque Provincial de Ischigualasto

[edit] Spanish language references

Parque Provincial Ischigualasto.
ArgentinaXplora.com - Valle de la Luna - Ischigualasto.
Ischigualasto.com - La importancia científica de Ischigualasto.
Ente Autárquico Ischigualasto - Official website of the park's administration.
CuyoNoticias digital newspaper.

[triassicdistribution-0] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Late Triassic, South America)." In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.): The Dinosauria, 2nd, Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 527–528. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.

[martinezalcober2009-1] Martinez RN, Alcober OA (2009) A Basal Sauropodomorph (Dinosauria: Saurischia) from the Ischigualasto Formation (Triassic, Carnian) and the Early Evolution of Sauropodomorpha. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4397. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004397

[1]

[2]