44-3 Burrowing Through Layers: A New Cynodontipus Trace Fossil from Central Massachusetts and an Attempt to Recreate this Ichnite with a Modern Analog

Session: Paleontology, Paleoecology/Taphonomy, Phylogenic Morphological Patterns (Posters)

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Abstract:

Here we describe an early Jurassic example of the ichnotaxon Cynodontipus in Turners Falls Formation of the Deerfield Basin.  This fossil was found in red siltstone on the west face of Mount Toby in Massachusetts at what must be a significantly higher stratigraphic level than a previously described specimen in Connecticut also from the Deerfield Basin (Olsen, Et-Touhami, and Whiteside 2012).  The current specimen consists of multiple overlapping traces in convex hyporelief across an area approximately 4 cm wide and 10 cm long.  One end of the trace terminates in a crescent-shaped area of coarser sediment about 3 cm wide, and the other end sits at the edge of the slab and has a smaller patch (approximately 1.5 cm in diameter).  The current interpretation of Cynodontipus is a section of a burrow of a clawed vertebrate encountering a resistant subsurface layer and these coarser patches are consistent with infill from overlying strata piped down the burrow.

To further understand how the scratch marks in Cynodontipus were made, we are aiming to recreate this ichnite with a live animal. To this end, we have set up a glass aquarium filled with soil at the bottom of which is a layer of scratchable transparent acrylic varnish on a sheet of solid acrylic meant to mimic a near impenetrable clay layer. We plan to allow small fossorial mammals and/or lizards to burrow while videoing from below to see the motion used when making Cynodontipus.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 2, 2026

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