Whitby Mudstone
Stratigraphic range: Toarcian (Falciferum-Bifrons)
~183–176 Ma

PreЄ

East Cliff near Whitby

Type| Geological formation
Unit of| Lias Group
Sub-units| Members:

* Fox Cliff Siltstone
* Peak Mudstone
* Alum Shale[note 1]
* Mulgrave Shale
* Grey Shale

Underlies| Inferior Oolite or Ravenscar Groups
Or Blea Wyke, Dogger or Bridport Sand Formations
Overlies| Marlstone Rock or Cleveland Ironstone Formations
Thickness| Up to 120 m (390 ft)
Lithology
Primary| Mudstone
Other| Siltstone
Location
Coordinates|  [ ⚑ ] : 54°30′N 0°36′W﻿ / ﻿54.5°N 0.6°W﻿ / 54.5; -0.6
Paleocoordinates|  [ ⚑ ] 42°30′N 9°18′E﻿ / ﻿42.5°N 9.3°E﻿ / 42.5; 9.3
Region| Yorkshire, Worcestershire
Country| England
Extent| Cleveland & Worcester Basins & East Midlands Shelf
Type section
Named for| Whitby
Location| Coastal exposures from Hawsker Bottoms to Whitby Harbour

Whitby Mudstone (the United Kingdom)

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Whitby Mudstone (England)

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The Whitby Mudstone is a Toarcian (Early Jurassic; Falciferum-Bifrons in regional chronostratigraphy) geological formation in Yorkshire and Worcestershire, England.[1] The formation, part of the Lias Group, is present in the Cleveland and Worcester Basins and the East Midlands Shelf.

## Contents

* 1 Lithology
* 2 Fossil content
* 2.1 Vertebrates
* 2.2 Insects
* 3 See also
* 4 Notes and references
* 4.1 Notes
* 4.2 References
* 4.3 Bibliography
* 5 Further reading

## Lithology

The formation consists of mudstone and siltstone, partly laminated and bituminous, medium to dark grey in colour, with rare fine grained calcareous sandstone beds. Limestone and phosphatic nodules are present at some levels.[2]

## Fossil content

Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation, although none have yet been referred to a specific genus.[3][4] One of the more notable discoveries is the skull of the pterosaur Parapsicephalus, found within the Alum Shale[note 2] Member.[5]

### Vertebrates

Vertebrates of the Whitby Mudstone Formation

Genus  | Species  | Location  | Stratigraphic position  | Abundance  | Notes  | Images
cf. Campylognathoides | Indeterminate  | Winterton  | Falciferum Zone  | NHMUK PV R 36712, Humerus[6] | A pterosaur  |
Gyrosteus | G. mirabilis | Whitby  |  | Multiple partial skeletons[7] | A large chondrosteid acipenseriform fish  |
Hauffiosaurus | H. longirostris | Whitby-Saltwick  | Falciferum Zone  | MCZ 1033, a skeleton  | A Pliosaurid  |
Microcleidus | M. homalospondylus | Whitby  | Upper Alum Shale, Hildoceras bifrons Zone  | Multiple partial skeletons  | Microcleidid plesiosaur |
Macrospondylus | M. bollensis |  | Harpoceras serpentinum Zone  | Several partial skeletons  | Teleosaurid |
Mystriosaurus | M. laurillardi | Whitby  |  | Skull and lower jaws[8] | Teleosaurid, formerly considered to be the holotype of "Steneosaurus" brevior |
Parapsicephalus | P. purdoni | Loftus Alum Shale Quarry, Saltwick Bay (referred material)  | Upper Alum Shale Member  | Single partial skull lacking the snout (GSM 3166), tentantive referral of a humerus and scapulocoracoid (NHMUK PV R36634).[9] | A Rhamphorhynchid pterosaur  |
Pelagosaurus | P. typus | Whitby  | Alum Shale  |  | Thalattosuchian  |
Rhomaleosaurus | R. thorntoni | Kingsthorpe Hollow  | Upper  | NHMUK PV Rr4853, a single mostly complete skeleton  | A Rhomaleosaurid  | Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni holotype cast
R. zetlandicus | Loftus (also Lofthouse) Alum Mine  | Alum Shale Member  | YORYM G503, a partial skeleton[10]
R. cramptoni | Alum quarry, Kettleness  |  | NMING F8785, a partial skeleton
Plagiophthalmosuchus | P. gracilirostris | Whitby  |  |  | Teleosaurid  |
Temnodontosaurus[11] | Temodontosaurus sp.  | Oakham  |  | Full skeleton  | Ichthyosaur  |
?Theropoda | Indeterminate  |  |  | Femur, currently lost[12] |  |
Tetanurae  | Indeterminate  |  |  | Incomplete anterior dorsal vertebra[13] | Originally referred to Streptospondylus cuvieri.  |

### Insects

Insect compression fossils are known from nodules found on Alderton Hill near Alderton and Dumbleton in Gloucestershire, including Alderton Hill Quarry and other nearby localities.[14]

## See also

* List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in England
* Toarcian turnover

## Notes and references

### Notes

1. ↑ Not to be confused with the Ordovician Alum Shale Lagerstätte of Sweden
2. ↑ Not to be confused with the Ordovician Alum Shale Lagerstätte of Sweden

### References

1. ↑ Whitby Mudstone at Fossilworks.org
2. ↑ "Whitby Mudstone Formation". British Geological Survey. http://www.bgs.ac.uk/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?pub=WHM.
3. ↑ "Whitby Mudstone Formation". The BGS lexicon of named rock units. British Geological Survey. http://www.bgs.ac.uk/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?pub=WHM.
4. ↑ Weishampel et al., 2004, pp. 517-607
5. ↑ O'Sullivan & Martill, 2017
6. ↑ O’Sullivan, Michael; Rigby, Martin (April 2017). "The first evidence of a Campylognathoides —like pterosaur in the Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) Whitby Mudstone Formation of Lincolnshire, England" (in en). Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 128 (2): 287–291. doi:10.1016/j.pgeola.2016.12.009. Bibcode: 2017PrGA..128..287O.
7. ↑ Woodward, A. S. (1889). On the paleontology of sturgeons. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 11(1), 24-32.
8. ↑ Sachs, S.; Johnson, M.M.; Young, M.T.; Abel, P. (2019). "The mystery of Mystriosaurus: Redescribing the poorly known Early Jurassic teleosauroid thalattosuchians Mystriosaurus laurillardi and Steneosaurus brevior". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 64 (3): 565–579. doi:10.4202/app.00557.2018. https://app.pan.pl/archive/published/app64/app005572018.pdf.
9. ↑ O'Sullivan, Michael; Martill, David M.; Groocock, David (December 2013). "A pterosaur humerus and scapulocoracoid from the Jurassic Whitby Mudstone Formation, and the evolution of large body size in early pterosaurs" (in en). Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 124 (6): 973–981. doi:10.1016/j.pgeola.2013.03.002. Bibcode: 2013PrGA..124..973O.
10. ↑ Taylor, M. A. (May 1992). "Taxonomy and taphonomy of Rhomaleosaurus zetlandicus (Plesiosauria, Reptilia) from the Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) of the Yorkshire coast" (in en). Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 49 (1): 49–55. doi:10.1144/pygs.49.1.49. ISSN 0044-0604. Bibcode: 1992PYGS...49...49T.
11. ↑ Nigel R. Larkin; Dean R. Lomax; Mark Evans; Emma Nicholls; Steven Dey; Ian Boomer; Philip Copestake; Paul Bown et al. (2023). "Excavating the 'Rutland Sea Dragon': The largest ichthyosaur skeleton ever found in the UK (Whitby Mudstone Formation, Toarcian, Lower Jurassic)". Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 134 (5–6): 627–640. doi:10.1016/j.pgeola.2023.09.003. Bibcode: 2023PrGA..134..627L.
12. ↑ Benton, M. J.; Spencer, P. S. (1995), "British Early Jurassic fossil reptile sites" (in en), Fossil Reptiles of Great Britain (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands): pp. 118, doi:10.1007/978-94-011-0519-4_5, ISBN 978-94-010-4231-4
13. ↑ Owen, R. (1842), "Report on British fossil reptiles" (in en), Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (London): pp. 60–204
14. ↑ Kelly, Richard S.; Ross, Andrew J.; Coram, Robert A. (2018). "A Review of Necrotauliids from the Triassic/Jurassic of England (Trichoptera: Necrotauliidae)". Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 2018: 1–12. doi:10.1155/2018/6706120. ISSN 0033-2615.

### Bibliography

* O'Sullivan, Michael; Martill, David M. (2017). "The taxonomy and systematics of Parapsicephalus purdoni (Reptilia: Pterosauria) from the Lower Jurassic Whitby Mudstone Formation, Whitby, U.K". Historical Biology 29 (8): 1009–1018. doi:10.1080/08912963.2017.1281919. Bibcode: 2017HBio...29.1009O. https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/files/8204570/The_taxonomy_and_systematics.pdf. Retrieved 2020-03-12.
* Weishampel, David B., ed (2004). The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 1–880. ISBN 0-520-24209-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=vtZFDb_iw40C. Retrieved 2019-02-21.

## Further reading

* M. O'Sullivan, D. M. Martill, and D. Groocock. 2013. A pterosaur humerus and scapulocoracoid from the Jurassic Whitby Mudstone Formation, and the evolution of large body size in early pterosaurs. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association
* A. S. Smith and G. J. Dyke. 2008. The skull of the giant predatory pliosaur Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni: implications for plesiosaur phylogenetics. Naturwissenschaften 95:975-980
* M. J. Benton and M. A. Taylor. 1984. Marine reptiles from the Upper Lias (Lower Toarcian, Lower Jurassic) of the Yorkshire coast. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 44(4):399-429
* F. v. Huene. 1926. The carnivorous Saurischia in the Jura and Cretaceous formations, principally in Europe. Revista del Museo de La Plata 29:35-167
* C. W. Andrews. 1922. Note on the skeleton of a large plesiosaur (Rhomaleosaurus thorntoni, sp. n) from the Upper Lias of Northamptonshire. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 10:407-415
* R. Tate and J. F. Blake. 1876. The Yorkshire Lias 1-475

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