PTEROSAUR FOSSILS FROM THE CRETACEOUS OF CHILE - EVIDENCE FOR PTEROSAUR COLONY ON AN INLAND DESERT PLAIN

A 2-m-thick bed of sandstone and conglomerate in early Cretaceous dese rt sediments in the Andes of northern Chile contains thousands of scat tered pterosaur bones. The bed displays sedimentary features which sug gest that it was the product of a single major flood event. It seems p ossible that a large pterosaur colony was overwhelmed by the waters of an exceptional flood sweeping across a flat alluvial plain.