El Picacho Formation

The El Picacho Formation in Texas dates to the Late Cretaceous and preserves part of the region’s prehistoric landscape. Its clay-, calcite-, and rhizolith-rich paleosols indicate a fluvial flood plain rather than a marine environment, resembling the nearby Javelina and Aguja formations. Fossils from its strata show it was a dinosaur-bearing formation and an important part of Texas’s Late Cretaceous fossil record. Reported vertebrates include Alamosaurus, chasmosaurines, hadrosaurids identified as Gryposaurus and Kritosaurus, and indeterminate nodosaurids, tyrannosaurids, and ornithomimids.

Texas · United States