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Despite the Hebrides and Cleveland basins being geographically close, research has not previously been carried out to determine faunal similarities and assess the possibility of links between the dinosaur populations. The palaeogeography of both areas during the Middle Jurassic shows that there were no elevated landmasses being eroded to produce conglomeratic material in the basins at that time. The low-lying landscape and connected shorelines may have provided connectivity between the two dinosaur populations. The dinosaur fauna of the Hebrides and Cleveland basins has been assessed based primarily on the abundant ichnites found in both areas as well as their skeletal remains. In the two basins, the dinosaur faunas are very similar, consisting of non-neosauropod eusauropods, a possible basal titanosauriform, large and small theropods and ornithopods and europodan thyreophorans. The main difference in the faunas is in the sizes. In the Cleveland Basin, the ichnites suggest that there were medium and large theropods alongside small to medium sized ornithopods, whereas, in the Hebrides Basin, the theropods were from small to large and the ornithopods were medium to large. It is suggested that migrations could have taken place between the two areas during the Middle Jurassic. A tentative food chain from the herbivorous dinosaurs to the top predators can be inferred from the footprints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The laboratory-controlled simulations of dinosaur footprints in this study revealed characteristic track features that could be used to identify the consistency of sand substrates and provide an insight into the paleoenvironment. A model foot of Hypsilophodon foxii was indented into three sands of four different moisture (= water) contents. The two intermediate moist states were characterized by shallow tridactyl impressions, in which only digits II-IV were impressed, showing details of padding and claws. Where the foot penetrated more deeply, in the dry and saturated states, the hallux and heel were also impressed; in these cases, the foot detail was not preserved accurately and track morphology deviated significantly from that of the foot. Dry sand tracks were characterized by the outward and upward movement of sediment and tracks in saturated sand by mainly downward displacement. The finer-grained saturated sand was also associated with liquefaction and closure of digit imprints. Tracks from the Middle Jurassic Cleveland Basin of Yorkshire showed features of the saturated state. The range of experimental track morphotypes formed by one foot highlighted the difficulties in assigning a print type to a particular trackmaker and the importance of excluding preservational variants from ichnotaxonomic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]