GASTONIA
a herbivorous polacanthid ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of North America.
Pronunciation: gas-TOH-nee-uh
Meaning: for Robert Gaston
Author/s: James Kirkland (
1998)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Utah, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #426
Gastonia burgei
(for Gaston and Burge)Etymology
Gastonia is named in honor of Robert Gaston, discoverer of the fossil site.
The
species epithet,
bergei (BUHR-jie), honors Donald L. Burge, director of the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum.
Discovery
The first remains of
Gastonia were discovered at "Gaston Quarry" in the Yellow Cat Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation, Grand County, Utah, by Robert Gaston in 1999. The
holotype (CEUM 1307) is an adult skull, 295mm long and 283 mm wide.
Many hundreds of disarticulated bones and pieces of armour, from perhaps ten individuals of different growth stages, have been discovered at Gaston Quarry and the Dalton Wells Dinosaur Quarry combined, which makes
Gastonia the best-represented basal ankylosaur by far. The former site also yielded the remains of an as-yet unnamed iguanodontid and the holotype of
Utahraptor.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Early Cretaceous
Stage: Barremian
Age range: 130-125 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 5 meters
Est. max. hip height: 1.3 meters
Est. max. weight: 1.9 tons
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Kirkland JI (1998) "A polacanthid ankylosaur from the Early Cretaceous of eastern Utah" in Lucas, Kirkland and Estep (eds.) "Lower to Middle Cretaceous Non-marine Cretaceous Faunas".
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, 14: 271-281.
• Blows WT (2001) "Dermal Armor of Polacanthine Dinosaurs". In Carpenter (ed.) "
The Armored Dinosaurs".
• Gaston RW, Scellenbach J and Kirkland JI (2001) "Mounted skeleton of the Polacanthine Ankylosaur Gastonia burgei". In Carpenter (ed.) "
The Armored Dinosaurs".
• Brill K and Carpenter K (2004) "
Articulated dermal armor of the ankylosaur Gastonia".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 24(3): 41A-41A.
• Vickaryous MK, Marya?ska T and Weishampel DB (2004) "Chapter 17. Ankylosauria". In Weishampel, Dodson and Osmólska (eds.) "
The Dinosauria: Second Edition".
• Kirkland JI and Madsen SK (2007) "The Lower Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation, eastern Utah: the view up an always interesting learning curve".
Papers from a symposium of the Geological Society of America, at the annual meeting in St. George, May 4-6, 2007.
• Benton MJ (2009) "
Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth".
• Paul GS (2010) "
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs".
• Kinneer B, Carpenter K and Shaw A (2016) "Redescription of
Gastonia burgei (Dinosauria: Ankylosauria, Polacanthidae), and description of a new species".
Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen 282(1): 37-80(44). DOI: 10.1127/njgpa/2016/0605
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
GASTONIA :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/GASTONIA›. Web access: 06th Mar 2026.
