The Kitadani Formation crops out near Katsuyama in Fukui prefecture and is the source of nearly all the non-marine Cretaceous vertebrates known from Japan, including Fukuiraptor kitadaniensis and Fukuisaurus tetoriensis. It is a hundred metres of interbedded tuff, sandstone and shale within the Tetori Group, and it is the only part of that group to carry these beds. The Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum stands in Nagaoyama Park right beside the quarry and holds essentially all of the material, and since July 2014 a guided tour has run from the museum to the field station next to the excavation, from late April to early November. Specimens of five named dinosaurs and the dig itself were designated a Natural Monument of Japan in February 2017, and the whole city is a recognised geopark.
Fukuiraptor, Fukuisaurus and most of Japan’s dinosaurs · Early Cretaceous
This ground is protected. Photograph it, record it, leave it where it lies. On US federal land the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 2009 makes collecting vertebrate fossils an offence, and penalties are real.
Japan
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