A new juvenile sauropod specimen from the Middle Jurassic Dongdaqiao Formation of East Tibet.

Jurassic strata are widely distributed in the eastern part of Tibet Autonomous Region, and have yielded many dinosaur bones. However, none of these specimens has been studied extensively, and some remain unprepared. Here we provide a detailed description of some new sauropod material, including several cervical vertebrae and a nearly complete scapula, recovered from the Middle Jurassic of Chaya County, East Tibet. The cervical vertebrae have short centra that bear ventral midline keels, as in many non-neosauropod sauropods such as Shunosaurus. Moreover, the cervical centra display deep lateral excavations, partitioned by a septum. The scapula has proximal and distal ends that are both expanded as in mamenchisaurids and neosauropods. However, relatively small body size and lack of fusion of neurocentral sutures in the cervical vertebrae suggest that the available material is from a juvenile, and the length of the cervical centra may have increased relative to the size of the rest of the skeleton in later ontogenetic stages. Phylogenetic analysis provides limited evidence that the new Tibetan sauropod specimen belongs to Eusauropoda, being more derived than Shunosaurus, but is basal to Mamenchisauridae. The new material provides important information on the morphological transition between Shunosaurus and mamenchisaurids, and extends the known biogeographic range of early-diverging sauropods in the Middle Jurassic of East Asia.

High Resolution FTIR Spectroscopy of DCCCl: Anharmonic Resonances in the nu(1) and nu(2) Bands.

High-resolution infrared spectra of the nu(1) and nu(2) bands of DCCCl were observed using Bruker IFS 120HR Fourier transform spectrometers at resolutions of 0.0044 and 0.0035 cm(-1), respectively. For the DCC(35)Cl isotopomer, the nu(1) as well as the nu(2) band was found to be heavily perturbed. Detailed analyses revealed that the nu(1) state is in resonance with the l=0 substate of the nu(3)+4nu(4) state and that the nu(2) state is in resonance with the l=0 substate of the nu(3)+4nu(5) state. The rotational constants played a key role in identifying the perturbing states. In contrast, for the DCC(37)Cl isotopomer, the rotational structures of the nu(1) and nu(2) states are almost regular but slightly perturbed by interactions with the nu(3)+4nu(4) and nu(3)+4nu(5) states, respectively. The constants of resonances as well as the molecular constants for the nu(1), nu(2), nu(3)+4nu(4) and nu(3)+4nu(5) states were determined. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.