Boreal Sea, open edition print

Brancasaurus brancai (elasmosaurid), Toxochelys (Oertelia) gigantea (early true turtle), Spathobatis (Guitarfish), Dasyatis (Stingray), Anahoplites (Ammonite), Ancyloceras (heteromorph ammonite)

b. brancai was discovered in the Gronau clay pit in Westfalen, a site which has yielded many fossils from an intriguing marine/brackish environment which seems to have undergone phases of incursion and retreat from the Boreal sea to the north throughout the late cretaceous.

Researching this, I was inspired to create this illustration, paying attention to the interplay between quality of warm/cold and deep/shallow waters, turbulent and calm conditions, light, suspended particulates,  plankton and the relationships between marine animals as they go about their daily lives. I enjoyed drawing a lot from my scuba diving experiences for this composition.

I envisaged a rich, albeit turbulent and relatively cold environment (drawing on memories of diving off the coast of Tanzania during rainy season - the water isn't nearly as warm and balmy as you'd think!) Here the shallow waters are misty with plant matter and sediments washed in from storm-swollen river deltas then churned up by surface activity, wave action and a morass of b. brancai as they abandon their normally solitary lifestyles to move briefly as one body in pursuit of a feeding bonanza some distance away (or maybe they're coming together in large numbers to mate, as Hammerhead sharks do?).
As the b. brancai make their way through the shallow waters, they are accompanied by other species eager to ride the wave of plenty whilst the going is good or else just hitch a free ride on the bow waves created by so many marine reptiles moving in unison.

References:

Sachs et al. (2016), Reappraisal of Europe's most complete Early Cretaceous plesiosaurian: Brancasaurus brancai, Wegner, 1914 from the ``Wealden facies'' of Germany. PeerJ 4:e2813; DOI 10.7717/peerj.2813

H.V. Karl, S. Biermann & G. Tichy, "The oldest true sea turtle of the world, Oertelia gigantea (Oertel, 1914) n. gen. from the Aptian of Kastendamm near Hanover, Germany", Studia Palaeocheloniologica iv (Stud. Geol. Salmant. Vol. espec. 9), 2012: pp. 107-128, ISSN: 0211-8327

Sven Sachs, Jahn J. Hornung & Benjamin P. Kear (2017), "A new basal
elasmosaurid (Sauropterygia: Plesiosauria) from the Lower Cretaceous of Germany", Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology, 37:4, e1301945, DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2017.1301945

Sachs S, Hornung JJ (2013) "Ankylosaur Remains from the Early Cretaceous (Valanginian) of Northwestern Germany". PLoS ONE 8(4): e60571. doi:10.1371/
journal.pone.0060571

Karl, Hans-Volker & Safi, Amtyaz. (2019). Desmemys bertelsmanni (Wegner 1911) (Testudines: Pleurosternidae) -a valid taxon of a mesozoic river turtle based on the rediscovery of type material from the Wealden fazies of North Rhine-Westphalia. 3. 45-61.