Gastonia (dinosaur)

Gastonia Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 126 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Skeletons at the North American Museum of Ancient Life.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Family:	†Nodosauridae
Subfamily:	†Polacanthinae
Genus:	†Gastonia Kirkland, 1998
Type species
†Gastonia burgei Kirkland, 1998
Other Species
†G. burgei Kirkland, 1998 †G. lorriemcwhinneyae Kinneer et al., 2016

Gastonia is a genus of herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of North America, around 125 million years ago. It is often considered a nodosaurid closely related to Polacanthus. Gastonia has a sacral shield and large shoulder spikes.

The type specimen of Gastonia burgei (CEUM 1307) was discovered in a bonebed of the lower Cedar Mountain Formation in Grand County, Utah. The bonebed contained the fossil remains of other Gastonia, as well as an iguanodontid and the type specimen of a large carnivorous theropod, Utahraptor. Gastonia is among the most common dinosaur fossils in the Cedar Mountain Formation.Gastonia was formally named and described by James Kirkland in 1998, from the holotype specimen and other fossil material recovered beginning in 1989. The name Gastonia honors US palaeontologist Rob Gaston. The species G. burgei was named for the director of the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum, Donald L. Burge.

Gastonia burgei, was found in rocks of the Cedar Mountain Formation's Yellow Cat Member, which has been dated to the Barremian, 126 million years ago. The holotype is CEUM 1307, a skull of an adult individual. Many hundreds of additional disarticulated bones have been uncovered, from the Gaston Quarry and the Dalton Wells Dinosaur Quarry (). In 1998, these included remains of at least five individuals. In 2004, the number of skulls was reported as four, in 2014 this had risen to ten.