A new Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary locality in the western powder River basin, Wyoming: biological and geological implications

Nichols, Douglas J.; Brown, Janet L.; Attrep, Moses; Orth, C. J.

doi:10.1016/0195-6671(92)90026-m

Cited by 34 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…They recognized the northern Great Plains as a faunal unit distinct from that of the southern Rocky Mountain region and the Arctic based on the faunal dominance of Triceratops. Comparable regional variation in the latest Cretaceous flora owing to latitudinal gradients has been noted based on palynomorphs (Sweet et al, 1990;Nichols and Fleming, 1990;Nichols et al, 1992). How these floral communities relate to vertebrate faunal distribution is not known, but the larger scale groupings correspond well with those recognized in the dinosaurian faunas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…How these floral communities relate to vertebrate faunal distribution is not known, but the larger scale groupings correspond well with those recognized in the dinosaurian faunas. Variability within these regions is reported only anecdotally (e.g., Nichols et al, 1992) or figuratively (e.g., Lehman, 1987, his Figs. 6 and 9) without discussion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Patterns of geographic variation in latest Cretaceous vertebrates: Evidence from the turtle component

Holroyd¹,

Hutchison²

2002

The Hell Creek Formation and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary in the Northern Great Plains: An Integrated Continental Record Of

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Turtles are among the most widespread, abundant, and diverse fossil vertebrate groups in the latest Cretaceous. On the basis of new data from the Hell Creek Formation (North Dakota) and Lance and Ferris Formations (Wyoming) and previously published data from Montana, we examined latest Cretaceous intraregional variability in this group, comparing these three areas to a large data set previously published from the Hell Creek Formation of Montana. Using discrete locality occurrences as an index of relative abundance, significant differences were found. Trionychids are the only group that evinces no differences among the four study areas. Baenids and kinosternoids are more common than expected in North Dakota. The pleurosternid Compsemys, chelydrids, and Adocus are notably rare in the Ferris Formation, and the terrestrial turtle Basilemys is more abundant there than expected. The Lance Formation differs in the greater relative abundance of uncommon taxa, i.e., chelydrids, the macrobaenid "Clemmys" backmani, kinosternoids, and Basilemys.These differences are statistically independent of simple lithologic differences and thus appear to reflect underlying heterogeneity in the aquatic habitats of the latest Cretaceous that may not have obtained to the same degree in terrestrial habitats. The idea of heterogeneous aquatic habitats is consistent with depositional models indicating that the northern Great Plains area was dominated by dynamic fluvial systems that created an unstable landscape. Adaptation to fluctuating environments was probably a feature of latest Cretaceous aquatic vertebrate ecology and may be a factor in their greater relative success in surviving Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary events.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Patterns of geographic variation in latest Cretaceous vertebrates: Evidence from the turtle component

Holroyd¹,

Hutchison²

2002

The Hell Creek Formation and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary in the Northern Great Plains: An Integrated Continental Record Of

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“…The absence of clastic material in portions of the coal is not necessarily evidence for ombrotrophy in mires, since studies of modern rheotrophic mire systems indicate that flocculation of clays by low-pH standing mire waters and baffling by vegetation can significantly inhibit the transport of clastic material by currents into the mire center (Staub and Cohen, 1979). Given that much of the clastic material is smectitic, and likely of volcanic origin, the regional-scale trends in detrital mineral content most likely reflect several basin-scale pulses of airborne delivery and/or fluvial redistribution of volcanic material ultimately derived from the adjacent Sevier orogeny: a similar process envisaged for the deposition of the CretaceousPaleogene boundary claystone (Hildebrand, 1993;Nichols et al, 1992) and volcanic sediments preserved in coals elsewhere (e.g., Greb et al, 1999).…”

Section: Petrology Of the Cretaceous Paleogene Coalsmentioning

confidence: 97%

A paleoclimatic and paleoatmospheric record from peatlands accumulating during the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary event, Western Interior Basin, Canada

Jerrett

Price

Grimes

et al. 2015

Geological Society of America Bulletin

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Petrological and δ 13 C analyses were under taken on contiguous specimens of coal and intercalated minor organicrich clastic sedi ments collected from coal seams spanning the CretaceousPaleogene boundary in the Alberta and Saskatchewan portions of the Western Interior Basin. The generally high smectite content of the coal suggests that the original mires were largely small, discon nected, and rheotrophic, readily receiving abundant waterborne detrital clastic mate rial of largely volcanic origin. Nevertheless, using the distinctive claystone that marks the CretaceousPaleogene boundary as a regional datum , it is possible to correlate cycles in the vitrinite and inertinite compo sition of the coals over >500 km. Estimates of peat accumulation rates suggest that the cycles in vitrinite and inertinite composi tion represent regional, cyclic fluctuations in wildfire and oxi da tion of the peatlands and overlying canopy at a frequency of hundreds to thousands of years. The likely causes of these fluctuations were cyclic, regionalscale changes in temperature. The Cretaceous Paleogene boundary event occurred early during a phase of gradually increasing tem perature and/or decreasing rainfall, but peak wildfire and desiccation of peat occurred up to 14,000 yr later than the Cretaceous Paleogene boundary, and the mires did not experience significant water stress in the im mediate aftermath of the extinction event. A persistent, 1.5‰-3.0‰ negative δ 13 C excur sion occurs across the CretaceousPaleogene boundary, but it cannot be readily separated from four, further negative excursions later in the earliest Danian. The negative carbon isotope excursion linked to the Cretaceous Paleogene boundary began a few hundred years before the event itself, and recovery occurred within 21 k.y., and possibly in as little as just a few thousand years, consistent with recently calibrated shallowmarine δ 13 C records. Hence, the atmospheric and surface ocean carbon pools were coupled at this time. The absence of evidence for catastrophic change in the climatic regime at the time of the CretaceousPaleogene extinction in these mires supports the notion that the negative shift in atmospheric δ 13 C was brought about by changes in the δ 13 C composition of the sur face ocean. This is consistent with the greater magnitude of extinction experienced by ma rine fauna relative to the terrestrial realm.

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“…Basin, eastern Wyoming (Nichols et al, 1992). However, the high extinction rate is not consistent throughout North America as a detailed study of a CretaceousPalaeogene boundary section in Saskatchewan, Canada, demonstrated a mass-kill of standing vegetation but lacked evidence of mass-extinction (McIver, 1999).…”

Section: Permian-triassic Eventmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cretaceous-Palaeogene event Apart from the sudden disappearance of diverse Maastrichtian pollen assemblages, the most striking palynological feature of the Cretaceous-Palaeogene transition globally is the low-diversity fern-dominated assemblages that characterize the earliest Palaeogene. This so-called fern-spike, succeeding sediments enriched in iridium, is well-documented in North American Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary sequences (Tschudy et al, 1984;Nichols et al, 1992;Nichols and Johnson, 2003). A fern spike has also been reported from marine Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary sediments in Japan (Saito et al, 1986).…”

Section: Permian-triassic Eventmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extinction and recovery patterns of the vegetation across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary — a tool for unravelling the causes of the end-Permian mass-extinction

Vajda

McLoughlin

2007

Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology

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High-resolution palynofloral signatures through the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary succession show several features in common with the Permian-Triassic transition but there are also important differences. Southern Hemisphere CretaceousPalaeogene successions, to date studied at high resolution only in New Zealand, reveal a diverse palynoflora abruptly replaced by fungi-dominated assemblages that are in turn succeeded by low diversity suites dominated by fern spores, then gymnosperm-and angiosperm-dominated palynofloras of equivalent diversity to those of the Late Cretaceous. This palynofloral signature is interpreted to represent instantaneous (days to months) destruction of diverse forest communities associated with the Chicxulub impact event. The pattern of palynofloral change suggests wholesale collapse of vascular plant communities and short-term proliferation of saprotrophs followed by relatively rapid successional recovery of pteridophyte and seed-plant communities. The Permian-Triassic transition records global devastation of gymnosperm-dominated forests in a short zone synchronous with one or more peaks of the fungal/algal palynomorph Reduviasporonites. This zone is typically succeeded by assemblages rich in lycophyte spores and/or acritarchs. Higher in the succession, these assemblages give way to diverse palynofloras dominated by new groups of gymnosperms. Although different plant families were involved in the mass-extinctions, the general pattern of extinction and recovery is consistent between both events. The major difference is the longer duration for each phase of the Triassic recovery vegetation compared to that of the Paleocene. The protracted extinction-recovery succession at the Permian-Triassic boundary is incompatible with an instantaneous causal mechanism such as an impact of a celestial body but is consistent with hypotheses invoking extended environmental perturbations through flood-basalt volcanism and release of methane from continental shelf sediments.

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A new Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary locality in the western powder River basin, Wyoming: biological and geological implications

Cited by 34 publications

References 14 publications

Patterns of geographic variation in latest Cretaceous vertebrates: Evidence from the turtle component

Patterns of geographic variation in latest Cretaceous vertebrates: Evidence from the turtle component

A paleoclimatic and paleoatmospheric record from peatlands accumulating during the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary event, Western Interior Basin, Canada

Extinction and recovery patterns of the vegetation across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary — a tool for unravelling the causes of the end-Permian mass-extinction

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