Re: Precisely Dating The KT Boundary

["Jerry D. Harris" <jharris@dixie.edu>]

> The mass extinction of dinosaurs occurred about 66 million years ago, at 
> the end of the Cretaceous Period (K) and the beginning of the Tertiary 
> Period, known as the K-T boundary.<

    Unfortunately, this is (a) wrong, (b) wrong, (c) wrong, and (d) all of 
the above.  Not in terms of the dating, but in the nomenclature.  As of 
2004, there is no more Tertiary.  It's gone, period.  (So is Quaternary.) 
They were discarded because they were remnants of the really old time 
division into "Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary" periods.  Now, 
for the Cenozoic, there are only the Paleogene (Paleocene-Oligocene) and 
Neogene (Miocene-Recent).  Thus, there is no more K/T boundary -- there is 
only the K/P boundary.  This was decided by the International Stratigraphic 
Commission, so it's not like it's just one person's opinion -- this is, a la 
the ICZN, the "rules" that stratigraphers must follow.

   Rich wasn't wrong, of course, in his post -- he was just quoting the 
article, which either means that the author of the article got it wrong, or 
else (and I have a hard time believing this) the Earthtime people were 
unaware of the change.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry D. Harris
Director of Paleontology
Dixie State College
Science Building
225 South 700 East
St. George, UT  84770   USA
Phone: (435) 652-7758
Fax: (435) 656-4022
E-mail: jharris@dixie.edu
and     dinogami@gmail.com
http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/

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