Re: What faunas/formations were at the KT

[Denver Fowler <df9465@yahoo.co.uk>]

I'm only familar with North American terrestrial units.

The Frenchman and Scollard Fms contain a terrestrial KT in Alberta and SW 
Saskatchewan, but the top of the Frenchman is increasingly eroded away as you 
move east through Saskatchewan, so that the KT is removed.

Technically, the KT boundary occurs within the lowermost Fort Union Fm in parts 
of North Dakota (increasingly eastward). In Montana, it is generally coincident 
with the Hell Creek-Fort Union contact.

Potentially, the uppermost part of the North Horn Fm ("unit 2") may contain the 
KT, but (contrary to some/most published work) there is no reason to believe 
the Alamosaurus-bearing lower parts (lower 30m of "unit 1") are even remotely 
close to KT in age. The same goes for the Javelina/El Pichacho in Texas, and 
the Naashoibito Mbr in New Mexico.

The KT is present in the D1 sequence (overlying the Laramie Fm; Denver, CO). 
Indeed this section has the best chronostratigraphic control.

Also, potentially the Pinyon conglomerate, WY, parts of the Hoppers Fm.. 
Livingston group MT, and the Las Encinas Fm, Northern Mexico.

As far as right-before-the-KT faunas are concerned... Hell Creek, Lance, 
Frenchman, and Scollard, is pretty much all that is well known for now.

D.



 ----------------------------------
Denver Fowler
df9465@yahoo..co.uk
http://www.denverfowler.com
-----------------------------------



----- Original Message ----
From: "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>
To: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
Cc: DML <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, 8 August, 2009 6:56:19
Subject: Re: What faunas/formations were at the KT

David Marjanovic wrote:
>>  We all know about Hell Creek, but what other faunas or formations
>>  have been described at the time of the KT event?
>
> Terrestrial ones? Not many. Some intertrappean bed or other somewhere in
> India; however the formation in the Nanxiong Basin in southern China is
> called; and to the north of the Hell Creek, there's the Lance and the
> Scollard, AFAIK. That pretty much is it so far.

The Frenchman Formation 
gh the
K/Pg. Note that at any given spot in the American West the boundary might
be within the Hell Creek or slightly above.

I do not believe a South American terrestrial latest Maastrichtian fauna
yet identified. In Europe some (in France and in Transylvania) get close
but not up to the end. David mentions the Nanxiong and the Intertrappean
Beds of western India it may be that a K/Pg boundary layer could be found
in the Amur Valley but at present I don't think it has been found. New
Zealand has boundary terrestrial deposits, but only (s)crappy dinosaurian
fossils (great plants, though). There are boundary deposits in Antarctica,
but again no dinosaurian fauna that can be really characterized. I don't
know if there are late Maastrichtian dinosaurs yet known from Africa or
Australia. The dinosaurian-bearing units of Madagascar don't get quite
that young.


-- 
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
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