Crying fowl?

["John R. Hutchinson" <jrhutch@socrates.berkeley.edu>]

I'm forwarding a message on the Olson ?Paleocene? birds cited by Darren Naish:

As far as the Olson new jersey birds are concerned, they are Cretaceous.
[some speculation follows] The only reason Olson says they aren't is
because he thinks that there can't be modern birds in the Cretaceous and
because the site has modern birds it can't be Cretaceous.
[end speculation, begin flow of empirical data]
I've been to the quarry where the specimens are from.  There is an iridium
anomaly above the bone bed.  All of the inverts and microfossils associated
with the bone bed are Cretaceous. There are also Cretaceous sea turtles and
mosasaurs from the quarry.  So either there are Paleocene mosasaurs and other
Cretaceous marine taxa surviving into the Paleocene or there are Cretaceous
modern birds in New Jersey.

                       --John R. Hutchinson