Problem Of The Cretaceous Tertiary Boundary In New Jersey

Bug Creek assemblages from Montana, transitional in composition between typical Cretaceous and Paleocene vertebrate faunas, are critical to K-T extinction debates because they have been used to support both gradual and catastrophic K-T extinction scenarios. Geological and palynological data from McGuire Creek indicate that Bug Creek assemblages are Paleocene and restricted to channel fills entrenched into older sediments, suggesting that the Cretaceous component of the assemblage was reworked. Thus, the author concludes, "Paleocene dinosaurs" are an illusion and the K-T survival rate of mammals is low because the presence of Cretaceous mammals in Bug Creek assemblages is also the result of reworking.

The basal Tertiary Hornerstown Sand unconformably overlaps progressively lower truncated beds in the underlying Cretaceous section southwestward through New Jersey, Delaware, and eastern Maryland.

This is a print on demand publication. The excavation of an immense pit near the Santee River in South Carolina has produced the first Paleocene vertebrate fauna from the South Atlantic coast of the U.S., as well as a rich flora that provides extensive knowledge of the paleoenvironmental setting in which those animals flourished nearly 60 million years ago. The excavation penetrated the Late Paleocene Williamsburg Formation & yielded many specimens collected from the spoil piles, among which were the first Paleocene mammal remains from the east coast of North America. Here, eight paleobiologists interpret the discoveries systematically & compare them with Paleocene floras & faunas from elsewhere in North America & around the globe. Auhors include: Bruce Erickson (crocodilians & a snake); Robert Weems (bony fishes); Weems & Laurel Bybell (geological setting); Lucy Edwards (dinoflagellates); Robert Melchior (pollen, spores, fossil wood, & amber); Robert Purdy (sharks & rays); Howard Hutchison & Robert Weems (turtles); Robert Schoch (mammals), Glenn Sawyer (coprolites); & Erickson & Melchior (trace fossils). "One of the most significant contributions to our knowledge of early Tertiary times in this region."

The conference was held in Snowbird, Utah, October 1988, as a sequel to the Conference on Large Body Impacts held in 1981, also in Snowbird. This volume contains 58 peer-reviewed papers, arranged into sections that cover the major themes of the conference: catastrophic impacts, volcanism, and mass mortality; geological signatures of impacts; environmental effects of impacts; patterns of mass mortality; volcanism and its effects; case histories of mass mortalities; and events and extinctions at the K/T boundary. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"Mesozoic Birds is the first book to bring together world-renowned specialists on fossil birds and their importance to avian origins and, more importantly, it stresses a unified approach (cladistics) and presents the most anatomically detailed analyses available to date. No other study or collection of studies has ever done so much. How could the project not be welcomed by its audience of paleontologists, ornithologists, and evolutionary biologists!"—David Weishampel, editor of The Dinosauria "This is the first comprehensive volume dedicated to the relationships and evolution of the birds that lived during the Age of Dinosaurs. Its wealth of information and its diversity of viewpoints will ensure that this indispensable volume is used and discussed for many years to come."—Kevin Padian, University of California, Berkeley