Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

New Insights Into The Age And Origin Of Two Small Cretaceous Seamount Chains Proximal To The Northwestern Hawaiian Ridge, Arturo Sotomayor, Andrea Balbas, Kevin Konrad, Anthony A. P. Koppers, Jasper G. Konter, V. Dorsey Wanless, Thomas F. Hourigan, Christopher Kelley, Nicole Raineault

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Northwestern Hawaiian Ridge is an age-progressive volcanic chain sourced from the Hawaiian mantle plume. Proximal to the Northwestern Hawaiian Ridge are several clusters of smaller seamounts and ridges with limited age constraints and unknown geodynamic origins. This study presents new bathymetric data and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age determinations from lava flow samples recovered by remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from two east–west-trending chains of seamounts that lie north of the Pūhāhonu and Mokumanamana volcanoes. The previously unexplored Naifeh Chain (28°48′N,167°48′W) and Plumeria Chain (25°36′N, 164°35′W) contain five volcanic structures each, including three guyots in the Naifeh Chain. New ^{40 …}

The Diatom Dark Ages: Identification Of Mid-Cretaceous Arctic Platform Diatoms From The Basal Transgression Of The Kanguk Formation, Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada, Megan Heins

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The lower part of the mid-Cretaceous Kanguk Formation (Lower Turonian interval) contains an important paleontological record crucial to the characterization of a poorly known interval of fossil marine diatoms history. Kanguk Formation mudstones are exposed in a ~200 m-thick section on Devon Island, Nunavut, Canadian High Arctic. Diatoms at this location are well-preserved due to shallow burial on this Arctic Platform site. The rock sequence was protected from glacial erosion that removed much of the Cretaceous record by being down-faulted in a linear graben. Study of these well-preserved fossil diatoms allows for a documentation of the assemblage, identification of potentially …

Constructing A Time Scale Of Biotic Recovery Across The Cretaceous–Paleogene Boundary, Corral Bluffs, Denver Basin, Colorado, U.S.A., Vincent Isakson, Mark D. Schmitz

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary interval represents one of the most significant mass extinctions and ensuing biotic recoveries in Earth history. Earliest Paleocene fossil mammal faunas corresponding to the Puercan North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA) are thought to be highly endemic and potentially diachronous, necessitating precise chronostratigraphic controls at key fossil localities to constrain recovery dynamics in continental biotas following the K–Pg mass extinction. The Laramide synorgenic sedimentary deposits within the Denver Basin in east-central Colorado preserve one of the most continuous and fossiliferous records of the K–Pg boundary interval in North America. Poor exposure in much of the Denver …

Preservation Of Latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) - Paleocene Frogs (Eorubeta Nevadensis) Of The Sheep Pass Formation Of East-Central Nevada And Implications For Paleogeography Of The Nevadaplano, Joshua W. Bonde, Peter A. Druschke, Richard P. Hilton, Amy C. Henrici, Stephen M. Rowland

Geoscience Faculty Research

Here we report on exceptional preservation of remains of the frog Eorubeta nevadensis in deposits of the Sheep Pass Formation, ranging from Late Cretaceous to Eocene, in the south Egan Range, Nevada. This formation represents a lacustrine basin within the Sevier retroarc hinterland. The formation is subdivided into six members (A–F); of interest here are members B and C. The base of member B is ?uppermost Cretaceous-Paleocene, while member C is Paleocene. Member B frogs are preserved in three taphonomic modes. Mode 1 frogs are nearly complete and accumulated under attritional processes, with frogs settling on microbial mats, as evidenced …

Lithological And Geochemical Responses To Abrupt Global And Regional Paleoenvironmental Changes During The Aptian In A Hemipelagic Setting Of The Eastern Iberian Peninsula: A Multi-Proxy Approach, Jander Socorro

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intense episodes of environmental perturbations and regionally to globally distributed, oxygen-deprived marine facies characterize the Cretaceous sedimentary record. The Organyà Basin in the Spanish Pyrenees chronicles this period in expanded stratigraphic sequences that enabled high-resolution sampling and detailed analysis of disturbances poorly recorded in more lithologically condensed sections. Here, I present an integrated multi-proxy study aimed at understanding the Basin’s response to changing paleoenvironmental conditions during the early Aptian stage of the Cretaceous.

Results from the El Pui section indicate that large-scale (> 1‰), negative carbon isotope excursions (CIEs) that show no corresponding shifts in local sources of organic matter …

Orogenic Link ∼41°N–46°N: Collisional Mountain Building And Basin Closure In The Cordillera Of Western North America, Keith D. Gray, V. Isakson, D. Schwartz, Jeffrey D. Vervoort

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Polyphase structural mapping and mineral age dating across the Salmon River suture zone in west-central Idaho (Riggins region; ∼45°30′N, ∼117°W–116°W) support a late Mesozoic history of penetrative deformation, dynamothermal metamorphism, and intermittent magmatism in response to right-oblique oceanic-continental plate convergence (Farallon–North America). High-strain linear-planar tectonite fabrics are recorded along an unbroken ∼48 km west-to-east transect extending from the Snake River (Wallowa intra-oceanic arc terrane; eastern Blue Mountains Province) over the northern Seven Devils Mountains into the lower Salmon River Canyon (ancestral North America; western Laurentia). Given the temporally overlapping nature (ca. 145–90 Ma) of east-west contraction in the Sevier fold-and-thrust …

The Birth Of A Forearc: The Basal Great Valley Group, California, Usa, D. A. Orme, Kathleen D. Surpless

Geosciences Faculty Research

The Great Valley basin of California (USA) is an archetypal forearc basin, yet the timing, structural style, and location of basin development remain controversial. Eighteen of 20 detrital zircon samples (3711 new U-Pb ages) from basal strata of the Great Valley forearc basin contain Cretaceous grains, with nine samples yielding statistically robust Cretaceous maximum depositional ages (MDAs), two with MDAs that overlap the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary, suggesting earliest Cretaceous deposition, and nine with Jurassic MDAs consistent with latest Jurassic deposition. In addition, the pre-Mesozoic age populations of our samples are consistent with central North America sources and do not require a …

Review Of The Ends Of The World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, And Our Quest To Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions, By Peter Brannen, Robert F. Diffendal Jr.

Robert F. Diffendal, Jr., Publications

In his new best-selling book, Peter Brannen, award-winning science writer, takes you on a fascinating trip through the run-up to the end of the Cretaceous extinction event and the K-Pg (Cretaceous/Paleogene) boundary, formerly called the K-T (Cretaceous/Tertiary) boundary.

Brannen interviewed many scientists who studied these events and went on field trips with them to major Cretaceous sites and to those where earlier and later extinction events happened. He presents clear explanations of what is known and not known about all of these events in a largely error-free book. Brannen details the other four big extinction events in geologic history: the …

Raritan Formation (Upper Cretaceous), Long Island, New York: Sedimentological And Geochemical Assessment, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Arif Sikder, Stanley Schleifer, Xin-Chen Liu, Carlos E. Castano Londano, Joseph B. Mcgee Turner

Publications and Research

The lithology of the Upper Cretaceous Raritan Formation (RF) consists of two members: an upper clay member (Raritan clay) and a lower unit, the Lloyd Sand Member. RF is unconformably overlain by upper Pleistocene glacial deposits. The RF consists of stratified white, light- to dark-gray, and red beds and lenses of clay, silt, and sand; lignite and pyrite are common. Variegated, thin to thickly-bedded Lloyd sandstone (LS) is considered to be one of the extensive regional aquifers in Long Island and interpreted to be nearshore, fluvio-deltaic deposit. Proximity to fluvial axes and active deltaic lobes plays an important role in …

Stratigraphy And Sedimentology Of The Cretaceous Mowry Shale In The Northern Bighorn Basin Of Wyoming: Implications For Unconventional Resource Exploration And Development, Jordan M. Bremer

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Mowry Shale (Albian-Cenomanian) is an extensive mudrock dominated unit historically believed to represent a single, long-term deep water sequence within the Western Cordilleran Foreland Basin of North America. While the Mowry Shale has received study for almost a century, detailed stratigraphic context is still lacking. Such an understanding will be required as the formation is increasingly explored as an unconventional resource play.

This study examines the stratigraphy of the interval between the Muddy sandstone and the Frontier Formation, focusing on the Mowry Shale both at outcrop and in the subsurface of the Bighorn Basin of northwestern Wyoming. Detailed measured …

The End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction And The Chicxulub Impact, Rebecca Teed

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

This handout focuses on the evidence for the theory that a massive meteor impact off the coast of Mexico caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The dinosaurs and about 75% of all marine invertebrate species and many other organisms died abruptly at this time. It is part of a set of four articles on possible causes of the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions that can be used to organize classroom debates or to have students compare and contrast the events and their causes.

The End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction And The Deccan Traps Eruptions, Rebecca Teed

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

This handout focuses on the evidence for the theory that a series of flood-basalt eruptions in northern India caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The dinosaurs and about 75% of all marine invertebrate species and many other organisms died abruptly at this time. This is one of a set of four articles on possible causes of the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions that can be used to organize classroom debates or to have students compare and contrast the events and their causes.

Upper Albian To Lower Cenomanian Calcareous Nannofossil Biostratigraphy Of The Proto-North Atlantic, Shamar Chin

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Lower Cenomanian calcareous nannofossil assemblages from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Sites 137 and 547 in the proto-North Atlantic Ocean were analyzed quantitatively to examine the fidelity of the widely used CC and UC calcareous nannofossil Zonal schemes. Datasets from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) holes 1050C and 1052E (Blake Nose) and Tanzania Drilling Project (TDP) Site 24 were integrated into this dataset. Four biozones spanning the upper Albian through middle Cenomanian were determined using the method of unitary associations (UA). Data were also used from these sequences to generate a ranking and scaling (RASC) optimum sequence. A new reliability index …

Aptian To Santonian Foraminiferal Biostratigraphy And Paleoenvironmental Change In The Sverdrup Basin As Revealed At Glacier Fiord, Axel Heiberg Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Claudia J. Schröder-Adams, Jens O. Herrle, Ashton F. Embry, James W. Haggart, Jennifer M. Galloway, Adam T. Pugh, David M. Harwood

ANDRILL Research and Publications

Exceptional exposures of a High Arctic Cretaceous sedimentary record were studied at Glacier Fiord, Axel Heiberg Island. The succession reveals a complex Aptian to Santonian paleoenvironmental history of the Sverdrup Basin that documents several global events. Foraminiferal faunas in combination with rare macrofossil occurrences permit the distinction of nine zones that facilitate biostratigraphic correlations to other High Arctic locales, the Beaufort Mackenzie Basin and the Western Interior Sea. The depositional environment as exposed in the Christopher, Hassel, Bastion Ridge and Kanguk formations changed frequently from a shelf to a shoreface setting. Most sequence boundaries appear to be conformable where shoaling …

New Insights Into Skeletal Morphology Of The Oldest Known Silicoflagellates : Variramus, Cornua And Gleserocha Gen. Nov. = Nouvelles Connaissances Sur La Morphologie Du Squelette Des Plus Anciennes Silicoflagellés Connus : Variramus, Cornua Et Gleserocha Gen. Nov., Kevin Mccartney, Jakub Witkowski, David M. Harwood

ANDRILL Research and Publications

Two of the oldest known silicoflagellate-bearing sediments, lower Albian at Ocean Drilling Program Site 693 in the Weddell Sea of Antarctica and Santonian in the Devon Island sequence of the Canadian Archipelago, are re-examined with a focus on silicoflagellate genera Variramus, Cornua, and Gleserocha that lack basal rings, a feature appearing during late Santonian/early Campanian time within the genus Corbisema. The extraordinary variability of Variramus aculeifera is studied, and a new genus Gleserocha is proposed for taxa with apical structures made of three struts, but without pikes. This new genus includes previously described Variramus wisei and Cornua …

East-Derived Strata In The Methow Basin Record Rapid Mid-Cretaceous Uplift Of The Southern Coast Mountains Batholith, Kathleen D. Surpless, Zachary T. Sickmann, Trevor Koplitz

Geosciences Faculty Research

The Jurassic–Cretaceous Methow basin of northern Washington State and southern British Columbia forms an overlap sequence linking several small tectonostratigraphic terranes. Sandstone petrography, sandstone and mudrock geochemistry, and detrital zircon U–Pb age and Hf analysis of mid-Cretaceous, east-derived Methow strata together document a remarkably uniform provenance signature that suggests proximal, abundant, and unchanging sediment sources throughout deposition. The eastern belt of the Coast Mountains batholith, intruded into Stikine and related inboard terranes of the Intermontane superterrane, along with Jurassic and Cretaceous plutons of the westernmost Okanogan Range, provide the best match to the provenance signature of east-derived sediment in the …

Lower Aptian Comparative Stratigraphy Of The Basco-Cantabrian Region (Spain) And Eastern Cordillera (Colombia): Implications For Local Factors In The Depositional Record Of Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a (Oae-1a), Tatiana Gaona Narvaez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An important episode of carbon sequestration, Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a (OAE-1a), characterizes the Lower Aptian worldwide, and is mostly known from deeper-water settings. The present work of two Lower Aptian deposits, Madotz (N Spain) and Curití Quarry (Colombia), is a multiproxy study that includes fossil assemblages, microfacies, X-ray diffraction bulk and clay mineralogy, elemental analyses (major, minor, trace elements), Rock-Eval pyrolysis, biomarkers, inorganic and organic carbon content, and stable carbon isotopes. The results provide baseline evidence of the local and global controlling environmental factors influencing OAE-1a in shallow-water settings. The data also improve our general understanding of the conditions under …

Plankton Evolution Driven By Paleoceanographic Change: Prediscosphaera From The Mid-Cretaceous In The Western North Atlantic, Kristen L. Mitchell

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Well-preserved nannofossil assemblages in late Albian and Cenomanian hemipelagic sections from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 171B preserve a record of the early history and adaptive radiation of the calcareous nannofossil genus Prediscosphaera. There was a significant rise in the abundance of the genus (from an average of 2% in the early late Albian to about 6% in the latest Albian and Cenomanian. This rise, and other shorter term pulses of increased generic abundance, corresponds to black shale deposition episodes. Twelve distinct morphotypes that were derived from the long-ranging Prediscosphera columnata and Prediscosphaera spinosa, are recognized and differentiated …

Stratigraphy, Sedimentology, And Ichnology Of The Upper Cretaceous Frontier Formation In The Alkali Anticline Region, Bighorn County, Wyoming, Charles K. Clark

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Upper Cretaceous Frontier Formation was studied along two strike-parallel cliff-lines in the Alkali Anticline region of the northeastern Bighorn Basin, Bighorn County, Wyoming. The unit comprises up to 145 m of mudrock, sandstone, conglomerate, and volcanic fallout sediments deposited along the western margin of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (KWIS) in the mid- to late-Cenomanian. Eighteen facies, comprising six facies associations are identified from physical and biogenic sedimentary features. Sediments were deposited in open marine offshore to shoreface and subaqueous deltaic to delta platform environments. The observed trace fossil suites record departures from the archetypal ichnofacies. Such departures record …

Iron Ooid Beds Of The Carolinefjellet Formation, Spitsbergen, Norway, Jeremy Mutrux, Harmon D. Maher Jr., Robert Duncan Shuster

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

Iron ooid beds are unusual deposits that have been linked to greenhouse conditions and the transgressive flooding of shallow shelves, and which were globally prevalent during certain periods. Within the marine, Aptian-Albian, Carolinefjellet Formation of Spitsbergen, chamosite ooids have been found within distinctive sandstone beds at six localities, and at a consistent stratigraphic position within the basal Dalkjegla Member. Distinctive characteristics include the iron ooids themselves, a coarser grain size, intercalation with silty siderites, grading, cross-beds indicating offshore or longshore transport, and a lack of burrowing. The enclosing sands display planar and hummocky crossstratification and abundant oscillation ripple marks, and …

Sequence Stratigraphic Controls On Synsedimentary Cementation And Preservation Of Dinosaur Tracks: Example From The Lower Cretaceous, (Upper Albian) Dakota Formation, Southeastern Nebraska, U.S.A., Preston Lee Phillips Jr., Greg A. Ludvigson, R. Matthew Joeckel, Luis A. González, Robert L. Brenner, Brian J. Witzke

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

A thin cemented sandstone bed in the Upper Albian Dakota Formation of southeastern Nebraska contains the first dinosaur tracks to be described from the state. Of equal importance to the tracks are stable-isotope (C, O) analyses of cements in the track bed, especially in the context of data derived from generally correlative strata (sandstones and sphaerosiderite-bearing paleosols) in the region. These data provide the framework for interpretations of paleoenvironmental conditions, as well as a novel approach to understanding mechanisms of terrestrial vertebrate track preservation.

High minus-cement-porosity (> 47%) and low grain-to-grain contacts (~2.5) in the track bed indicate early (pre-compaction) …

Paleontology And Stratigraphy Of Upper Coniacianemiddle Santonian Ammonite Zones And Application To Erosion Surfaces And Marine Transgressive Strata In Montana And Alberta, W. A. Cobban, T. S. Dyman, K. W. Porter

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Erosional surfaces are present in middle and upper Coniacian rocks in Montana and Alberta, and probably at the base of the middle Santonian in the Western Interior of Canada. These erosional surfaces are biostratigraphically constrained using inoceramid bivalves and ammonites, which are used to define lower, middle, and upper substages of both the Coniacian and Santonian stages of the Upper Cretaceous in this region. The most detailed biostratigraphy associated with these erosional surfaces concerns the MacGowan Concretionary Bed in the Kevin Member of the Marias River Shale in Montana, where the bed lies disconformably on middle or lowermost upper Coniacian …

Tylosaurus Kansasensis, A New Species Of Tylosaurine (Squamata, Mosasauridae) From The Niobrara Chalk Of Western Kansas, Usa, M. J. Everhart

Sternberg Museum of Natural History Faculty Publications

Tylosaurus kansasensis sp. nov. is described herein on the basis of thirteen specimens collected from the Smoky Hill Chalk (upper Coniacian) of western Kansas, USA. The new species, originally designated Tylosaurus n. sp., co-occurred with T. nepaeolicus and exhibits a number of primitive characters that place it in a basal position in the mosasaur phylogeny. Among the key differences separating this species from other tylosaurines are a shortened, more rounded pre-dental process of the premaxilla, a distinctive quadrate lacking an infrastapedial process, and a parietal foramen located adjacent to the frontal-parietal suture.

Bacterial Residues In Coprolite Of Herbivorous Dinosaurs: Role Of Bacteria In Mineralization Of Feces, Thomas C. Hollocher, Karen Chin, Kurt T. Hollocher, Michael A. Kruge

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of northwestern Montana has yielded blocky, calcareous coprolites that contain abundant fragments of conifer wood and were produced by large herbivorous dinosaurs. The coprolites are generally dark gray to black in color due to a dark substance confined chiefly within what originally were the capillaries of tracheid and ray cells of xylem. This substance is a kerogen which consists in part of thin-walled vesicles 0.1-1.3 µm in diameter. Pyrolysis products of this kerogen are diagnostic of a bacterial origin with a possible contribution from terrestrial plants. The vesicular component is interpreted as the residue of …

Composite Section Of Cretaceous Rocks In Nebraska, R. R. Burchett

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Westhazel General Petroleums Pool: Case History Of A Salt- Dissolution Trap In West-Central Saskatchewan, Canada, Neil Lennart Anderson, Dale A. Cederwall

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Westhazel General Petroleums (GP) Pool of west-central Saskatchewan, Canada, produces from the GP member of the Lower Cretaceous Mannville Group. This reservoir is structurally closed across the updip, eastern dissolutional edge of the underlying Middle Devonian rock salt of the Leofnard Member, Prairie Formation. The leaching of these salts occurred in post-Mannville time in the Westhazel area and caused the regional southwest dip of the General Petroleums member to be locally reversed.The Westhazel GP Pool, from a geophysical perspective, is characteristic of many of the shallow Lower Cretaceous pools situated along the dissolutional edge of the Prairie salt. The …

Collecting In Nebraska's Cretaceous Strata, H. M. Degraw, R. K. Pabian

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.