The Hell Creek Formation and its contribution to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction: A short primer

Although it represents but one geographic data point, the uppermost Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation (HCF), exposed in the upper Great Plains of the North American craton, remains the most studied source for understanding the final ∼1.5 Myr of the Mesozoic Era in the terrestrial realm. Because it lies conformably below the earliest Paleocene Fort Union Formation, and together these two units preserve a rich fauna and flora, much of what is understood about the terrestrial Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary comes from this sequence.The HCF has been reconstructed as an expansive, fluvially drained, low coastal plain, built out, to the west, against the Laramide Orogen, and to the east, against the ultimate transgression (Cannonball) of the Western Interior Sea. Its meandering rivers and moist soils supported a multi-tiered angiosperm-dominated flora and rich insect and vertebrate faunas, including dinosaurs, crocodilians, squamates, turtles, and mammals. A dramatic facies change representing the initiation of catastrophic flooding is preserved, within available levels precision, at the K–Pg boundary.High-precision stratigraphy has proven difficult in this lenticular fluvial system. Where present, the boundary can be recognized by the bipartite boundary claystone; otherwise, palynostratigraphy has proven a powerful tool. Numerical dates have been successfully obtained from in tonsteins at the boundary and above, in the Fort Union; however, these have proven elusive below the boundary within the HCF. The K–Pg boundary in this region is dated at 66.043 Ma (Renne et al., 2013). Magnetostratigraphic studies have been carried out in the HCF; although all but one have lacked numerical dates, these have been used for correlations of widespread, disjunct exposures and for the estimation of sedimentation rates.The palynoflora is largely homogenous through the HCF; at the K–Pg boundary, it shows an abrupt ∼30% extinction. This makes it a powerful tool for identification of the K–Pg boundary, although because the boundary is identified on absence of Cretaceous taxa rather than presence of earliest Paleocene taxa, several competing methods have been applied to identifying the K–Pg boundary using pollen.The macroflora, consisting largely of leaves, consists of three successive floras, showing increasing diversity through the HCF. The ultimate of these three floras undergoes an abrupt 57% extinction; taken as a whole, however, the macroflora undergoes a 78% extinction at the K–Pg boundary.The best data available for dinosaurs – including archaic Aves – show an abrupt extinction. By contrast, salamanders and other lissamphibians, as well as chelonians, cross the boundary virtually without perturbation. Squamates appear to have suffered significant extinctions at the K–Pg boundary, as did euselachians (elasmobranchs) and insects. Mammals suffered a 75% extinction; however, some of this figure cannot be shown to have occurred in less than the last 500 kyr of the Cretaceous, and thus has been potentially attributable to causes other than a bolide impact. Taken together, the survivorship patterns are concordant with the catastrophic inception of ubiquitous flooding characterizing the K–Pg boundary.While the key K–Pg boundary question in the HCF was once the rate of the biotic extinction, it has moved to the distinction between single-cause scenarios, with the Chicxulub bolide as agent of extinction, and multi-cause scenarios, uniting habitat partitioning, Deccan flood-basalt volcanism, climate change, competition, and bolide impact. Not every potential environmental perturbation need be a mechanism for the extinction: parsimony and the data continue to be concordant with a bolide impact as the single agent of the terrestrial K–Pg mass extinction.     

贵州安顺长兴阶顶部三叶虫化石

三叶虫是二叠纪末生物集群灭绝中消失的生物门类之一,但是关于该门类生物化石在中国消失的确切层位未见报道。贵州安顺新民剖面大隆组顶部的三叶虫化石Pseudophillipsia sp.产于火山成因的黏土岩之炭质泥岩夹层中,相邻的泥灰岩结核中产牙形石化石Clarkina meishanensis。该黏土岩及炭质泥岩夹层可以与浙江长兴煤山D剖面的第25层对比,这说明三叶虫延续到了主灭绝事件层位,对研究二叠纪末生物集群灭绝的原因具有一定的意义。     

Combination Features, Paleobiogeographic Affinity and Mass Extinction of the Latest Ordovician （Hirnantian） Rugosan Fauna from Northern Guizhou, China

The rugosan fauna from the Guanyinqiao Bed （latest Ordovician, Hirnantian） of northern Guizhou, China is known to belong to the cold or cool-water type corals. The components of the fauna are solitary corals only, and corallite septa are generally strongly dilated, especially the streptelasmatid corals are dominant comprising 98% of the whole fauna. The Guanyinqiao Bed is rich in rugosans of 18 genera, which are streptelasnmtid Streptelasma （=Helicelasma）, Brachyelasma, Amplexobrachyelasma, Salvadorea, Grewingkia, Borelasma, CrassUasma, Leolasma, KenophyUum, UUernelasma, Paramplexoides, Siphonolasma, Pycnactoides, Dalmanophyllum, Bodophyllum, Axiphoria, Lambeophyllum and cystiphyllid Sinkiangolasma. Although this fauna was fairly abundant in a confined area （northern-northeastern Guizhou, southern Sichuan） during the Hirnantian age, the rugosan mass extinction （generic extinction rate 81%） happened at the end of the Hirnantian Stage. It is conduded that the mass extinction is related to the ending of maximum glaciation and ice cap melting in Gondwana in the southern hemisphere in the latest Hirnantian, resulting in rapid global sea-level rise in the earliest Silurian. In the Upper Yangtze Basin, the sea bottom environments were replaced by anoxic and warmer water during that time, so that the cool-water type rugosan became extinct. The present paper attempts to revise some already described rugose coral genera and species （He, 1978, 1985） and to supplement a few new forms from the Guanyinqiao Bed. Fourteen species of 12 genera are re-described and illustrated, of which one species- Grewingkia latifossulata is new. As a whole, the rugosan fauna of the Guanyinqiao Bed may be correlated with those contemporaneous of North Europe, Estonia and North America, indicating a dose biogeographic affinity to North Europe.     

江苏沭阳唐代江獭的发现——兼论江獭分布变迁

作为淡水生境的顶级捕食者,水獭的分布变迁反映了水域生态系统的演变。江苏沭阳吕台井出土的6件水獭亚科下颌骨,经考古分析和碳十四测年,年代为唐代前期。根据现生江獭(Lutrogale perspicillata)与欧亚水獭(Lutra lutra)的形态差异(前者尺寸更大、p4后附尖和m1下三角座更发育、下颌体更纤薄),确认吕台井标本分属江獭和欧亚水獭,其中江獭是纬度最高的出土记录。通过形态学研究,我国江獭还出土于中-晚更新世的安徽和县龙潭洞、广西荔浦洞穴、江西万年吊桶环,以及全新世早中期的广东英德牛栏洞、浙江余姚河姆渡、宁波傅家山、湖南洪江高庙等遗址。古文献考证表明,江獭和欧亚水獭分别对应了史料中的“猵(獱)”和“獭”;西汉至北宋时期,两者曾共存于黄淮流域。北宋以后,江獭从黄淮流域消失,反映了黄河泛滥导致的湖泊变迁;最终,江獭从我国大部分地区灭绝,现仅残存于珠江口和西双版纳。江獭在我国的区域性灭绝反映了人类活动对大型淡水水体的破坏。

     

Electron spin resonance dating of Quaternary bone material from Tasmanian caves—A comparison with ages determined by aspartic acid racemization and C14

Abstract

Fourteen bone samples are analysed to test the usefulness of equivalent dose (ED) determinations by electron spin resonance (ESR) as a rapid method of determining relative age and making an estimate of absolute age. ED values are compared with eight aspartic acid dates and two C¹⁴ dates. The latter are dates on charcoal found in close association with bone at archaeological sites. For samples less than 25 000 years old an excellent correlation is obtained when ED values are compared with dates obtained by the other two methods. The relationship suggests that ED values can be converted to estimates of bone age by assuming a mean annual dose rate of 0.1 rad/yr. Age determinations provide little evidence to support earlier suggestions that elements of the Late Pleistocene megafauna survived until the end of the Pleistocene. Bone material at some sites in the‐Florentine Valley and near Montagu appears to be much older than had previously been believed. Only one site (Main Cave, Montagu) containing megafaunal elements appears to be terminal Pleistocene in age but the possibility of reworking of megafauna material from nearby older sites cannot be excluded. ESR dating has considerable potential as an exploratory dating tool but can only be applied to dense, unaltered bone samples. Attempts to analyse five samples from Kutikina Cave in Western Tasmania were unsuccessful because of post‐depositional contamination of the bone.     

Geochemistry of Late Permian to Early Triassic pelagic cherts from southwest Japan: implications for an oceanic redox change

Major, trace, and rare earth element abundances were determined for the southwestern Japanese pelagic chert sequence from the early Late Permian to early Early Triassic to investigate a redox change in deep-sea pelagic environments before and at the Permo-Triassic boundary (PTB) (251 Ma). The sequence was primarily deposited in the deep-sea of the superocean Panthalassa, and then was accreted to Japan in the Middle Jurassic. A remarkable lithostratigraphic change from red chert to siliceous∼carbonaceous claystone through gray chert is observed in this sequence. Constituent elements for these sedimentary rocks are essentially derived from two sources: (1) an ancient seawater via biogenic (mainly radiolarian), hydrothermal, and authigenic materials and (2) an average shale-like terrigenous material. The present measurement demonstrates significant stratigraphic changes of the Ce/Ce_non-ter* value (estimated Ce anomaly value of non-terrigenous component, recalculated by subtraction of terrigenous REEs from bulk REEs) and the (Mn/TE)_sample/(Mn/TE)_PAAS value (excess Mn component other than terrigenous one; TE=terrigenous elements including Ti, Al, Nb, Hf, Th; PAAS=Post-Archean Average Australian Shale) in the Permian chert. The Ce/Ce_non-ter* values increase from <0.2 to 1 and the (Mn/TE)_sample/(Mn/TE)_PAAS values decrease up-section, suggesting that the redox condition of deep-sea open-ocean changed from oxic to suboxic in an interval of approximately 10 Myr. The (∑Fe/TE)_sample/(∑Fe/TE)_PAAS and (Mn/TE)_sample/(Mn/TE)_PAAS values of carbonaceous claystone near or at the PTB are less than unity, suggesting that reductive dissolution of iron and manganese occurred under an anoxic condition. This supports the idea of the PTB oceanic anoxia in the superocean Panthalassa. The present data suggest that the anoxic condition prevailed in the deep-sea pelagic regions for an extremely long period, much more than 10 Myr, from the middle Late Permian to early Early Triassic. This long-term development of widespread oceanic anoxia may have been linked to the greatest mass extinction of the Phanerozoic.     

The Uncertainty in the True End Point of a Fossil's Stratigraphic Range When Stratigraphic Sections Are Sampled Discretely

Stratigraphic sections are often sampled at well-defined discrete points. Because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, a particular species may not be observed even when it is extant at a sampling point. We introduce a model and Bayesian analysis for estimating the true time of disappearance of a lineage from a section in the face of the possibility that failure to find the species beyond its observed stratigraphic range may represent false negatives. We incorporate proper prior information, including an estimated longevity of the species and the probability that it will be observed if extant. Our analysis produces a posterior density for the true extinction time of the species. Summaries of this probability distribution provide a point estimate of the extinction time, a standard deviation for the uncertainty in the estimate, and confidence intervals for the time of extinction. We apply our model to stratigraphic ranges of benthic foraminifera collected from the early Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian and Turonian) from Eastbourne, England.     

Earliest Triassic microbialites in Çürük Dag,southern Turkey: composition,sequences and controls on formation

The Permian–Triassic Boundary sequence at Çürük Dag, near Antalya, Turkey, begins with a major erosion surface interpreted as being the Late Permian lowstand, on which lies ca 0·4 m of grainstone/packstone composed of ooids, peloids and bioclasts. Most ooids are superficial coats on fragments of calcite crystals presumed to be eroded from crystal fans which are no longer present. The erosion surface is smooth and shows no evidence of dissolution; the grainstone/packstone contains intraclasts of the underlying wackestone, proving erosion. Next are 15 m of microbialite comprised of interbedded stromatolites, thrombolites, plus beds of planar limestones with small‐scale erosion. The latter comprise a complex interlayering of stromatolitic, thrombolitic and peloidal fabrics and precipitated crystal fans, which form a hybrid of microbialite and inorganic carbonate, together with bioclastic debris and micrite. The Çürük Dag microbialite sequence is repetitious; the lower part is more complex, with abundant stromatolites and hybrid microbialites. Some of the stromatolites are themselves hybrids composed of peloids and crystal fans. In the upper part of the sequence stromatolites are missing and the rock is composed mostly of recrystallized thrombolites that develop upwards from tabular to domal form. The domes form directly below small breaks in microbialite growth where very thin shelly micrites and grainstones/packstones are deposited. Repetition of facies may be controlled by sea‐level change; a deepening‐up model is consistent with the evidence. Stromatolites (with abundant crystal fans) dominate in shallower water, deepening through hybrid microbialite and interlayered sediments to thrombolite, probably no more than a few tens of metres deep, followed by breaks and renewal of microbialite growth. An interpretation of open marine fully oxygenated waters for microbialite growth is consistent with ongoing parallel work that has identified Bairdioid ostracods in the microbialite, a group known to be open marine. However, other researchers have proposed low oxygen conditions for Permian–Triassic boundary facies globally, so work continues to confirm whether the Çürük Dag microbialite grew in dysoxic or normally oxygenated conditions. The principal stimulus for post‐extinction microbialites is likely to be carbonate supersaturation of the oceans. The microbialite sequence is overlain by a further 25 m of grainstone/packstone (without microbialite), followed by Early Triassic shales. Overall, microbialites form a thin aggradational sequence during an overall relative sea‐level rise, consistent with global eustatic rise following the Late Permian lowstand.     

Nitrogen isotope chemostratigraphy across the Permian–Triassic boundary at Chaotian,Sichuan, South China

Nitrogen isotopic compositions of upper Permian to lowermost Triassic rocks were analyzed at Chaotian in northern Sichuan, South China, in order to clarify changes in the oceanic nitrogen cycle around the Permian–Triassic boundary (P–TB) including the entire Changhsingian (Late Late Permian) prior to the extinction. The analyzed ca. 40 m thick interval across the P–TB at Chaotian consists of three stratigraphic units: the upper Wujiaping Formation, the Dalong Formation, and the lowermost Feixianguan Formation, in ascending order. The upper Wujiaping Formation, ca. 10 m thick, is mainly composed of dark gray limestone with diverse shallow-marine fossils such as calcareous algae and brachiopods, deposited on the shallow shelf. In contrast, the overlying Dalong Formation, ca. 25 m thick, is mainly composed of thinly bedded black mudstone and siliceous mudstone containing abundant radiolarians, deposited on the relatively deep slope/basin. Absence of bioturbation, substantially high total organic carbon contents (up to 15%), and abundant occurrence of pyrite framboids in the main part of the Dalong Formation indicate deposition under anoxic condition. The lowermost Feixianguan Formation, ca. 5 m thick, is composed of thinly bedded gray marl and micritic limestone with minor fossils such as ammonoids and conodonts, deposited on the relatively shallow slope. δ¹⁵N_TN values are in positive values around +1 to +2‰ in the upper Wujiaping Formation implying denitrification and/or anammox in the ocean. δ¹⁵N_TN values gradually decrease to −1‰ in the lower Dalong Formation and are consistently low (around 0‰) in the middle Dalong to lowermost Feixianguan Formation. No clear δ¹⁵N_TN shift is recognized across the extinction horizon. The consistently low δ¹⁵N_TN values suggest the enhanced nitrogen fixation in the ocean during the Changhsingian at Chaotian. Composite profiles based on previous and the present studies demonstrate the substantial δ¹⁵N variation on a global scale in the late Permian to earliest Triassic; a systematic δ¹⁵N difference by low and high latitudes is particularly clarified. Although the enhanced nitrogen fixation throughout the Changhsingian at Chaotian was likely a regional event in northwestern South China, the composite δ¹⁵N profiles imply that the sea area in which fixed nitrogen is depleted has gradually developed worldwide in the Changhsingian, possibly acting as a prolonged stress to shallow-marine biota.     

Last glacial megafaunal death assemblage and early human occupation at Lake Menindee, southeastern Australia

The Tedford subfossil locality at Lake Menindee preserves a diverse assemblage of marsupials, monotremes and placental rodents. Of the 38 mammal taxa recorded at the site, almost a third are of extinct megafauna. Some of the bones are articulated or semi-articulated and include almost complete skeletons, indicating that aeolian sediments rapidly buried the animals following death. New optical ages show the site dates to the early part of the last glacial (55,700 ± 1300 yr weighted mean age). This is close to the 51,200-39,800 yr Australia-wide extinction age for megafauna suggested by Roberts et al. [2001, Science 292:1888-1892], but like all previous researchers, we cannot conclusively determine whether humans were implicated in the deaths of the animals. Although an intrusive hearth at the site dating to 45,100 ± 1400 yr ago is the oldest evidence of human occupation of the Darling River, no artifacts were identified in situ within the sub-fossil-bearing unit. Non-anthropogenic causes, such as natural senescence or ecosystem stress due to climatic aridity, probably explain the mortality of the faunal assemblage at Lake Menindee.