The Hell Creek Formation and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary in the Northern Great Plains: An Integrated Continental Record of the End of the Cretaceous

Abstract

The Hell Creek Formation and the Cretaceous–Tertiary Boundary in the Northern Great Plains: An Integrated Continental Record of the End of the Cretaceous, J.H. Hartman, K.R. Johnson, and D.J. Nichols, (eds.), 2002, Geological Society of America Special Paper 361, Boulder, USA, 520 p. (Softcover, GSA Members, US$ 96.00, Non-Members, US $120.00) ISBN: 0-8137-2361-2. These days, who publishes a large volume devoted to a single geological formation? The approach seems positively nineteenth century; however in this case, the work is timely, appropriate, and important. The Hell Creek Formation (HCF) is the well-known and oft-cited nexus of terrestrial Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundary research. It contains the whole package: palynomorphs, a megaflora, a K/T boundary with all the trimmings (Iridium, microtektites, the boundary couplet, soot), extraordinarily abundant vertebrates (including those K/T poster children, dinosaurs) and, by terrestrial standards, something approaching continuous sedimentation. It breathes promise of containing the keys to all questions K/T-ish; and indeed, it has been implicated by innumerable authors to sustain their takes on what transpired 65 Ma. The only problem is that those viewpoints have historically been contradictory and mutually exclusive. Special Paper 361 is, as it claims, “an integrated continental record of the end of the Cretaceous.” The key word is “integrated.” The central geological theme underscores and reaffirms the importance of the geosciences to the apparently biological questions that are the focus of so many extinction analyses. And while on the face of it some of the geological contributions appear not to bear directly upon more glamorous extinction …