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New K-T Boundary Locality in the Denver Basin, Colorado
BARCLAY, Richard S., Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2001 Colorado
Boulevard, Denver, CO 80205-5798, [email protected]; DILCHER,
David L., Division of Paleobotany, Florida Museum of Natural History,
P.O. Box 7800, Gainesville, Florida, [email protected]; and
JOHNSON, Kirk R., Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2001 Colorado
Boulevard, Denver, CO, [email protected]
A new, continuous, and highly fossiliferous K-T boundary locality
in West Bijou Creek, located in the eastern portion of the Denver
Basin of Colorado has been discovered. Exposures of this new boundary
section are locally excellent, and fossils are abundant and diverse
including plant megafossils, pollen, vertebrates, and invertebrates.
Localities with well-preserved plant material are common in the
Paleocene portion, and are conveniently located in horizontally
continuous layers at several stratigraphic levels. This allows for
analysis of both lateral variation of plant assemblages on a floodplain,
as well as temporal changes in the plant megafossils during the
very earliest Paleocene.
The West Bijou Creek localities will be extensively sampled and
studied to determine aspects of the diversity during the very earliest
Paleocene. Examination of biodiversity patterns in the West Bijou
Creek boundary flora will be used to make comparisons to other basal
Paleocene sections in the Denver Basin.
The West Bijou Creek K-T boundary locality lies only 70 km from
the South Table Mountain K-T boundary locality (Golden, Colorado),
yet preliminary analyses show that they have only a small percent
of morphotypes in common. The West Bijou Creek Paleocene flora appears
to have more species in common with basal Paleocene floras in the
Williston Basin of North Dakota (700 km distant) and from Ravenscrag,
Saskatchewan (1,100 km distant) than to the South Table Mountain
locality. Important questions can be answered with data from this
new West Bijou Creek K-T boundary section. Intensive collection
at new localities in the West Bijou Creek section are planned for
this summer, adding new information to an already interesting set
of data.
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