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The Taphonomy, Paleoecology, and Depositional Environment Of W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2011 The Taphonomy, Paleoecology, and Depositional Environment of Vertebrate Microfossil Bonebeds from the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation in Garfield County, Montana Sean Michael Moran College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Geology Commons Recommended Citation Moran, Sean Michael, "The Taphonomy, Paleoecology, and Depositional Environment of Vertebrate Microfossil Bonebeds from the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation in Garfield County, Montana" (2011). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 419. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/419 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Taphonomy, Paleoecology, and Depositional Environment of Vertebrate Microfossil Bonebeds from the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation in Garfield County, Montana A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelors of Science in Geology from The College of William and Mary by Sean Michael Moran Accepted for (Honors, High Honors) Rowan Lockwood, Director Matthew Carrano Christopher Bailey John Swaddle Williamsburg, VA April 15, 2011 Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables 3 Abstract 4 Introduction 5 Vertebrate Microfossil Bonebed Formation 7 Vertebrate Microfossil Bonebed Paleoecology 8 Geologic Setting 9 Hell Creek Vertebrate Fauna 12 Methods 16 HC10.01 20 HC10.02 21 HC10.03 23 HC10.04 24 HC10.05 25 Percent Diversity and Percent Abundance 26 Rarefaction 32 Amount of Wear 39 Differences in Maximum Dimension 41 Size vs. Wear 43 Species Evenness 47 Discussion 48 Conclusions 51 Acknowledgements 52 References Cited 53 Appendix 58 2 List of Figures Figure 1. North American Late Cretaceous paleogeographic map 10 Figure 2. Relief map of the state of Montana 11 Figure 3. Geologic map of Fort Peck region 12 Figure 4. Specimen photos representing the five classes 18 Figure 5. Photos showing how amount of wear was determined 19 Figure 6. Google Earth imagery showing location of HC10.01, HC10.02, and HC10.03 24 Figure 7. Google Earth imagery showing location of HC10.04 and HC10.05 26 Figure 8. Aggregate Hell Creek % abundance and % diversity 28 Figure 9. HC10.02 % abundance and % diversity 29 Figure 10. HC10.03 % abundance and % diversity 30 Figure 11. HC10.03SC % abundance and % diversity 31 Figure 12. Rarefaction curves for HC10.02, HC10.03, HC10.03:SC 33 Figure 13. Detrended correspondence analysis for HC10.02, HC10.03, HC10.03:SC 34 Figure 14. Presence-absence detrended correspondence analysis 37 Figure 15. DCA using bootstrapped resampled data 39 Figure 16. Mean wear comparison for HC10.02, HC10.03 40 Figure 17. Mean size comparison for HC10.02, HC10.03 42 Figure 18. Mean size distribution for HC10.02, HC10.03 43 Figure 19. Mean Size vs. wear plot for HC10.02 44 Figure 20. Size vs. wear plot from HC10.02 45 Figure 21. Mean Size vs. wear for HC10.03 46 Figure 22. Size vs. wear plot from HC10.03 47 List of Tables Table 1. Hell Creek Formation faunal list 13 Table 2. Aggregate Hell Creek Formation diversity and abundance data 28 Table 3. HC10.02 diversity and abundance data 29 Table 4. HC10.03 diversity and abundance data 30 Table 5. HC10.03:SC diversity and abundance data 31 Table 6. Eigenvalues and percent variance for Figure 13 35 Table 7. Hell Creek Formation taxonomic abundance data 36 Table 8. Eigenvalues and percent variance for Figure 14 37 Table 9. Hell Creek Formation taxonomic presence-absence data 38 Table 10. Eigenvalues and percent variance for Figure 15 39 Table 11. Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index, Simpson Diversity Index and Evenness values 48 Table 12. Specimen data for HC10.02 58 Table 13. Specimen data for HC10.03 70 Table 14. Specimen data for HC10.03SC 75 Table 15. Number of specimens per class for HC10.02, HC10.03, HC10.03SC 80 Table 16. Taxonomic data for HC10.02, HC10.03, HC10.03SC 80 3 Abstract Vertebrate microfossil bonebeds (VMBs) have been used as a source of paleoecological data for decades, but the processes by which they form are poorly understood. Scatological, lacustrine, and fluvial channel lag processes have all been offered as potential mechanisms by which fossil elements are concentrated. This project tests the recent hypothesis that small lacustrine environments are the first stage in the development of VMBs with fluvial VMBs representing reworked samples of previously deposited lacustrine VMBs. Additionally, this study tested the reliability of reconstructing paleoecology using surface collected bulk samples as opposed to in situ quarrying. Three bulk samples, representing one lacustrine and one fluvial VMB, collected from the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of Garfield County, Montana were used to compile taxonomic and taphonomic data. In order to reconstruct paleoecology, specimens were identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level. To examine taphonomic features from each site, anatomy, wear, shape, and maximum dimension were measured and/or noted for each specimen. Rarefaction curves were used to examine taxon richness across the three samples while controlling for sampling size. Detrended correspondence analyses made it possible to compare the three samples according to taxon richness and abundance. The Shannon- Wiener Diversity Index was calculated as a proxy for taxo evenness across the three VMB samples. Finally, taphonomic data were plotted and statistically analyzed to look for significant differences in size and wear across the fluvial and lacustrine samples. Paleoecological data from this study do not support the hypothesis of a solely lacustrine source for the fluvial VMB. Taphonomic comparisons show fluvial samples 4 had significantly more wear than samples collected from the lacustrine VMB. Rarefaction and detrended correspondence analyses show that surface collected samples may provide a fairly accurate representation of taxon richness measured from the quarried samples, but a poor representation of species composition and abundance. Introduction Vertebrate microfossil bonebeds (VMBs), though long ignored, have recently become important instruments for establishing more complete reconstructions of paleoecology for many terrestrially paleoenvironments. These sites (also known as microvertebrate assemblages, microfossil bonebeds, or microsites) preserve the skeletal remains of faunal communities during the time of deposition. Some of the commonly preserved fossils in VMBs include scales, teeth, and bone fragments representing chondrichthyan, osteichthyan, reptilian, amphibian, and mammalian taxa. Because VMBs tend to preserve a large abundance and diversity of fossils from the taxa present in a paleoenvironment, they can be used to analyze the abundance, taxon richness, and species evenness of an area in more detail than most other types of fossil accumulations. Paleoecological studies have recognized the significance of VMBs since the 1950’s. However, many of these early efforts focused primarily on mammalian or dinosaurian fossils (Shotwell 1955) and only recently has the potential for the reconstruction of an entire vertebrate ecosystem been entirely realized. One of the goals of this project is to investigate the vertebrate microfossil accumulations in the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of Garfield County, Montana and to examine the paleoecological compositions of these VMBs. 5 One aspect of VMBs that is poorly understood is the formation of these deposits. The accumulation of elements to bonebed levels has been attributed to carnivory (particularly of scatological origin) (Mellett 1974), alluvial processes (Korth 1979: p. 281), and more recently to lacustrine deposition (Rogers and Brady 2010). The taphonomy of the fossil elements collected from VMBs may provide invaluable data and insight into the formation of these sites. However, most microsite studies have ignored these taphonomic factors that, in addition to assisting with the issue of VMB formation, may potentially bias paleoecological samples toward larger, more durable skeletal elements (Wilson 2008). This study uses taphonomic factors (fossil shape, size, wear, etc.) and field observation to examine the differences between the depositional environments of the VMBs and to gain insight into the mode of formation of such sites. Due to the surface processes acting on exhumed fossils, it has long been assumed that accurate paleoecological analysis can only be undertaken on sites that were collected by way of quarrying and in situ collection, usually by bulk sampling the VMB. However, there are several drawbacks to this collection method. Firstly, discovering the main fossiliferous layer from which the microfossils originated can be time-consuming and often unsuccessful. Additionally, microvertebrate fossils tend to accumulate in greater concentrations on the surface than in situ and therefore require smaller amounts of matrix to collect and process. Very little research to date has investigated whether analyzing paleoecology using surface-collected samples introduces statistically significant biases than with the use of quarried samples. In addition to exploring the paleoecology, taphonomy, and formation of VMBs, this project investigates the biases associated
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