The Paleocene Chance Member of the Fort Union Formation, northern Bighorn Basin, Montana and Wyoming: aperiodic cyclothems in a tectonically dominated lake basin

A 400 m-thick sequence characterized by prominent tabular sandstone beds and a significant amount of marl and limestone occurs in Paleocene strata of the northern part of the Bighorn Basin (Clarks Fork Basin) of Wyoming and Montana. These strata, currently designated as the Belfry Member of the Fort Union Formation, actually consist of two separate but related lithogenetic units. The lower unit, which includes the Belfry Member stratotype, shows a gradual upward increase in tabular sandstone and marl or limestone and is inferred to have been deposited on a drowning flood plain under paralacustrine conditions. The upper unit, here proposed as the Chance Member, is characterized by the presence of six asymmetrical, basin-wide cyclothems. Each cycle begins abruptly with a transgressive surface overlain by laterally extensive tabular sandstone, followed by a micrite-dominated interval that together represent the lacustrine phase of the cycle. These are succeeded by lenticular interbeds of mudstone and sandstone inferred to have been deposited as a prograding fluvio-deltaic and flood plain sequence. The cyclothems are of variable thickness, ranging from ∼30m in the lowest cycle to ∼10 m in the uppermost cycles. Detailed stratigraphic mapping and correlation with the paleomagnetic and vertebrate biostratigraphic framework for the Bighorn Basin places the entire Chance Member within a portion of one vertebrate zone, Ti4, of the middle Tiffanian Provincial Age (59.2 to 58.5 Ma). The variable thickness of the cycles points toward deposition during unequal time intervals and suggests a tectonic origin most likely related to episodic movement of faults bounding the Bighorn Basin.

Lower jaw of the Early Paleocene mammal Alveugena and its interpretation as a transitional fossil

The Paleogene Order Taeniodonta Cope, 1876—peculiar heavy-bodied mammals, some with evergrowing cheek teeth—are grouped with the Late Cretaceous eutherian Cimolestes Marsh, 1889, along with a host of other taxa in a superordinal group, the Cimolesta. Taeniodonts were thought to have arisen from Cimolestes indirectly, through Paleocene Procerberus Sloan and Van Valen, 1965. The recently described Paleocene Alveugena Eberle, 1999, until now known only from the upper dentition, has been put forth as a transitional form between cimolestids and taeniodonts on phylogenetic and biostratigraphic grounds. An older taeniodont, the Late Cretaceous Schowalteria Fox and Naylor, 2003, has since been described, complicating taeniodont origins. We describe here a lower jaw that we refer to Alveugena from the lower part of the Ludlow Member of the Fort Union Formation in North Dakota. The lower jaw comes from strata of early Early Paleocene age (Puercan 1 North American Land Mammal Age) ~8.5 m above a Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, identified using palynological criteria. A cladistic analysis is here presented using new data on Schowalteria and Alveugena, added to that of Cimolestes, Procerberus formicarum Sloan and Van Valen, 1965, P. grandis Middleton and Dewar, 2004, and Onychodectes. This analysis revealed Alveugena as the sister taxon of the taeniodonts but with a closer relationship to Cimolestes than Procerberus, suggesting that taeniodonts evolved from a Cimolestes-like ancestor. We discuss the age relations of early taeniodonts and related taxa and propose a scenario of ancestor-descendent relations that minimizes, but does not eliminate, implied stratigraphic gaps.