Cretaceous - Science topic

The Kabaw Fault is a north-south trending arcuate suture zone formed between the accretionary prism of the Indo-Myanmar Ranges (IMR), and the Central Myanmar Basin (CMB). The lineament of the Kabaw Fault is defined as a stratigraphic contact zone between flysch sediments of the IMR and molassic sediments of the CMB along the eastern base of the IMR...

In situ U–Pb analyses were performed on SEM-BSE, SEM-CL and Raman mapped zircons from the Variscan granitoids exposed in the Mórágy pluton, Hungary. However, the routinely used LA-ICP-MS could result only in reliable age constraints if the system was not overprinted by multiple geological processes that affect the isotope system of zircons. To over...

We present new results from a fission track (FT) and U-Pb Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) double dating approach on zircon and apatite from the Thuringian Forest, a prominent fault-bounded basement high in central Germany, and its southwestern periphery exposing Mesozoic strata. Samples were collected from se...

This study of the Aptian lower part of the Carolinefjellet Formation in Svalbard, Norwegian high Arctic, is based on well cores and outcrop section in the Adventdalen area of Spitsbergen and reports on the deposits and bioturbation structures of an ancient subpolar marine shelf from a well-known period of global greenhouse climate. The study docume...

Stenopodidean shrimps are mostly cryptic in their habitats and are typically related with coral rubble or dead coral heads, rocks and crevices, and in association with other marine invertebrate such as sponges, crinoids and corals. Here, we describe a new stenopodidean shrimp, Dubiostenopus parvus n. gen. n. sp., from the Romualdo Formation (Aptian...

We report a new fossil-bearing locality from the “Chaotic Complex” units in the Northern Apennine Chain of the Emilia-Romagna Region (northern Italy). The material collected includes an articulated series of nine caudal vertebrae referable to a large-bodied ichthyosaur. Based on the nannofossil assemblage sampled from the matrix encasing the verteb...

The Coniacian-Santonian stages in western North America are characterized by a sparse fossil record. We present here the first account of dinosaur tracks from nine sites in the Frontier Formation (Coniacian-Santonian) of southwestern Montana. Tracks are largely preserved in distal alluvial facies as sandstone casts, with a single example of shallow...

The study of gene diversity in interspecies contributes to our understanding of the environmental adaptation, evolutionary history, origin, and stability of biodiversity. Crabs are the main component of the macrobenthos community; therefore, how crabs adapt to different environments can be a guide to understand how to maintain community diversity....

The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary marks one of the five major mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic. The ways in which the climate system responded to a bolide impact and extensive volcanism at this time over different time scales are highly debated. We used the distribution of branched tetraether lipids (brGDGT) from fossil peats at two sites...

The Xiaoqinling-Xiong'ershan Au concentration area, located in the southern margin of the North China Craton, has many gold deposits accompanied with lead, zinc and silver metals, which has become a natural laboratory to reveal the origin of craton destructive gold deposits. The Kangshan gold polymetallic deposit, located in the Xiaoqinling-Xiong'e...

Many Orbitoides and Omphalocyclus individuals collected in the areas of Sura Qalat and Mokaba (northeast Sulaimani, Iraq) exhibit a number of aberrant characteristics. They contain exceptional examples of microboring activity within the tests, an uncommon test exterior form, the blossoming of equatorial chamber development, and peculiar reproductiv...

The first mangrove forests appeared during the late cretaceous - Early tertiary period along Thethys Sea coasts. Since then, mangrove forests have faced and survived several catastrophic climate change events. The sea level is not and has not been constant. Studies carried out on mangrove peat prove mangroves extinction in various parts of the worl...

Crustal thickness plays a key role in many geological processes. However, it remains challenging to quantify crustal thickness in the geological past. Here we propose an Extremely Randomized Trees algorithm‐based machine learning model to recover crustal thickness of old geological regions. The model is trained using major oxide and trace element c...

Studies of the paleopathology of the vertebrae provide an interesting, oblique approach to their paleobiology and even paleoethology. They tell us about possible ethological causes such as accidental blows with objects, social interactions within a group, and defense against predators, etc. There are numerous works on the anatomical and phylogeneti...

The ferns of the genus Arctopteris from the Cretaceous deposits of the North-East of Russia (the Aigur, Galimov, Krivorechenskaya, Arman, Amka, Gidra, Kananyga, Tylpegyrgynai, Poperechnaya, Emuneret, Barykov and Rarytkin formations) were re-examined. In the result eight species were included in this genus: A. lenaensis Vassilevskaja (Aptian), A. he...

Mangrove forests, which are essential for the maintenance of terrestrial and marine biodiversity on tropical coasts and constitute the main blue-carbon ecosystems for the mitigation of global warming, are among the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Mangrove conservation can greatly benefit from paleoecological and evolutionary studies, as past an...

This is the first high-resolution seismic study showing how the Chicxulub impact shaped the eastern slope of the Campeche Bank in the south-eastern Gulf of Mexico. The induced shock wave fractured Cretaceous strata causing the collapse of the upper slope and shelf over a length of ca. 200 km. Failed material was either transported downslope or rema...

Sedimentary basins in collisional settings result from interactions within and between lithospheric plates and sublithospheric mantle. Imaging their structure brings fundamental constraints to both the extraction of hydrocarbon or geothermal resources and seismic hazard analyses, especially in seismogenic areas affected by fluid percolation. Seismi...

The Goft and Mohammadabad manganese deposits are located in the southwestern part of Sabzevar, whitin the Late Cretaceous volcano-sedimentary sequences. This sequence is located inside a 100 km long folded structure with northeast-southwest trend. Mohammadabad manganese deposit located in the southeastern edge of the southern anticline in the unit...

The Saih Hatat Dome is a tectonic window in northeastern Oman with a NW-SE extension of <95 km and an E-W extension of <50 km, rimmed by the allochthonous Samail Ophiolite and the underlain nappes composed of sedimentary rocks from the Neo-Tethyan Hawasina Basin. Rocks within the window were affected by an upper Cretaceous high-to ultra-high pressu...

Porto Primavera geosite comprises aeolian sandstones with tetrapod trace fossil cropping out at the Porto Primavera Hydroelectric Power Plant, São Paulo State, Brazil. The Upper Cretaceous Rio Paraná Formation, which contains these tracks, is composed of medium–fine quartzarenites well- sorted and supermature, with typically large tabular/trough cr...

The SW Cameroon margin within the Gulf of Guinea (2°–5° N and 8°–13° E) displays a complex landscape and crosscut by three active pre- and syn-rift structures: the Sanaga Fault, Benue Triple Junction and Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL). We evaluated the erosion activity on this margin using for the first time the erosion rate quantification (ERQ). Fro...

The age of tuffaceous interlayers, represented by tuffs and tuffites, which are common in the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous deposits of Western Siberia (the Bazhenovo, Tutleim and Frolov Formations), is discussed. The nature of these interlayers is associated with the subglobal (transfer of more than 1--2 thousand km) spread of volcanic ash (0.00...

Angiosperms are a group of plants with the highest rate of evolution, the largest number of species, the widest distribution and the strongest adaptability. Needless to say, angiosperms are the most important group for the humans. The studies on the origin, evolution and systematics of angiosperms have been the major challenges in plant sciences. H...

Detachment fault systems typically record displacements in the order of 10s of kilometers. The principles that control the growth of smaller magnitude normal faults are not fully applicable to the evolution of detachment fault systems. We use interpretation of 2D and 3D seismic reflection data from the mid‐Norwegian rifted margin to investigate how...

Unlabelled: Trionychid (softshell) turtles have a peculiar bauplan, which includes shell reductions and cranial elongation. Despite a rich fossil record dating back to the Early Cretaceous, the evolutionary origin of the trionychid bauplan is poorly understood, as even old fossils show great anatomical similarities to extant species. Documenting s...

Some of the parental material for hydrocarbons produced from low-permeability reservoirs in Western Canada corresponds to thermal products from biodegraded oil. This has been proved by the occurrence of framboidal pyrite, which is often formed during microbial sulfate reduction (MSR). In addition, the identified pyrite framboids are associated with...

The planktic foraminiferal assemblages were recorded from the Cenomanian/ Turonian boundary from the outcrops section in Kosrat anticline (NE of Dokan dam), within the high folded-thrust zone (Sulaimani area, Kurdistan Region, Iraq). They are assigned to the Middle-Late Cenomanian Rotalipora cushmani partial Zone and to the lowermost Turonian White...

The Sherbrook Supersequence (Sherbrook SS, Campanian-Maastrichtian) is the youngest of four Cretaceous supersequences in the Otway Basin and was deposited during a phase of crustal extension that culminated in breakup. This study presents a basin-scale gross depositional environment (GDE) map for the Sherbrook SS, and the significance of the map fo...

The nuclei of continents, manifested as cratons, are the most long-lived parts of Earth’s lithosphere. However, ancient cratons in some areas can be substantially destroyed through mechanisms that are not fully understood. We used experimentally calibrated geobarometers to calculate the equilibrium pressures of mafic magmas in the North China crato...

The cretaceous gas reservoir in Kelasu Gas Field of the Tarim Basin is a rare ultra-deep and ultra-high pressure fractured tight sandstone gas reservoir where multi-scale discrete fractures of matrix, fracture and fault are developed, so its development cannot be conducted just based on static and dynamic reservoir description. In order to solve th...

This study reports on the detrital zircon provenance of the sandstones of Early Paleocene Ranikot Formation exposed in the Fort Munro section, Sulaiman fold-thrust belt, Pakistan. This marks the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary sequence. The detrital zircon U-Pb ages reported are mainly clustered around ~460–1100 Ma, ~1600–1900 Ma and ~2300–2600 Ma. Th...

This paper evaluated the oil and gas potential of the Cretaceous Yageliemu clastic reservoir within the Yakela condensed gas field lying in the Kuqa Depression, Tarim Basin, China. The petrophysical properties of the interest zones in the Kuqa area were characterized using geophysical logs from five wells. The results reveal that the gas-bearing zo...

Since 2004, collapse sinkholes occur on the sports field of Münsterdorf, a village north of Hamburg in Germany. The sinkholes, around 2–5 m in diameter and 3–5 m deep, develop in peri-glacial sand, which at around 20 m depth is underlain by Cretaceous chalk. The chalk has been pushed up close to the surface by a salt diapir. The sinkhole formation...

Polycotylidae Cope, 1869 is a clade of short-necked plesiosaurians that achieved a cosmopolitan distribution by the Late Cretaceous. Here, the material previously referred to Polycotylidae/Pliosauridae from the Upper Cretaceous of New Zealand is reviewed, concluding that only 2.4% and 7.7% respectively of the total plesiosaurians specimens recovere...

The process of recrystallization affecting dolomitic successions remains a longstanding enigma in carbonate research. Recrystallization influences the accuracy of genetic dolomitization models as well as the prediction of porosity and permeability distribution within dolomitic reservoirs. We investigate early-formed dolomites of the Upper Jurassic...

Describe the evolution of the structure in the Cretaceous and Tertiary times.

The Eaux-Chaudes massif provides keys to unravel the deep-seated deformation of the Iberian rifted margin during the Alpine orogeny in the Pyrenees. The massif conforms to an inlier of upper Cretaceous carbonate rocks within the Paleozoic basement of the western Axial Zone, originally deposited in the upper margin shelf before the Cenozoic collisio...

The most intense arc magmatism in the Gangdese arc occurred during the Palaeocene–Eocene, which is widespread across the entire southern Lhasa subterrane with Palaeocene–Eocene I‐type intrusive rocks and Linzizong volcanic successions. What drives the voluminous magmatism remains enigmatic. New geochronological and geochemical data on Late Cretaceo...

Preservation of soft parts (collagen fibres, blood vessels and cells) in extinct vertebrates is rare and usually limited to fossilized bone and cartilage. Well-preserved coarse collagenous fibre bundles embedded in a mineralized matrix of tendons, as well as numerous hollow, tubular structures consistent morphologically with fibril bundles, blood v...

The Mesozoic Teleostei †Ichthyodectiformes presents a widespread distribution in marine brackish and freshwater deposits worldwide. The Brazilian fossil record of this group is represented by five nominal genera distributed exclusively in the sedimentary basins of Northeast Brazil (cf. Parnaíba, Sergipe-Alagoas, Recôncavo, Tucano, and Araripe). In...

Deformational history of the Hazara basin indicates a primitive collision of the two landmasses that undergoes an episodic deformation with NE-SW structural trend. Panjal Thrust (PT) and Main Boundary Thrust (MBT) demarcate the northern and southern extremities of the basin, respectively. The area bounded between these two thrusts is the core consi...

The Cotinguiba Formation, of Cretaceous age, located in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, Brazilian Northeastern coast, comprises carbonate breccias and carbonate shales interlayered with fine to coarse clastic sediments (mudstones, marls), deposited in the maximum sea level episode during the Cenomanian-Coniacian transgressive event. Core sections were s...

In the Vitulano area, Upper Cretaceous bauxite bodies fill small depressions and karst cavities within Cretaceous shallow-water limestones. These bauxites were studied to understand the processes that led to their formation. Geochemical, mineralogical, and petrographic analyses were carried out on the bauxite samples, together with image analysis p...

The origin of the dung-feeding habits in dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) is debatable. According to traditional views, the evolution of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) and their feeding habits are largely attributed to mammal dung. In this paper, we challenge this view and provide evidence that many dung beetle communities are actua...

The Mesozoic stratigraphy of the Middle East hosts multiple world-class and economically significant petroleum systems. Since the initial discovery of oil in an anticline structure in 1908 (Masjed-e-Suleyman, Iran), further exploration and production in the Middle East has been fundamentally focussed on large, low-risk structural traps. Across the...

The first fossil Typhlocybinae inclusions from Eocene Rovno amber are described and illustrated. They include two new monotypic genera of the extinct tribe Protodikraneurini, Retrorsotettix n. gen. with type species R. vlaskini n. sp. and Protoparallaxis n. gen. with type species P. clavatus n. sp. Also described and illustrated are two new monotyp...

Shale oil has become a global hotspot of unconventional exploration and development. In this study, the latest drill core and experiment analyses of the Qingshankou Formation in the northern Songliao Basin were used to evaluate its lithofacies classification, sedimentary environment, pore types, pore-throat structure characterization, and shale oil...

Early Cretaceous ornithopod fossil bones from Portugal are reported only from the Papo-Seco Formation (lower Barremian) at Cabo Espichel, south of Lisbon. Ornithopod and other vertebrate remains from the Papo-Seco Formation occur in limestones, marls, sandstones and conglomerates in a succession interpreted as deposited in lagoonal and estuarine en...

The Central Graben is a Mesozoic sedimentary basin that is significantly influenced by rift and salt tectonics. Its southern part is located in the German and Dutch sectors of the North Sea. Even though studies exist on the tectonic and stratigraphic development of the Danish and Dutch Central Graben, the German Central Graben as an important link...

The fossil record yields a peculiar phenomenon in different kinds of molluscan shells: bioclaustrations formed around (epi)symbionts during growth of the hosts' shell margin. Four morphologies, two of them formerly considered bioerosion traces, are here united in the para-taxonomy of bioclaustration structures under the revised cecidogenus Rodocana...

The Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous (164–100 Ma) represents one of the main transitional periods in life history. Recent studies unveiled a complex scenario in which abiotic and biotic factors and drivers on regional and global scales due to the fragmentation of Pangaea resulted in dramatic faunal and ecological turnovers in terrestrial and marine e...

The Lusitanian Basin is located in the western part of Portugal (mainland), which was formed during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean in the beginning of the Mesozoic Era. The geological cross section of this basin is reached approximately 5-6 km in thickness and consists of Upper Triassic to Lower Cretaceous sedimentary deposits. The infill...

Utilizing geological and geochemical data, we re-assessed the thermal maturity of the Lower Cretaceous Vigla shales of the AY-3 well, located in the Internal Ionian geotectonic zone of Greece, using 1D thermal maturity modeling. Vigla shales primarily containing kerogen type I to II, incorporated within alternations of carbonates, cherts, and marly...

The Lower Cretaceous reservoir core samples from the upper part of Qamchuqa Formation, Baba Dome, Kirkuk Oil Company, show evidence for multistage episodes of dolomitization and a complex diagenetic history. Optical microscope reveals muti-phase of diagenesis: an early stage of diagenesis and its alteration, later, by evaporated seawater under near...

The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary marks one of the five major mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic. How the climate system responded to a bolide impact and extensive volcanism at this time over different timescales is highly debated. Here we use the distribution of branched tetraether lipids (brGDGT) from fossil peats at two sites in Saskatch...

The Late Cretaceous global transgression is one of the best well-documented episodes of continental submergence events. Conventional perspective holds that the transgression scope of the New Tethys Ocean into the African continent is limited to the North African continent. Here, we found some transgression traces in the Muglad Basin of the Central...

The Pleurodira represent one of the two clades that compose the crown Testudines, and their temporal range is Late Jurassic–present. However, knowledge about the neuroanatomy of extinct pleurodires is still very limited. In this context, scarce neuroanatomical information about the Cretaceous clade Euraxemydidae is currently available, limited to s...

A new pleurodiran turtle is described here. It is identified as attributable to Bothremydidae. The new taxon comes from an upper Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) outcrop located in Southwestern Niger (in the Indamane Mount area, belonging to the Abalak Department of the Tahoua Region). Abalakemys chapmanae gen. et sp. nov. is identified by an almos...

The Early Cretaceous rifting of the South Atlantic resulted from lithospheric extension and breakup of Pangaea and was accompanied by extensive intrusive magmatism and extrusive flood basalts identified as seaward dipping reflectors (SDRs). We have mapped out an extensive distribution of such volcanic complexes on the Argentine Continental Volcanic...

Reservoir rocks, such as carbonates, are rapidly becoming key elements for the energy transition. The damage of these reservoir rocks when placed under a stress field must be characterized, to better predict storage capacity distribution. In the shallow subsurface, carbonate rocks accommodate the stress by developing structures at the mesoscale, su...