Joe Sertich

Would love to see that monster displayed in Big Water

Just over a year ago, we relocated the lost holotype locality of Teratophoneus curriei in the Kaiparowits Formation of Grand Staircase-Escalante NM. The impressions of the maxilla (pictured here) and dentary left behind in 1981 match perfectly with casts of the bones housed at BYU.

That is how it was given to us. It must have been collected that way? The site stewardship was/is a crime against science.

Mike Getty and I were prepping it 11 years ago at DMNS. Made great progress before it was recalled. Just sayin'

Is the Cactus Park, CO skull included?

Agreed! So much to learn about the J-K transition

Yes, they are present. But not nearly the abundance of later Cretaceous units. Hundreds of turtle shells from the Fruitland and Kaiparowits, dozens of croc skulls, microsites with thousands of fish parts and teeth. CMF is a very different system

So it could just be an interchange induced turnover event rather than a mass extinction. Could it just be localized turnover in dryland faunas to begin? The CMF is definitely a dryland fauna with reduced abundance of crocs, turtles, fishes, amphibians, etc. We need more basal Cretaceous!

Was it a turnover event, spanning up to several million years, or was it geologicalky instantaneous? Mass extinction 4.5?