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Science 2 May 1986:
Vol. 232. no. 4750, pp. 629 - 633
DOI: 10.1126/science.232.4750.629
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Articles

Gradual Dinosaur Extinction and Simultaneous Ungulate Radiation in the Hell Creek Formation

ROBERT E. SLOAN 1, J. KEITH RIGBY JR. 2, LEIGH M. VAN VALEN 3, and DIANE GABRIEL 4

1 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
2 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.
3 Biology Department, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637.
4 Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, WI 53233.

Dinosaur extinction in Montana, Alberta, and Wyoming was a gradual process that began 7 million years before the end of the Cretaceous and accelerated rapidly in the final 0.3 million years of the Cretaceous, during the interval of apparent competition from rapidly evolving immigrating ungulates. This interval involves rapid reduction in both diversity and population density of dinosaurs. The last dinosaurs known are from a channel that contains teeth of Mantuan mammals, seven species of dinosaurs, and Paleocene pollen. The top of this channel is 1.3 meters above the likely position of the iridium anomaly, the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary.

Submitted on July 8, 1985
Accepted on January 28, 1986


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