Geologic timescale for North American fauna beginning during the Late Cretaceous
The North American land mammal ages (NALMA) establishes a geologic timescale for North American fauna beginning during the Late Cretaceous and continuing through to the present. These periods are referred to as ages or intervals (or stages when referring to the rock strata of that age) and were established using geographic place names where fossil materials were obtained.[1]
System
The North American land-mammal-age system was formalized in 1941 as a series of provincial land-mammal ages.[2] The system was the standard for correlations in the terrestrialCenozoic record of North America and was the source for similar time scales dealing with other continents. The system was revised into a formal chronostratigraphic system. This approach is nominally justified by international stratigraphic codes; it holds that first appearances of individual species in particular sections are the only valid basis for naming and defining the land-mammal ages.
The basic unit of measure is the first/last boundary statement. This shows that the first appearance event of one taxon is known to predate the last appearance event of another. If two taxa are found in the same fossil quarry or at the same stratigraphic horizon, then their age-range zones overlap.[3]
The utility of the system led to its expansion into the Cretaceous (formalized 1986)[4] and the Holocene (formalized 2014).[5] These additions have been used in research related to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event and the ensuing recovery,[6] and to the Anthropocene debate,[5] respectively. However, the ages that stretch into the Cretaceous are sometimes referred to as "North American land vertebrate ages" to reflect the fact that mammals, while still abundant, were not the dominant form of terrestrial life during the Mesozoic.[7]
^Wood, H. E.; Chaney, R. W.; Clark, J.; Colbert, E. H.; Jepsen, G.L.; Reeside, J. B.; Stock, C. (1941). "Nomenclature and correlation of the North American continental Tertiary". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 52 (1): 1–48. Bibcode:1941GSAB...52....1W. doi:10.1130/gsab-52-1.
^Woodburne, Michael O., ed. (1987). "A prospectus of the North American Mammal Ages". Cenozoic mammals of North America : geochronology and biostratigraphy. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 285–290. ISBN978-0520053922.
^Lillegraven, J. A.; McKenna, M. C. (1986). "Fossil mammals from the" Mesaverde" Formation (late Cretaceous, Judithian) of the Bighorn and Wind River basins, Wyoming: with definitions of late Cretaceous North American land-mammal" ages"". American Museum Novitates (2840): 1–68.
^Woodburne, Michael O., ed. (2012). "Mammalian Biochronology of the Latest Cretaceous". Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic mammals of North America biostratigraphy and geochronology. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 21–43. ISBN9780231503785.