North Horn Formation
Geological formation in Utah / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about North Horn Formation?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The North Horn Formation is a widespread non-marine sedimentary unit with extensive outcrops exposed in central and eastern Utah. The formation locally exceeds 3,600 feet (1,100 m) in thickness and is characterized by fluvial, lacustrine, and floodplain dominated systems, representing a terrestrial, high energy, depositional environment.[1][2][3] The sediments date from Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) to early Paleocene in age and include the K-Pg extinction event boundary; however, this boundary is extremely difficult to locate and there is no strong stratigraphic evidence available that indicates a specific marker bed such as an iridium rich clay layer.[4][5] Thus far, the only visible evidence is represented in the form of faunal turnover from dinosaur to mammal-dominated fossil assemblages. Taxa from the Cretaceous part of the formation include squamates, testudines, choristoderes, crocodyliforms, sharks, bony fishes, amphibians, mammals, dinosaurs, eggshell fragments, trace fossils, mollusks, plant macrofossils, such as wood fragments, and palynomorphs.[6][7][8][9]
North Horn Formation | |
---|---|
Stratigraphic range: Maastrichtian-Danian ~71–64 Ma | |
Type | Geological formation |
Underlies | Flagstaff Formation |
Overlies | Price River & Tuscher Formations |
Thickness | >1,100 m (3,600 ft) |
Lithology | |
Primary | Sandstone, shale, conglomerate |
Other | Siltstone, limestone, coal |
Location | |
Coordinates | 39.0°N 111.0°W / 39.0; -111.0 |
Approximate paleocoordinates | 46.8°N 88.0°W / 46.8; -88.0 |
Region | Utah |
Country | United States |
Extent | ~140 km (87 mi) |
Type section | |
Named for | North Horn Mountain |