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Pierre Shale

Geologic formation of the Upper Cretaceous from Pembina Valley in Canada to New Mexico, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pierre Shale
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The Pierre Shale is a geologic formation or series in the Upper Cretaceous which occurs east of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains, from Pembina Valley in Canada[2] to New Mexico.

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Baculites from the Pierre Shale showing sutures and remnant aragonite; western South Dakota, Late Cretaceous.

The Pierre Shale was described by Meek and Hayden in 1862 in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences (Philadelphia). They described it as a dark-gray shale, fossiliferous, with veins and seams of gypsum, and concretions of iron oxide. The Pierre Shale is about 3,138 feet (956m) thick at the type locality. It overlies the Niobrara division and underlies the Fox Hills beds.[1] It was named for an occurrence near Fort Pierre on the Missouri River in South Dakota.[3]

The Pierre Shale is of marine origin and was deposited in the Western Interior Seaway. It is correlative with other marine shales that occur farther west, such as the Bearpaw Shale, Mancos Shale and the Lewis Shale.[4] It correlates with the Lea Park Formation in central Alberta.[5] The Pierre is overlain by marginal marine deposits of the Fox Hills Formation.

Most of the formation was deposited in the Campanian Age of the late Cretaceous. However, the discovery of fossils of Baculites baculus in the uppermost beds of the Pierre Shale in the Raton, New Mexico area show that deposition continued here into the early Maastrichtian.[6]

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Mineral resources

The Pierre Shale is the host formation for commercial petroleum deposits in the Florence and Canon City fields in Fremont County, Colorado, and the Boulder Oil Field in Boulder County, Colorado. More recently, natural gas has been extracted in the Raton Basin in southern Colorado. The shale formation is usually too impermeable for hydrocarbon extraction, but produces in areas where it is naturally fractured or fractured by artificial means.

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Paleofauna

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Taxon Reclassified taxon Taxon falsely reported as present Dubious taxon or junior synonym Ichnotaxon Ootaxon Morphotaxon
Notes
Uncertain or tentative taxa are in small text; crossed out taxa are discredited.

Reptiles

Dinosaurs

More information Birds reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...
More information Ornithischians reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Mosasaurs

More information Mosasaurs reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Plesiosaurs

More information Plesiosaurs reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Pterosaurs

More information Pterosaurs reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Turtles

More information Turtles reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Fish

Bony fish

More information Bony fish reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Cartilaginous fish

More information Cartilaginous fish reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Marine vertebrates

Invertebrates

Annelids

More information Annelids reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Arthropods

More information Arthropods reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Bivalves

More information Bivalves reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Brachiopods

More information Brachiopods reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Cephalopods

More information Cephalopods reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Echinoderms

More information Echinoderms reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...

Gastropods

More information Gastropods, Genus ...

Scaphopods

More information Scaphopods reported from the Pierre Shale Formation, Genus ...
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References

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