Prairie Bluff Chalk

The Prairie Bluff Chalk is a geologic formation in Alabama and Mississippi. It preserves fossils dating back to the Cretaceous period.^[2][3]

Prairie Bluff Chalk
Stratigraphic range: Cretaceous
Prairie Bluff Chalk Formation (Starkville, Mississippi)
Type	Formation
Unit of	Selma Group[1]
Lithology
Primary	Chalk
Location
Region	Alabama, Mississippi[1]
Country	United States

The chalk was formed by marine sediments deposited along the eastern edge of the Mississippi embayment during the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous. It is a unit of the Selma Group and marks the end of the Cretaceous in Alabama. Evidence has been found within the formation at Braggs, Moscow, and Millers Ferry in Alabama indicating an instantaneous to brief erosional event, most likely a tsunami, at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–T boundary). It is hypothesized that this event, along with faulting and liquification of the Prairie Bluff Chalk, is related to the meteorite impact at the Chicxulub crater site, directly south, across the Gulf of Mexico, from the formation.^[4]

See also

• Paleontology portal

• List of fossil sites
  • List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Alabama
  • List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Mississippi
• Paleontology in Alabama
• Paleontology in Mississippi