The Hell Creek Formation is an intensely-studied division of Upper Cretaceous to lower Paleocene rocks in North America, named for exposures studied along Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana. The Hell Creek Formation occurs in badlands of eastern Montana and portions of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. In Montana, the Hell Creek Formation overlies the Fox Hills Formation and is the uppermost formation of the Cretaceous period. "Pompey's Pillar" at the Pompeys Pillar National Monument is a small isolated section of the Hell Creek Formation.
It is a series of fresh and brackish-water clays, mudstones, and sandstones deposited during the Maastrichtian, the last part of the Cretaceous period, by fluvial activity in fluctuating river channels and deltas and very occasional peaty swamp deposits along the low-lying eastern continental margin fronting the late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway. The climate was mild[1]. The famous iridium-enriched K-T boundary, which separates the Cretaceous from the Cenozoic, occurs as a discontinuous but distinct thin marker bedding within the Formation, near its uppermost strata. Commercial excavations bring Hell Creek fossils onto the market, usually dinosaur teeth, crocodylian osteoderm fragments, and dermal plates of fossil gars. A representative selection of Hell creek fossils can be seen at the Museum of the Rockies, in Bozeman, Montana.
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Fossils
The formation has produced impressive assemblages of invertebrates, plants, mammals, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. The most complete Hadrosaurid dinosaur ever found was retrieved in 2000 from the Hell Creek Formation and widely publicised in a National Geographic documentary aired in December 2007. A few bird and pterosaur fossils have also been found. Teeth of sharks and rays are sometimes found in the riverine Hell Creek Formation, suggesting that some of these taxa were tolerant of fresh water then as now.
Plants
- Casts of Metasequoia seed cones.
Dinosaurs (including birds)
Theropoda (Currie, 2005)
- Coelurosauria incertae sedis
- Family unknown
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- Paronychodon lacustris (common)
- Ricardoestesia (common)
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- Family unknown
- Tyrannosauroidea
- Tyrannosauridae
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- Tyrannosaurus rex[2]
- Nanotyrannus lancensis (likely to be a juvenile Tyrannosaurus)
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- Tyrannosauridae
- Ornithomimosauria
- Maniraptora
- Caenagnathidae
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- Chirostenotes sp.
- Elmisaurus elegans (may belong to Chirostenotes)
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- Troodontidae
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- Troodon sp.
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- Dromaeosauridae
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- cf. Dromaeosaurus
- Velociraptorinae (very common, sometimes referred to as Saurornitholestes)
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- Avisauridae
- Caenagnathidae
Ornithischia (Ryan and Evans, 2005)
- Ankylosauria
- Pachycephalosauria
- Ceratopsia
- Leptoceratopsidae
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- cf. Leptoceratops sp.
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- Ceratopsidae
- Chasmosaurinae
- Torosaurus latus
- Triceratops horridus (very common)
- Triceratops prorsus (may be synonymous with T. horridus)(very common)
- Chasmosaurinae
- Leptoceratopsidae
- Ornithopoda
- Hadrosauridae
- Hadrosaurinae
- Anatotitan copei
- Edmontosaurus annectens (very common)
- Edmontosaurus regalis (very common)
- Hadrosaurinae
See also
- List of fossil sites (with link directory)
Notes
- ^ The presence of crocodylians suggests a sub-tropical climate, with no prolonged annual cold.
- ^ In the summer of 2001 a juvenile Tyannosaurus was named Jane and prepared for the Burpee Museum of Natural History, Rockford, Illinois: see Jane (dinosaur).
