Information about Sundance Sea
The Sundance Sea was an epeiric sea which existed in North America during the mid to late Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic Era.[1] It was an arm of what is now the Arctic Ocean, and extended through what is now western Canada into the central western United States. The sea receded when highlands to the west began to rise.
The sedimentary rocks which formed in and around the Sundance Sea are often rich in fossils.
North America is a continent [1] in the Earth's northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west
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FOSSIL is a standard for allowing serial communication for telecommunications programs under the DOS operating system.
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Stratigraphy
The Sundance Sea did not occur at a single time; geological evidence suggests that the Sea was actually a series of five successive marine transgressions--each separated by an erosional hiatus--which advanced and receded from the middle Jurassic onward.<ref name="fanning" /> The terrestrial sediments of the Morrison Formation--eroded from rising highlands to the west--were deposited on top of the marine Sundance sediments as the sea regressed for the last time late in the Jurassic.[2][3]The sedimentary rocks which formed in and around the Sundance Sea are often rich in fossils.
Fauna
The Sundance sea was rich in many types of life. In addition to fish, belemnites and to an extenct ammonites swarmed in shoals. Baptanodon, a large icthyosaur, swam in the seas using its large, long jaws to catch squid. Pantosaurus, a cryptocleid plesiosaur the size of a seal, went after the easier to catch fish. The largest marine reptile in the Sundance Sea was Megalneusaurus, a large pliosaur similar to Liopleurodon. Its fossils have been found in Alaska and Wyoming, which were both covered by the Sundance sea when it was alive.See also
References
1. ^ Fanning, Suzette. Stratigraphy of the Sundance Formation. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
2. ^ Kuehn, Steve. Geology of the Mesozoic Era: 245 to 66 million years ago (PDF). Department of Physics, Physical Sciences, and Geology at California State University, Stanislaus. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
3. ^ Mesozoic Stratigraphy in the Thermopolis Area. Big Horn Basin Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
2. ^ Kuehn, Steve. Geology of the Mesozoic Era: 245 to 66 million years ago (PDF). Department of Physics, Physical Sciences, and Geology at California State University, Stanislaus. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
3. ^ Mesozoic Stratigraphy in the Thermopolis Area. Big Horn Basin Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
External links:
- Map of North America in the middle Jurassic, with the location of the Sundance Sea
- http://discovermagazine.com/1993/sep/jurassicseamonst263
- http://www.alaskamuseum.org/education/dinosaurs/megamouth.html
An epeiric sea (also known as an epicontinental sea) is a large but shallow body of salt water that lies over a part of a continent.
Epeiric seas are usually associated with the marine transgressions of the early Cenozoic and other eras.
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Epeiric seas are usually associated with the marine transgressions of the early Cenozoic and other eras.
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North America is a continent [1] in the Earth's northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west
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The Jurassic Period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 199.6 ± 0.6 Ma (million years ago) to 145.4 ± 4.0 Ma, the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous.
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The Mesozoic Era is one of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon. The division of time into eras dates back to Giovanni Arduino, in the 18th century, although his original name for the era now called the 'Mesozoic' was 'Secondary' (making the modern era the 'Tertiary').
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Earth's oceans
(World Ocean)
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(World Ocean)
- Arctic Ocean
- Atlantic Ocean
- Indian Ocean
- Pacific Ocean
- Southern Ocean
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A transgression is a geologic event during which sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, resulting in flooding. Transgressions can be caused either by the land sinking or the ocean basins filling with water (or decreasing in capacity).
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Erosion is displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock and other particles) usually by the agents of currents such as, wind, water, or ice by downward or down-slope movement in response to gravity or by living organisms (in the case of bioerosion).
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unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger, but the term is used
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Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic sedimentary rock that is found in the western United States and Canada, which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America.
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Sedimentary rock is one of the three main rock groups (the others being igneous and metamorphic rock). Rock formed from sediments covers 75-80% of the Earth's land area, and includes common types such as chalk, limestone, dolomite, sandstone, conglomerate and shale.
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- For other uses of the term, see Fossil (disambiguation)
FOSSIL is a standard for allowing serial communication for telecommunications programs under the DOS operating system.
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Megalneusaurus was a large pliosaur that lived in the Sundance Sea 150 million years ago, in the late Jurassic Period. The sea covered Southern Alaska, Wyoming, and parts of Canada and Montana.
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Pliosauroidea
Welles, 1943
Families and genera
see text
The Pliosaurs ("Fin Lizards") were marine reptiles from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.
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Welles, 1943
Families and genera
see text
The Pliosaurs ("Fin Lizards") were marine reptiles from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.
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Liopleurodon
Sauvage, 1873
Species
L. ferox Sauvage, 1873 (type)
L. pachydeirus (Seeley, 1869)
L. rossicus (Novozhilov, 1948)
L.
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Sauvage, 1873
Species
L. ferox Sauvage, 1873 (type)
L. pachydeirus (Seeley, 1869)
L. rossicus (Novozhilov, 1948)
L.
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The Turgai (or Turgay) Sea or Turgai Strait, also known as West Siberian Sea, was a large shallow body of salt water (an epicontinental or epeiric sea) of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras.
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