At the Top of the Grand Staircase The Late Cretaceous of Southern Utah [Hardcover]

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah is the location of one of the best-known terrestrial records for the late Cretaceous. A major effort in the new century has documented over 2,000 new vertebrate fossil sites, provided new radiometric dates, and identified five new genera of ceratopsids, two new species of hadrosaur, a probable new genus of hypsilophodontid, new pachycephalosaurs and ankylosaurs, several kinds of theropods (including a new genus of oviraptor and a new tyrannosaur), plus the most complete specimen of a Late Cretaceous therizinosaur ever collected from North America, and much more. At the Top of the Grand Staircase: The Late Cretaceous of Southern Utah documents this major stepping stone toward a synthesis of the ecology and evolution of the Late Cretaceous ecosystems of western North America.

This volume . . . provides a comprehensive foundation for future research ventures on Campanian-age strata worldwide. Editors Alan Titus and Mark Loewen have completed the excellent service of compiling a suite of various research topicsranging from stratigraphic reviews and correlations to taphonomic studieson this key scientific region.The work on the Cretaceous of southern Utah in the past decade or so has been extraordinary. What was once a terra incognito has now become one of the most exciting areas for paleontological research in the world. . . . The scope of this volume is very systematic, starting with sedimentation and tectonics, proceeding with plants and invertebrates, and culminating with analysis of fossil vertebrates. This volume will be very welcome indeed.

Foreword by Jeffrey G. Eaton
Preface
1. One Hundred Thirty Years of Cretaceous Research in Southern Utah
2. Geologic Overview
3. Accumulation of Organic CarbonRich Strata along the Western Margin and in the Center of the North American Western Interior Seaway during the CenomanianTuronian Transgression
4. Tectonic and Sedimentary Controls, Age, al3R