Authors: Gregory J. Retallack, Erick A. Bestland, and Theodore J. Fremd

Oregon’s high desert has long been famous for its fossil plants and mammals of Eocene and Oligocene age (45 to 28 million years old), but the most scenically striking feature of these colorful, fossiliferous badlands is their paleosols (fossil soils). In this monograph, the various paleosols are characterized and interpreted in order to decipher ancient environments of this rich terrestrial fossil record. These paleosols constitute a detailed record of extinct mammalian habitats, of the distribution of ancient plant communities, and of abrupt Eocene–Oligocene paleoclimatic cooling. Information on the identification and recognition of paleosols is included, as well as descriptive information on each of the different kinds of paleosols. The paleosol descriptions are supported by textural, mineralogical, and chemical data, and also offered are checklists of fossils known from these sequences.

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Published: 4/19/2000

ISBN Number: 0813723442

Pages: 192

Product Category: EBooks