Mammalian Faunas Across the Middle-Late Paleocene Boundary in Western North America

古新世代表了哺乳动物， 特别是胎盘动物，经历了一次重大的适应性辐射， 成为陆地上的主要动物。 几乎是已知序数的一半 Genozoic哺乳动物的多样性被认为是在 古新世，许多这些第一次出现在北 美国参考 因此，这段地质间隔非常重要 在哺乳动物的历史上，对哺乳动物的了解还很少。 古新世的生物多样性和组成 基因代后期的一个时期 尤其是我们的 在哺乳动物历史的过渡期， 古新世中期至晚期（即，来自托雷洪尼亚河！到 蒂法尼安！北美陆地哺乳动物时代），当时有一个 动物群的重大变化。 这种动物的更替 以前归因于气候变化和洲际 移民;然而，我们最近的工作表明，没有重大的 向西部内陆的移民发生在边界附近， 动物群变化的情况比 以前的假设。 通过大幅增加 在To/Ti边界附近的大样本，该项目将 提供了研究动物群的最详细信息 在这一重要时期， 初步收集 特别是在一个地方。 宾果采石场，表明它是 这对我们理解To/Ti过渡至关重要。 研究 这些样本，包括来自宾果采石场的样本， 显著地增加了对遗传学、功能性 To/Ti哺乳动物的形态学、古生态学和生物地层学 为动物区系更替分析提供基础。

The Paleocene Epoch represents the time during which mammals, particularly placentals, underwent a major adaptive radiation and became dominant land animals. Almost one-half of the known ordinal diversity of Genozoic mammals is thought to have arisen in the Paleocene, and many of these first appearances are in North America. This geologic interval is therefore of great importance in the history of mammals, yet less is known about mammalian diversity and composition during the Paleocene than during any of the later epochs of the Genozoic. Particularly weak is our knowledge of mammalian history during the transition from the middle to late Paleocene (i.e., from the Torrejonian ıTo! to the Tiffanian ıTi! North American Land-Mammal Ages), when there was a significant change in the fauna. This faunal turnover was previously ascribed to climatic change and intercontinental migrations; however, our recent work indicates that no major immigrations into the Western Interior occurred near the boundary, and that the scenario of faunal change was more complex than previously hypothesized. By substantially increasing the number of large samples near the To/Ti boundary, this project will have provided the most detailed information with which to study faunal turnover during this important interval. Preliminary collections from one locality n particularly. Bingo Quarry,indicate that it is crucial to our understanding of the To/Ti transition. Study of these samples, including those from Bingo Quarry, will significantly augment knowledge of the phylogeny, functional morphology, paleoecology, and biostratigraphy of To/Ti mammals and provide the foundation for analyses of faunal turnover.