Ceratopsids ("horned dinosaurs") are known from western North America and Asia, a distribution reflecting an inferred subaerial link between the two landmasses during the Late Cretaceous. However, this clade was previously unknown from eastern North America, presumably due to limited outcrop of the appropriate age and depositional environment as well as the separation of eastern and western Nor...

Quantitative subsidence analysis of 26 wells in the Lusitanian basin provides new constraints on the western Iberian Mesozoic passive margin development. Backstripped tectonic subsidence curves show a three-fold subdivision of vertical motions from Late Triassic onward. Continental rifting was initiated during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. From Middle Jurassic onward a distinct differen...

The late Campanian-early Maastrichtian site of Lo Hueco (Cuenca, Spain) has provided a set of well-preserved crocodyliform skull and lower jaw remains, which are described here and assigned to a new basal eusuchian taxon, Lohuecosuchus megadontos gen. et sp. nov. The reevaluation of a complete skull from the synchronous site of Fox-Amphoux (Department of Var, France) allows us to define a secon...

New Ar-Ar muscovite and Rb-Sr biotite age data in combination with structural analyses from the Apuseni Mountains provide new constraints on the timing and kinematics of deformation during the Cretaceous. Time-temperature paths from the structurally highest basement nappe of the Apuseni Mountains in combination with sedimentary data indicate exhumation and a position close to the surface after ...

Islands are noted for the occurrence of aberrant, endemic, and dwarfed taxa (the "island effect"). Late Cretaceous vertebrate assemblages of Romania and elsewhere in Europe are classic examples of island faunas in the fossil record, and are characterized by dwarfed herbivorous dinosaurs and other endemic taxa that are noticeably primitive relative to their mainland contemporaries. Fossils of th...

Recent discoveries of fossil vertebrates from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar include several specimens of a large theropod dinosaur. One specimen includes a nearly complete and exquisitely preserved skull with thickened pneumatic nasals, a median frontal horn, and a dorsal projection on the parietals. The new materials are assigned to the enigmatic theropod group Abelisauridae on the basis o...

The sedimentary record documenting the northward drift of India (Late Cretaceous to late Early Eocene) has recently provided important clues to the evolution, radiation, and dispersal of mammals. Here, we report a definitive Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) archaic ungulate (Kharmerungulatum vanvaleni genus et species nova) from the Deccan volcano-sedimentary sequences exposed near Kisalpuri vil...

In the second half of the nineteenth century, pioneering discoveries of rich assemblages of fossil plants from the Cretaceous resulted in considerable interest in the first appearance of angiosperms in the geological record. Darwin's famous comment, which labelled the 'rapid development' of angiosperms an 'abominable mystery', dates from this time. Darwin and his contemporaries were puzzled by ...

the study area is situated in the middle part of the tabas block. it contains outcrops of rocks that formed along longitudinal faults in early cimmerian orogenic phase. the basin subsided along these faults from the late triassic to early cretaceous, which include two sedimentary cycles. a sedimentary cycle, related to upper triassic to bajocian is known as shemshak group. another sedimentary c...

large benthic foraminifera and dasycladalean green algae are the most common and important (micro) fossils in lower cretaceous shallow-water sediments of the tethyan realm. in this paper, we introduced such taxa and their importance in age dating of lower cretaceous strata in the kopet-dagh sedimentary basin. also, according to determinations of index taxa (fauna and flora) in this period, the ...