Title: Chronology and Faunal Evolution of the Middle Eocene Bridgerian North American Land Mammal “Age”
Description: The age of the Bridgerian/Uintan boundary has been regarded as one of the most important outstanding problems in North American Land Mammal “Age” (NALMA) biochronology. The Bridger Basin in southwestern Wyoming preserves one of the best stratigraphic records of the faunal boundary as well as the preceding Bridgerian NALMA. In this dissertation, I first developed a chronological framework for the Eocene Bridger Formation including the age of the boundary, based on a combination of magnetostratigraphy and U-Pb ID-TIMS geochronology. Within the temporal framework, I attempted at making a regional correlation of the boundary-bearing strata within the western U.S., and also assessed the body size evolution of three representative taxa from the Bridger Basin within the context of Early Eocene Climatic Optimum. Integrating radioisotopic, magnetostratigraphic and astronomical data from the early to middle Eocene, I reviewed various calibration models for the Geological Time Scale and intercalibration of 40Ar/39Ar data among laboratories and against U-Pb data, toward the community goal of achieving a high precision and well integrated Geological Time Scale.

In Chapter 2, I present a magnetostratigraphy and U-Pb zircon geochronology of the Bridger Formation from the Bridger Basin in southwestern Wyoming. The ~560 meter composite section spans from the lower Bridger B to the Bridger E, including the Bridgerian/Uintan NALMA boundary in the uppermost part of the section. Analysis of samples from 90 sites indicates two paleomagnetic reversals that are correlated to an interval spanning Chrons C22n, C21r, and C21n by comparison to the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale (GPTS). This correlation places the Bridgerian/Uintan faunal boundary within Chron C21n, during the initial cooling phase following the peak of the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum. Based on the bio- and magnetostratigraphic correlation, I provide correlation of other Bridgerian/Uintan boundary-bearing sections to the GPTS, demonstrating that in the western North America, the Bridgerian/Uintan boundary occurs everywhere in Chron C21n. In addition, U-Pb zircon geochronological analyses were performed on three ash beds from the Bridger Formation.

High-precision U-Pb dates were combined with the paleomagnetic polarity data of the same ash beds as well as the integrative chronostratigraphy of the basin to assess prior calibration models for the Eocene part of the GPTS. The data from the Bridger Formation indicate that the Option 3 age model of Westerhold et al. (2008) best reconciles the geochronological data from all of the ash beds except for one. Thus I favor this Option 3 model, which indicates the ages of 56.33 Ma and 66.08 Ma for the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary, respectively. In Chapter 3, the body size evolution of three mammalian taxa from the Bridgerian NALMA was analyzed within the context of Bergmann’s Rule, which poses a correlation between the size of endotherms and climate (latitude). The Bridgerian NALMA is from a time of global cooling following the peak of the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, thus according to Bergmann’s Rule, the Bridgerian mammals are expected to increase in size.

This hypothesis is tested among Notharctus, Hyopsodus, and Orohippus, using the size of molar dentition as a proxy for their body size. These taxa represent three different ecomorphs, and I investigated if these taxa showed a pattern of body size change consistent with the prediction made by Bergmann’s Rule, and how their ecological adaptation may have affected their response to the climate change. Prior to analyzing the body size evolution, specimens of Notharctus and Hyopsodus were identified to species based on dental characters. This practice differs from previous studies in which species identification relied on relative size of the individuals and stratigraphic levels of origin. Within the new framework of morphologically determined species identification, five species of Notharctus were recognized, among which, N. pugnax, N. robustior and N. sp. indet. exhibited statistically significant body size increase in the time span of interest. Based on morphological analyses of Hyopsodus dentition, I recognized five species.

Dentition-based body size analysis showed that H. lepidus and H. despiciens exhibited a statistically significant change towards larger size within the sampled interval. When analyzed at the generic level, a statistically significant increase was observed for both Notharctus and Hyopsodus. Finally, a genus-level analysis of Orohippus showed a lack of statistically significant size increase over the study interval. Thus, among the three taxa from the Bridgerian, Bergmann’s Rule is supported by Notharctus and Hyopsodus, at least at the genus level, but not by Orohippus, although the patterns are more variable at the intraspecific level. In Chapter 4, 40Ar/39Ar dates were obtained from sanidines from the middle Eocene Henrys Fork tuff and Upper Carboniferous Fire Clay tonstein, with the goal of making highly precise measurements of these two samples, keyed to the Fish Canyon monitor standard. Analytically, both samples were well characterized, as had been shown previously. The irradiation disk was arranged such that there would have been control from the Fish Canyon surrounding each of the unknown pits.

However, due to several complications in the lab during the course of the experiment, only the analyses from one run disk (Disk 677) were of the quality needed for the goals of the study. As a result, the Fish Canyon sanidine standards that were irradiated near the center of the irradiation disk had to be discarded, and thus, the neutron fluence could not be mapped out precisely across the entire disk. The 40Ar/39Ar age relative to Fish Canyon sanidines is 47.828 ± 0.205 Ma and 311.937 ± 1.282 Ma for the Henrys Fork tuff and Fire Clay tonstein, respectively (1σ, including error on the age of the monitor). Because the ages were both offset about the same amount, I explored the option of using the U-Pb ID-TIMS ages of the Henrys Fork tuff and Fire Clay tonstein to test the agreement in the chronometers. The Henrys Fork tuff was dated at 48.260 ± 0.107 Ma (1σ, including error on the age of the monitor) using the Fire Clay sanidines and assuming its age is the U-Pb zircon age. The Fire Clay tonstein was dated at 314.593 ± 0.699 Ma (1σ, including error on the age of the monitor), using the Henrys Fork sanidines and assuming its age is the U/Pb zircon age.

Although the complications encountered render these data unpublishable, they show great promise as the ages of each sanidine sample, tied to the other ash using the other ash’s U-Pb age, give results that are in close agreement between the two chronometers on the same sample (e.g., 314.593 ± 0.699 Ma vs. 314.554 ± 0.020 Ma at 1σ for sanidine and zircon respectively from the Fire Clay tonstein, and 48.260 ± 0.107 Ma vs. 48.265 ± 0.008 Ma 1σ for sanidine and zircon respectively from the Henrys Fork tuff).