Abstract The Carmel Church Quarry fossil site in central Virginia has yielded thousands of vertebrate fossils over more than two decades of excavations conducted by the Virginia Museum of Natural History. The exposure of marine sediment here includes a highly fossiliferous bone bed within the Calvert Formation. Unlike most fossil finds from this formation along the Potomac River, the majority of fossils collected are from in situ deposits. The exposed section at Carmel Church includes Paleocene to Pliocene sediment, with vertebrate fossils also having been recovered from the Eocene Nanjemoy Formation. Common fossil finds within the Calvert Formation are typically isolated shark teeth, especially of Isurus (mako sharks) and Carcharhinus (requiem sharks). However, many large teeth of Carcharocles megalodon have been found as well. The ancient shallow sea ecosystem also supported a diversity of bony fish, reptiles, birds, and marine mammals. Carmel Church is the type locality for the mysticete (baleen) whale, Eobalaenoptera harrisoni, and has produced numerous other cetacean taxa. In addition, 28 species of diatoms have been identified from the site, further correlating the fossiliferous zone of the Calvert Formation to Bed 15 of other localities. The Carmel Church site also has one of the richest land mammal faunas of the Calvert Formation, particularly for the upper section, including fossil horses, tapirs, and peccaries. Despite intense excavations over many years, the site is still producing a large volume of fossil material, allowing participants the opportunity to help contribute to new discoveries from this fascinating locality.

ABSTRACT Dinosaur Provincial Park (DPP) was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, but in 1955 the exceptional quality and abundance of dinosaur fossils were already recognized with 80 km 2 of the richest fossil beds being set aside as an Alberta, Canada, provincial park. DPP represents possibly the best window into the biology of the Late Campanian anywhere in the world. At present, more than 35 species of dinosaurs, 32 species of fish, 10 species of amphibians, 29 taxa of non-dinosaurian reptiles, 1 bird, and 20 taxa of mammals are known to have been discovered in DPP. The dinosaur fossils of DPP were first seriously collected in 1912, with many “trophy” specimens being sent to museums in Ottawa, Toronto, New York, Washington, and London among others. This initial rush of dinosaur fossil collecting persisted until the 1930s, but with declining effort and results. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, scientific study of the park resumed in earnest, and by the 1980s, the park was receiving the full attention of staff from the newly created Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, based in Drumheller. With modern scientific thinking and techniques being applied to its dinosaurian, and especially non-dinosaurian, fossils, the park is as important a resource as ever. Hydrocarbon exploration in Alberta has contributed immensely to our knowledge of the geological history of the province during the Cretaceous, thus enabling a better understanding of the factors, both physical and biological, that contributed to the creation, preservation, and subsequent exposure of the extensive fossil resources contained within DPP.

Abstract Arthur Smith Woodward commanded international respect and acclaim. He was honoured in scientific circles from Russia to the Americas and throughout Europe, particularly for his outstanding work on fossil fish. He was distinguished in both his exceptional abilities as a vertebrate palaeontologist and in his tall, authoritative presence. He appeared confident, contained and in control, while his intellectual gifts had been apparent from a very early age. He was a remarkable scientist, but a man whose reputation has for too long been seen through the prism of the Piltdown forgery.

Abstract The Natural History Museum (NHMUK) fossil reptile collections contain a set of specimens sent to Arthur Smith Woodward in 1908 by the Argentinian palaeontologist, Florentino Ameghino. This collection includes a skull and other material of Cricosaurus , a metriorhynchid thalattosuchian (or ‘sea crocodile’), a group of marine crocodylomorphs that existed from at least the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous. Handwritten labels in Spanish, probably by Ameghino, and notes in English signed by Smith Woodward are still with the specimens. Using Ameghino and Smith Woodward’s correspondence to investigate the history of the specimens, we have determined that they came from the Vaca Muerta Formation of the Neuquén Basin in Patagonia, they were in the fossil collection of the Museo Nacional, Buenos Aires (MNBA) and that Ameghino loaned them to Smith Woodward for a study that was never published. Therefore, they will be returned to Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia’, Buenos Aires. These fossils, although not the most impressive, are probably the first metriorhynchid material collected in South America.

The Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary marks a critical event in mammalian evolution. Using a database of 4769 mammalian specimens from the Hell Creek and lower Fort Union formations of Garfield County, northeastern Montana, I quantified temporal patterns of diversity and community structure to evaluate faunal dynamics during the last ~1.9 m.y. of the Cretaceous, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction and survival, and the first ~1.2 m.y. of the early Paleocene recovery and placental radiation. Mammalian taxonomic composition and species richness remained relatively stable for most of the last ~1.9 m.y. of the Cretaceous, but the relative abundance of metatherians and evenness of paleocommunities began declining ~500–600 k.y. before the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. The ecological instability implied by falling evenness may be linked to the local extinction of 75% of species at or near the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. The early Puercan (Pu1) survival fauna from the first ~100–200 k.y. of the Paleocene is species poor and consists of a few local “bloom taxa” and an influx of immigrants. The species-rich mid/late Puercan (Pu2/3) fauna implies mammalian recovery occurred within ~600–700 k.y. of the Cretaceous-Paleogene event. The Pu2/3 and early Torrejonian (To1) faunas signal the beginning of the placental radiation—“bloom taxa” and multituberculates waned, richness and abundance of “archaic ungulates” and plesiadapiform primates increased, and the first appearance of taeniodonts, pantodonts, and possibly creodonts expanded the ecological diversity of local faunas. Together, the decoupled patterns of richness and relative abundances reveal the complexity of faunal dynamics during this seminal episode in mammalian history.