Trans-Atlantic correlations of Upper Cretaceous marine sediments: The Mid-Atlantic (USA) and Maastricht (Netherlands) regions

Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

3-1-2006

Abstract

Upper Cretaceous marine deposits from the Mid-Atlantic region of North America (Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey) and the Maastricht area (southern Netherlands, and nearby Belgium and Germany) are correlated across the Atlantic using a variety of macroinvertebrates, nannofossils, and sequence stratigraphy. Four late Cretaceous Mid-Atlantic sequences, the Marshalltown, Englishtown, Merchantville, and Navesink, span the upper Santonian to lowermost Danian, and have direct correlatives in the Maastricht area. Correlations between the Mid-Atlantic and the Maastricht regions (respectively) are as follows: the upper Santonian to lower Campanian Merchantville and Matawan formations with the Achen and lower Vaals formations; the middle Campanian upper Englishtown Formation with the upper Vaals Formation; the uppermost middle Campanian to upper Campanian Marshalltown, Wenonah, and Mount Laurel formations with the lower Gulpen Formation; the Navesink and lower Severn formations with the middle Gulpen Formation; and the New Egypt and upper Severn formations with the upper Gulpen and Maastricht formations. Additionally, deposits of the Maastricht area also provide support for several proposed subdivisions in the Marshalltown and Navesink sequences. The correlations proposed here can serve to refine the biostratigraphy of large marine vertebrates known from both sides of the Atlantic.

Publication Title, e.g., Journal

Northeastern Geology and Environmental Sciences

Volume

28

Issue

1

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