Trip O: Paleoenvironmental and Paleobiological Perspectives on the Continental End-Triassic Mass Extinction

This field trip will cover exemplary outcrops and dinosaur fossils spanning Late Triassic and Early Jurassic strata in the northern Hartford Basin. We will focus on and debate interpretations of lacustrine cyclicity and ecosystem change caused by volcanic winters and global warming associated with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP), events that also triggered the End-Triassic mass extinction. Safe road cuts, quarries, and natural outcrops will be visited, displaying lacustrine sedimentary cyclicity, dinosaur footprints, and CAMP lava flows. We will also visit the classic, and famous, Edward Hitchcock fossil footprint collection at the Beneski Museum of Amherst College. These stops will serve as venues for debates on the paleontology and paleobiology of the Triassic–Jurassic transition.

Leader: Paul Olsen, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University