Language: Bilingual in English and Chinese
This book reports in detail on the collaborative research results on the Late Cretaceous-Palaeocene biota and the non-marine Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg)Boundary in Jiayin county, Heilongjiang province, China, and its neighboring area about 66 million years ago, which were produced by a multinational research team led by Chinese geoscientist Prof.Dr. Sun Ge during 2002-2011. Seven Late Cretaceous-Palaeocene palynological assemblage zones, two Late Cretaceous mega-plant assemblages, and nine newly found dinosaur taxa, are recognized in these areas. A well-documented non-marine K-Pg boundary, is defined in Jiayin with centimeter accuracy, for the first time, through a comprehensive study including palaeontological, geological, palaeo-magnetical and geochemical evidence. The authors propose that volcanic activity, sea level lowering, and climatic cooling may have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs in Jiayin and even in the whole of Northeast Asia. It is suggested here that the extinction of the dinosaurs probably happened before the interval of the K-Pg boundary in the Jiayin area and even in all of northeast asia, which is challenging the hypothesis of the "asteroid impact".
The book consists of five chapters and 16 sections, with English text and about 200 photos. This book is not only the first book on the Late Cretaceous-Palaeocene biota identifying the non-marine K-Pg boundary in China, but also a scientific textbook that is easy to understand. It is important and significant for the study of the biota, stratigraphy, palaeogeographic and palaeoclimatic reconstructions at the time of the transition between the Cretaceous and the Palaeogene, particularly to better understand the extinctions of dinosaurs in the northeast China and northeast Asia.