Maestrichtian Aquilapollenites in texas, Maryland, and New Jersey

Abstract

At least 12 species of Aquilapollenites (sensu lato) and many other pollen and spore species, well known from the Upper Cretaceous Lance and Hell Creek Formations of the Rocky Mountain region, occur in the Maestrichtian Kemp Clay and Danian Kincaid Formation near Waco, Texas. The specimens in the Paleocene sediments appear to represent extensive reworking from the underlying Cretaceous. Specimens of Aquilapollenites also occur rarely in Maestrichtian deposits of the Atlantic Coastal Plain in Maryland (Monmouth Group) and New Jersey (Red Bank Formation). These occurrences mark both southward and eastward extensions of the known North American range of the genus and, in the case of the Texas locality, of many of the species typically associated with it elsewhere.