Nonmarine mollusks of southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta have been well studied by Canadian paleontologists since the late 1800s. Besides reporting on previously collected specimens, recent field work, undertaken in cooperation with Art Sweet (Geological Survey of Canada), is focused on a more detailed interpretation of the stratigraphic ranges of molluscan taxa, particularly in relation to the K/T boundary and palynomorph data.

The following views include molluscan localities in lower and upper Paleocene strata. The distant view over the Frenchman River includes the west end of Ravenscrag Butte consisting of the Whitemud, Battle, Frenchman, and Ravenscrag Formations. This section includes Elisabth McIver's (University of Saskatchewan) paleobotanical studies from the lower Paleocene portion of the Ravenscrag Formation (Hartman photo C08418).



The shell bed shown here above Art Sweet is a E.T. Tozer (GSC) locality in the Paskapoo Formation along the Highwood River. Such massive shell lags are present in some fairly significant fluvial channels, but they typically appear associated with stacked channel sandstones, representing the onslaught of major channel activity in a new area or at a new horizon (Hartman photo C08535).