This view includes Allen Kihm and late Paleocene bird tracks from the uppermost portion of the Tongue River Formation in the upper reaches of a tributary of the Little Missouri River, Billings County, North Dakota. The "tracks" were reported by R.K. Perkins in a 1987 Master of Science thesis at the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks) (Hartman photo C03752).

Bird tracks are rare in the Paleocene and the subsequent documentation of the bird tracks by Kihm and Hartman (1995) never intended the actual collection of the block from is slope wash location some 200 ft (60 m) above the nearest road (Bird tracks from the late Paleocene of North Dakota: North Dakota Academy of Science, Proceedings, v. 49, p. 63) (Hartman photo C03753).

Because of interest to study the bird tracks in more detail (and just after our collection permit became available), we decided to take a chance and recover the 1400-lb block between early winter snow storms in December 1994 (Hartman photo C03767).

The Little Missouri River drainage provides excellent exposures of uppermost Cretaceous and Paleocene strata in western North Dakota. This view is in northwestern Slope County and includes the uppermost Ludlow Formation and lowermost Tongue River Formation (Fort Union Group) (Hartman imageX-x1a).

This closeup view illustrations the shell-bearing horizon in the basal sequence of a channel complex in a south-facing cliff face along the Little Missouri River (Hartman image x-x1b).