Study of the stratigraphy of dinoflagellate and small acritarch species in sediments of Campanian, Maestrichtian and early Danian ages is proposed for sections occurring in outcropin the U.S. Coastal Plain Province and in cored ocean basinsections available from the Deep Sea Drilling Project/OceanDrilling Program. The purpose is to stratigraphically date this interval, to prepare dinoflagellate and acritarch zonations which can be connected to those previously published for the olderretaceous and to determine the nature of the dinocyst record at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary. It will be necessary to calibrate the dinoflagellate-acritarch stratigraphy byinvestigating sections on land, e.g. sections at Braggs, Alabama, and in the ocean basins, e.g. sections at D.S.D.P. Site 577, for which there is established independent and concordant-multidisciplinary evidence of age provided by polarity reversalmagnetostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy (iridium, Carbon-13), and the biostratigraphy of calcareous fossils. Previous study of wells in the Atlantic Coastal Plain (Late Cretaceous) and in the Utah/Wyoming Overthrust Belt (Middle Jurassic) suggests that dinoflagellate species abundance andpalynologically-defined organic facies reflect episodes oftransgression and regression. Evidence of transgression indifferent lithological settings is indicated by a multipleoccurrence of biostratigraphic datums (FAD, LAD) which is succeeded by an interval of amorphous debris and increased number of dinoflagellate species. Regression is characterized by fewer dinoflagellate species in an organic matrix of landplantdetritus. Investigation of outcrops and wells of the easternU.S. Coastal Plain will provide a test of the palynologicalevidence. Study of sites in the adjacent western North Atlantic will test the palynological evidence of sea level change in thedeep sea facies.
