Ammonoids & Conodonts: Triassic Exposures of Nevada

Step into the sunbaked folds of West Union Canyon, just beyond Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada, and you are quite literally walking along one of North America’s most important geological fault lines in time—the elusive boundary between the Carnian and Norian stages of the Late Triassic.Here, the Upper Triassic Luning Formation—specifically the Early Norian Kerri Zone—reveals itself in a series of beautifully exposed beds, each one a page in a story written some 220 million years ago. This is no ordinary outcrop. It is a reference point, a kind of stratigraphic Rosetta Stone for understanding the Carnian–Norian boundary (CNB) on this side of the ancient world.