Filtration theory was developed by engineers to model the removal of particulate matter from industrial gases. Recently, it has been used by biologists and paleo-biologists to model the capture of food particles by filter feeding organisms. The purpose of this study was to test paleosynecologic (biofacies-level) and paleoautecologic (species-level) models of crinoid distribution utilizing filtration theory. These models were tested by analyzing the crinoid faunas of three transgressive-regressive sequences from the Upper Pennsylvanian Lansing Group of midcontinent North America.
Stratigraphic, sedimentologic and petrographic studies of the Lower and Upper Cretaceous in northwest Sonora show that deposition of the Bisbee Group occurred at the northern margin of a back-arc marine basin, and of the El Chanate Group and El Charro volcanic complex in a closed continental foreland basin. This study also finds that the Proterozoic-Paleozoic formations in northwest Sonora (Caborca terrane) were not part of the Cretaceous landscape, thus raising doubts about the existence of the Mojave-Sonora megashear.