The advent of palaeontological occurrence databases has allowed for detailed reconstruction and analyses of species richness through deep time. While a substantial literature has evolved ensuring that taxa are fairly counted within and between different time periods, how time itself is divided has received less attention. Stage‐level or equal‐interval age bins have frequently been used for regional and global studies in vertebrate palaeontology. However, when assessing diversity at a regional scale, these resolutions can prove inappropriate with the available data. Herein, we propose a new method of binning geological time for regional studies that intrinsically incorporates the chronostratigraphic heterogeneity of different rock formations to generate unique stratigraphic bins. We use this method to investigate the diversity dynamics of dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of the Western Interior of North America prior to the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction. Increased resolution through formation binning pinpoints the Maastrichtian diversity decline to between 68 and 66 Ma, coinciding with the retreat of the Western Interior Seaway. Diversity curves are shown to exhibit volatile patterns using different binning methods, supporting claims that heterogeneous biases in this time‐frame affect the pre‐extinction palaeobiological record. We also show that the apparent high endemicity of dinosaurs in the Campanian is a result of non‐contemporaneous geological units within large time bins. This study helps to illustrate the utility of high‐resolution, regional studies to supplement our understanding of factors governing global diversity in deep time and ultimately how geology is inherently tied to our understanding of past changes in species richness.

中文翻译：

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地层分箱：一种在区域研究中提高时间分辨率的新方法，应用于北美白垩纪晚期恐龙化石记录

古生物学事件数据库的出现使人们可以在更长时间内进行详细的重建和物种丰富度的分析。尽管有大量文献可以确保在不同时间段内以及不同时间段之间对分类单元进行合理计数，但是如何划分时间本身却很少受到关注。在脊椎动物古生物学的区域和全球研究中，经常使用阶段级别或等间隔的年龄段。但是，在区域范围内评估多样性时，这些决议可能会与现有数据相抵触。在此，我们提出了一种用于区域研究的地质时间划分方法，该方法固有地结合了不同岩层的年代地层非均质性，以生成独特的地层学资料。我们使用这种方法来研究白垩纪-古近纪大规模灭绝之前北美西部内陆晚白垩世恐龙的多样性动态。通过地层分箱增加的分辨率可以准确地指出马斯特里赫特生物多样性下降到68至66 Ma之间，这与西部内陆航道的撤退相吻合。多样性曲线显示出使用不同的分箱方法表现出的挥发性模式，支持了这一时间范围内的异质性偏见影响灭绝前的古生物学记录的说法。我们还表明，Campanian恐龙的明显高流行性是由于大时间范围内非同期地质单位的结果。这项研究有助于说明高分辨率的用途，