New middle and late Smithian ammonoid faunas from the Utah/Arizona border: New evidence for calibrating Early Triassic transgressive-regressive trends and paleobiogeographical signals in the western USA basin

New Smithian (Early Triassic) ammonoid assemblages were sampled near the Utah/Arizona border. They provide several spatiotemporal constraints on the regional Sinbad Formation showing that the extent of the Smithian sea in the southwestern-most part of the western USA basin is larger than previously expected, reaching northern Arizona and an area just east of Kanab in Kane County, Utah. This southwestern-most excursion of the sea in the western USA basin is part of the third order Smithian transgression-regression cycle, which is well-documented worldwide. These new spatiotemporal constraints also indicate that the Sinbad Formation spans the late middle to early late Smithian time interval in the studied area. The observed transgressive trend corresponds to the warm temperatures of the middle-early late Smithian and the regressive trend to the cooling phase spanning the Smithian-Spathian transition. Thus, the Sinbad Formation and its marine deposits are the direct result of global climatic fluctuations and related sea-level changes that occurred from the late middle Smithian to the Smithian-Spathian transition. This highlights the importance of the Sinbad Formation in untangling local and global changes occurring around the late Smithian, and thus in overcoming a major obstacle to the understanding of the biotic recovery after the Permian/Triassic boundary mass extinction. This also indirectly confirms that the western USA basin is a key area containing essential information for the understanding of the Early Triassic events. The taxonomic richness of late middle Smithian assemblages is much lower in the studied area than in the more northern localities. However, the occurring taxa confirm the known regional to global distribution of Smithian ammonoids, witnessing the major global environmental changes from the middle Smithian to the early Spathian.