• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

New Mexico Geological Society Downloaded from: http://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/30 Summary of the paleontology of the Santa Fe Group (Mio-Pliocene), north-central New Mexico Barry S. Kues and Spencer G. Lucas, 1979, pp. 237-241 in: Santa Fe Country, Ingersoll, R. V. ; Woodward, L. A.; James, H. L.; [eds.], New Mexico Geological Society 30th Annual Fall Field Conference Guidebook, 310 p. This is one of many related papers that were included in the 1979 NMGS Fall Field Conference Guidebook. Annual NMGS Fall Field Conference Guidebooks Every fall since 1950, the New Mexico Geological Society (NMGS) has held an annual Fall Field Conference that explores some region of New Mexico (or surrounding states). Always well attended, these conferences provide a guidebook to participants. Besides detailed road logs, the guidebooks contain many well written, edited, and peer-reviewed geoscience papers. These books have set the national standard for geologic guidebooks and are an essential geologic reference for anyone working in or around New Mexico. Free Downloads NMGS has decided to make peer-reviewed papers from our Fall Field Conference guidebooks available for free download. Non-members will have access to guidebook papers two years after publication. Members have access to all papers. This is in keeping with our mission of promoting interest, research, and cooperation regarding geology in New Mexico. However, guidebook sales represent a significant proportion of our operating budget. Therefore, only research papers are available for download. Road logs, mini-papers, maps, stratigraphic charts, and other selected content are available only in the printed guidebooks. Copyright Information Publications of the New Mexico Geological Society, printed and electronic, are protected by the copyright laws of the United States. No material from the NMGS website, or printed and electronic publications, may be reprinted or redistributed without NMGS permission. Contact us for permission to reprint portions of any of our publications. One printed copy of any materials from the NMGS website or our print and electronic publications may be made for individual use without our permission. Teachers and students may make unlimited copies for educational use. Any other use of these materials requires explicit permission. This page is intentionally left blank to maintain order of facing pages. New Mexico Geol. Soc. Guidebook, 30th Field Conf., Santa Fe Country, 1979 237 SUMMARY OF THE PALEONTOLOGY OF THE SANTA FE GROUP (MIO-PLIOCENE), NORTH-CENTRAL NEW MEXICO BARRY S. KUES Department of Geology University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 and SPENCER G. LUCAS Department of Geology and Geophysics, and Peabody Museum of Natural History Yale University New Haven, Connecticut 06520 INTRODUCTION The Santa Fe Group, as restricted by Galusha and Blick (1971) to rocks of the type and contiguous areas, crops out extensively in and around the Rio Grande valley from Santa Fe northward past Espanola to beyond Abiquiu and Ojo Cal- iente (fig. 1). Strata lithologically and temporally equivalent to those present in the type area also are exposed south of Santa Fe (Kelley, 1977; Kelley and Northrop, 1975), but will not be considered in this report. Deposition of the Santa Fe Group extended from late Hemingfordian (medial Miocene) to Hemphillian (early Pliocene) time (Galusha and Blick, 1971; Mac Fadden, 1977), a period of about 12 million years. Charac- teristic Santa Fe exposures are buff, brown, red, gray or green colored shales, sandstones and conglomerates that contain numerous white ash layers and erode into highly dissected expanses of badlands. From these beds has come one of the most abundant, diverse and continuously sampled vertebrate faunas in the world; the Santa Fe Group is arguably the most thoroughly and carefully collected stratigraphic unit in New Mexico. The purposes of this paper are to summarize briefly the paleontology of the Santa Fe, to describe the nature of fossil collections and work in progress, and to suggest areas of profitable future research. PALEONTOLOGY History of Study Vertebrate fossils from the Santa Fe first were collected and described by E. D. Cope in the 1870's (e.g., Cope, 1874a). Although most of the fossils he collected were fragmentary, they included many new species. Little paleontological activity followed Cope's efforts until Childs Frick became interested in these fossils and sponsored an exploratory collecting expedi- tion in the summer of 1924. In less than a week, a complete skeleton of the "dog-bear" Hernicyon had been discovered (Frick, 1926c, p. 447), and the remains of other fossil verte- brates proved to be so varied and abundant that Frick, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, began a collecting program that ran nearly continuously for 40 years. During this time, all Santa Fe exposures in the Espanola basin and "Abiquiu re-entrant" (Galusha and Blick, 1971) were prospected for fossils, and many productive localities and horizons were visited many times. Such a concentrated collect- ing effort allowed the most fossiliferous beds to be periodic- ally and thoroughly sampled before surface accumulations could be fragmented by erosion, and insured that most exposed concentrations of bone were discovered. Most fossils proved to 238 KUES and LUCAS be isolated bones or skeletons, but more than a dozen dense The horses of the Santa Fe Group were somewhat smaller concentrations of numerous individual animals were found and than modern horses and possessed three toes on each foot. quarried. The largest of these quarry operations was on the Oreodonts were a very successful group of grazing animals, south side of Round Mountain (fig. 1) where several hundred perhaps best visualized as having a combination of pig and large crates of bone were excavated in 1935 and 1936; large small-camel features. Although oreodonts were once the most piles of debris are still visible there. The Frick/American abundant mammal in North America, by the middle Miocene, Museum program ceased in 1965, and with the exception of they had passed the peak of their success, and they represent the Chamita Formation (Mac Fadden, 1977), relatively little but a small part of the vertebrate fauna of the Santa Fe Group. additional sampling of the Santa Fe Group has been accom- Some of the last surviving members of this extinct group are plished. A University of New Mexico survey of selected areas found in the Pliocene part of the Santa Fe. The largest of the around Espanola in the summer of 1978 revealed that excel- Santa Fe mammals were the gomphotheres, extinct predeces- lent skeletal remains have eroded out in some places since sors of modern elephants that possessed tusks in the lower as 1965 (Kues and others, 1978). well as upper jaw. Several types of rhinoceros also are present in the Santa Fe, including Teleoceras, a presumably amphib- Nature of Fauna ious genus with short legs and a stout body reminiscent of the Santa Fe fossils are mainly vertebrates; plants and inverte- modern hippopotamus. brates are rare and also have not been collected as intensively Carnivorous mammals are not as abundant as the large her- as the vertebrates. Because only some of the vertebrate groups bivores discussed above, but are highly diverse. Some forms have been studied and no complete census of the vast Amer- were similar to modern dogs, foxes, cats, raccoons, badgers, ican Museum collections has been made, it is not possible to skunks and weasels, but groups now extinct were present as present more than a general summary of the major constit- well. Most Santa Fe cats, for example, possessed enlarged uents of the Santa Fe faunas (e.g., Galusha, 1974). Informa- canine teeth that would qualify them as "saber-toothed," and tion on the relative abundance of the various groups in each there was a large variety of bulky dog-like carnivores, some of stratigraphic subdivision of the Santa Fe would be informative, which were probably close to the ancestry of bears. but will not be available until the entire collection is studied. In summary, the Mio-Pliocene faunas of north-central New Nevertheless, some indication can be given for the Santa Fe Mexico contain a mixture of essentially modern mammals, Group as a whole. primitive representatives of some modern groups, and un- In the period 1942-1965, approximately 10,000 major familiar groups now extinct. The great differences between the skeletal elements (bones, teeth, horns, etc.) were collected geologically young Santa Fe faunas and modern North Amer- from the Espanola area (Kues and others, 1978, p. 96); the ican faunas can be illustrated by pointing out that almost all of number collected before 1 942 undoubtedly exceeds this total. the dominant herbivores of the Santa Fe, such as camels, About 29% of the post-1941 fossils are camels, 19% are horses, rhinoceroses, gomphotheres and oreodonts, have dis- "deer," and 13% are horses. Rodents (excluding beavers), appeared from North America in the 4-5 million years since "Carnivora" only identified to the ordinal level, and antilo- the last Santa Fe deposits were laid down. caprids each comprise between 5 and 10% of the faunas, and rhinoceroses, gomphotheres, oreodonts, dogs, bears and "dog- Status of Collections bears" each represent 1 to 5% of the total. Vertebrates present Most of the enormous number of fossils collected from the in smaller numbers include beavers, rabbits, shrews, hedgehogs, Santa Fe Group is housed in the Frick wing of the American moles, peccaries, sloths, cats, weasels, birds, frogs, lizards and Museum of Natural History in New York; many of the most tortoises. In almost all of these groups, several genera are repre- complete and impressive specimens are on display in the main sented, as would be expected in a unit that spanned over 10 American Museum galleries. Not surprisingly, the collection of million years.

Load more

  8

Copy Link