UTAH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ____ URVEY OTES Vol Um E 28 , Number 3 TABLE of CONTENTS Investigating Environments
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
UTAH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ____ URVEY OTES Vol um e 28 , Number 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Investigating Environments .... .1 The Director's Utah's Ice Age Wildlife ........ .5 Survey News .. ...............8 Perspective The Rockhounder ..............9 Glad You Asked . ... .. .. ..10 by M. Lee Allison Geologic Hazards . ... .. ....12 Cambrian-Ordovician Boundary . .16 Teacher's Corner . .. .. .... .. 17 rent for the present Sample Library Design by Vicky Clarke building. The new building will be completely paid off in about 18 years. State of Utah UGS' Sample Library Michael 0. Leavitt, Governor By its proximity to the UGS the new Department of Natural Resources Two big changes are corning for the warehouse will increase staff efficien Ted Stewart, Executive Director UGS Sample Library, the state's cy and usage of the samples. We are repository for cores and cuttings designing it to allow for expansion to UGS Board Russell C. Babcock, Jr., Chairman from thousands of Utah wells. First, handle additional samples received C. William Berge a new, dedicated core warehouse will in the future. Improved core layout Jerry Golden be constructed at the Utah Dept. of space will make research and training Richard R. Kennedy E.H. Deedee O'Brien Natural Resources (DNR) office cam classes easier and more effective. D. Cary Smith pus in northwest Salt Lake City With the funds secure for construc Milton Wadsworth where the UGS is relocating in May, David Terry tion of the new Sample Library core 1996. Second, legislative approval Trust Lands Administration-ex officio warehouse, the UGS will now be so for creation of a trust fund allows us UGS Staff liciting contributions to the Sample to now accept donations for the long Administration and Support Library Trust Fund. The Fund was M . Lee Allison, Director term improvement and maintenance authorized by the State Legislature in William R. Lund, Deputy Director of the Sample Library. Werner Haidenthaller, Assoc. Director the 1996 session and will be managed Daniel Kelly, Acct. Officer The new core warehouse will be de by the State Treasurer. It is the intent Roselyn Dechart, Lynda Lambert, Linda Bennett, office staff signed and built in fiscal year 1997. of the UGS to use interest earned on William Case, Computer Resources In addition to the core presently the Fund's principal to increase and Sharon Wakefield, Computer Resources stored in the Sample Library, it will improve services of the Sample Li Survey Noles Staff also contain laboratory and sample brary. Under unusual circumstances Editor: Jim Stringfellow preparation space currently housed the UGS Board may authorize dip Editorial Staff: Vicky Clarke, Sharon Hamre Cartographers: Patricia H. Speranza, in the UGS offices and at the Division ping into the Fund's principal. Other James W. Parker, Lori Douglas of State History. An interest-free state geological surveys have been Applied Geology Gary Christf?nson loan from the DNR Warehouse Inter very successful at raising funds to Bill Black, Michael Hylland, Charles Bishop, nal Service Fund for construction of help underwrite their sample library Barry Solomon, Michael Lowe, Janine Jarva the core warehouse will be repaid operations. Utah can now try to em Francis Ashland, Bea Mayes, Hugh Hurlow, Noah Snyder, Janae Wallace with the money currently spent on ulate them. Economic Geology Bryce T. Tripp Douglas A. Sprinkel, Robert W. Gloyn, Robert Blackett, Roger Bon, Thomas Chidsey, David Tabet, J. Wallace Gwynn, Roy Adams, Brigitte Hucka, Craig Morgan, Michele Hoskins, Cover: Artist's interpretation of the Huntington mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), pre Carolyn Olsen, Dar Day pared for National Geographic Magazine. The artwork was produced prior to the recov Geologic Mapping Hellmut Doelling ery of the jaw and teeth of the extinct giant predator, Arctodus simus, the short-faced bear Fitzhugh Davis, Lehi Hintze, Jon King, from the Huntington Canyon site. The saber tooth cat shown in this illustration is artist's Grant Willis, Kent Brown, Michael Wright license. Such cats were contemporaneous with the mammoth and bear in Utah, but none Geologic Extension Services Kimm Harty were found at the Huntington site. By permission of National Geographic Society. Sandra Eldredge, Christine Wilkerson, Mage Yonetani, Rebecca Hylland, Kelli Bacon Victoria Whitaker, Trent McNair Paleontology/Paleoecology David Madsen Survey Notes is published three times yearly by Utah Geological Survey, 1594 W. North Temple, Suite 3410, Salt Lake City, Utah David Gillette, State Paleontologist 84114-6100: (801) 537-3321. The UGS inventories the geologic resources of the state, identifies its geologic hazards, dissemi nates information concerning Utah's geology, and advises policymakers on geologic issues. The UGS is a division of the De Martha Hayden, Monson Shaver partment of Natural Resources. Single copies of Survey Notes are distributed free of charge to residents within the United States and Canada. Reproduction is encouraged with recognition of source. ISSN 1061-7930 SURVEY NOTES 1 Investigating Environmental Change in the Deserts of Western Utah by David B. Madsen he Utah Geological Survey (UGS) is currently in Tvolved in a multi-year project investigating long term environmental change in the Bonneville Basin of western Utah and eastern Nevada. With funding from the Department of Defense Legacy program and addition al support from the Bureau of Land Management and the environmental management directorate at Hill Air Force Base, the Paleontological and Paleoecology Program at UGS is using small animal paleontology and preserved plant macrofossils to define the con tinuing evolution There is no one of plant and ani mal communities "correct" ecosystem in Utah's western deserts. Limber pine needles in a fossil woodrat midden collected along the mar in any one place ... gin of the Great Salt Lake Desert. One of the prima ry responsibilities come to be known as "ecosystem management" and it is of land-holding now an integral part of the management strategy of virtu agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, Trust ally every major land-holding agency. The Department Lands Administration, and the U.S. Forest Service is to of Defense (DOD) controls much of the land within the manage resources under their control in such a way that Bonneville Basin. As one of the largest land-holding agen they can be both used to serve present needs and pre cies in the Federal Government, DOD has adopted ecosys served for future generations. Numerous ecological stud tem management strategies to insure both long-term envi ies suggest, however, that individual physical and biotic ronmental stability and the continued availability of realis resources are interrelated and that they must be managed tic training conditions on lands under its jurisdiction. together to insure the continued health of these communi ties. Such a holistic approach to land management has Initially, ecosystem management strategies were geared 2 SURVEY NOTES and corresponding vegetational changes during the late Quaternary (50,000 years). Initial work in the general area suggests that many limestone caves created by Pleistocene Lake Bonneville were occupied by raptors and other carni vores immediately after the lake receded -14 thousand years ago. People began to occupy many of these same caves by 10 ka, but the intermittent cultural use was not usually sufficient to dislodge the raptors. It did, however, produce a highly stratified depositional record which al lows change through time to be readily identified. These dry caves share two additional features which make them particularly useful as paleontological laboratories. First, since they are dry, they are also home to woodrats, whose fossilized packrat nests (often called middens) provide clues to surrounding vegetation spanning the past 50,000 Jay Quade (University of Arizona) and Donald Grayson (University years or longer. Combined with floral remains brought to of Washington) collect woodrat fecal pellets from the Homestead Cave the caves by later human occupants, the plant record pro deposits for radiocarbon dating. duced by these fossil nests provide the necessary back ground against which the small mammal record can be ex toward identifying the constituent parts of an ecosystem amined. Second, many of these western Utah mountain and, once identified, managing them in a static fashion to ranges are completely isolated within the vast expanse of preserve them for the future. Terms such as "sustainable the flat salt desert. As a result, faunal records from these yield" were widely used as labels for the kind of approach ranges provide a which sees an test of biogeo ecosystem as a graphical theories fixed, unchanging of change in iso set of plants, ani [Environmental managers] are faced lated animal pop mals, and physical ulations. Exami conditions. Much with the difficult task of separating natural nation of such thE of this manage ories is important ment strategy was trends from those induced by modern development. in understanding due to early short rates of extinction term studies and in developing which focused ways of dealing with endangered species. primarily on mapping the distribution of plants and ani mals through space. With the advent of longer term stud Small mammal fauna and plant macrofossil records pro ies, however, it has become increasingly clear that ecosys vide valuable proxy data for paleoclimatic change because tems are not static communities, but consist of a changing they can be identified to the species level (thereby allow- mosaic of plants and animals that continually respond to modifications in such factors as climate, fire frequency, and surrounding biota. Many plant species, such as sin gle-leaf pinyon, are relatively recent additions to current communities, and as they migrated into their present posi tions they modified the relationships between existing plants and animals. In short, what land-holding agencies are managing is change, not the status quo, and many land managers now realize that to properly manage re sources they must understand the nature and rate of that change and clarify long-term environmental trends.