National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Volume 8 Number 2 Park Paleontology Fall 2 0 0 4 Geologic Resources Division, Paleontology Program Two New Paleontologists Join the NPS Table of Contents We welcome two new paleontologists to Two New Paleontologist Join the NPS...............1 the National Park Service. Pete Reser has joined the staff at Petrified Forest National Documentation of Paleontology Resources at New River Gorge National River ....................... 2 Park as a preparator and Mary Carpenter is the new preparator at Hagerman Fossil New Discoveries of Fossil Vertebrates at Beds National Monument. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument...... 2 Pete Reser - I was hooked at the age of New Paleo Center at John DayFossil Beds seven when my mother took me to the National Monument nearing Completion ...... 3 Field Museum in Chicago, where I saw a large block of red sandstone on exhibit Planned Widening of East Entrance Road containing the skull of something Reveals Important Geological Resources .........4 obviously reptilian. But what really Report of the 2004 field collections and captured my attention was the network mapping of mammoth (Mammuthus exilis and of chisel marks across the block from Mammuthus columbi) remains: Santa Rosa which I understood that someone could Island, Channel Islands National Park (CHIS), California ........................................................... 5 actually shape and remove stone to reveal what the rocks contained. I was Directed Discovery and the Partnership between transfixed. the National Parks and the GeoCorps America Program ..............................................................6 Other than that, I have led a relatively Pete Reser Paleontologist at Florissant Fossils Beds normal life for someone of my revealing and understanding the other Awarded NSF Grant............................................7 generation. I served in Vietnam, 90%. experienced “the Sixties”, and was a Mary C. Carpenter - I was born and Fun in the Sun: The 2004 Paleontological Survey of Colorado National Monument ........8 perennial “returning student” at the raised in central Wisconsin, I received an University of New Mexico. It was here I Associate Degree in Graphic Arts in 1984. paleontological site in northern Sonora, met the young Spencer Lucas who was I discovered paleontology in the late Mexico with a crew from Northern an undergraduate in the Anthropology 1980’s on a motorcycle trip to the Hot Arizona University. Department. He assembled a nucleus of Springs Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, students who were very interested in South Dakota. After several summers as My paleontological interests are wide, Paleontology and we proceeded to an EarthWatch volunteer at the but I am especially interested in faunal research the rich and varied fossil Mammoth Site, I moved to Flagstaff, identifications and morphological resources of New Mexico. Arizona to begin my academic career. characters of the bones of artiodactyls, One of the things that we accomplished While at Northern Arizona University, raptors, and vulturids. In my spare time I happened to be a very large survey, for Flagstaff, Arizona I completed my enjoy exploring, outdoor activities of all the BLM, of the fossil resources of the Bachelor of Arts, with a major in kinds, travel, and reading. I am looking San Juan Basin. This resulted in a large Anthropology and a minor in Geology. I forward to the variety of work and voucher collection in the New Mexico complted by Master of Science in professional research potential that Museum of Natural History and I made it December 2003 through the Quaternary HAFO has to offer. Certainly the fossil my business to learn fossil preparation Sciences Program. preparation will be a fun (yes, fun) job techniques to deal with that collection. I and keep me extremely busy. have been a preparator, off and on, ever My master’s thesis involved the since. identifications of bat, bird, horse, bighorn sheep, and extinct mountain I spent fifteen years as the Chief goat bones from Rampart Cave, Grand Preparator at the New Mexico Museum Canyon National Park. During my 12 of Natural History and started as the years in Flagstaff, I was involved in fossil preparator at Petrified Forest numerous archeological and National Park in June. The Park’s paleontological projects, including a stint incredible fossil resources have always during the summer of 1998 as a fossil intrigued me and I have thought that, preparator at Hagerman Fossil Beds like an iceberg, we’ve only seen National Monument. Most recently, I approximately 10% of what is really have been involved in ongoing there. Accordingly, I am delighted to be excavations and research at a Pleistocene, part of the team that will work on and possible late Pliocene, Mary Carpenter Park Paleontology 1 Documentation of New Discoveries of Paleontology Resources Fossil Vertebrates at at New River Gorge Florissant Fossil Beds National River National Monument Milton ‘Gene’ Clare Marie Worley Geologist Geological Sciences University of Colorado New River Gorge National River Seed of of the seed fern, Neuropteris Boulder, Colorado 80309 P.O. Box 246 pocahontas, also known as Holcospermum. Glen Jean, West Virginia 25846 Last summer I was a paleontology intern River Gorge is comprised of rock layers at Florissant Fossil Beds National The New River Gorge National River is from the Carboniferous Period (Coal- Monument in Colorado, sponsored by starting the documentation of bearing) - specifically, the late the GeoCorps program of the Geological paleontology resources which may exist Mississippian and early Pennsylvanian. Society of America. Although Florissant in or near the gorge area. This process Rocks from the early Pennsylvanian are is famous for its plant and insect fossils, a began in October 2003 and begins with dated to about 300 million years before few mammal fossils had been discovered research of the existing literature which present time. Fossils from this period of over the years. Because I am interested has already documented areas that are time are generally limited to invertebrate in mammalian paleontology, I revisited known to contain fossils. Another aspect (animals without backbones) and plant the site where a jaw of the early horse of the initial inventory is to research the fossils. Plant fossils at the very earliest Mesohippus had been discovered in 1992 location of collections which may have part of the Pennsylvanian system include (Evanoff and De Toledo 1999). After exhibits of fossils from this area. This one that is used as a boundary marker weeks of crawling the surface and portion of the inventory should be between the earlier Mississippian and screening sediment, the project yielded completed by mid summer. Then the later Pennsylvanian rock layers – 20 teeth and four jaws of mammals, in second part of the inventory should be Neuropteris pocahontas. addition to hundreds of bone fragments. planned – actually going out and seeing This new material, which has added if rock layers mentioned in the literature Neuropteris pocahontas is classified as a considerably to the diversity of the search contain fossils. Once verified seed fern. The taxonomy indicates that known mammalian fauna of the which rock layers contain fossils and the leaf pattern terminates into a single Florissant Formation, forms the core of where these rock layers may be found leaflet attached to the stem at a single my master’s thesis in Museum and Field the third step in the inventory process point and that the stem pattern shows a Studies at the University of Colorado at can be planned - protecting the fossils tri-pinnate geometry. The N. pocahontas Boulder. from being lost and preserving a sample produces a seed – Holcospermum sp. and of fossils for public education. pollen bearing organ – Aulacotheca sp. In addition to the Mesohippus, other The latest portion of the Mississippian prior known mammals include a full It is already known what types of fossils system contains the Hinton Formation, skeleton of the mouse opossum ought to be found in this area. The New the Princeton Sandstone, and the Peratherium found in lake shales in the Bluestone Formation. A short 1930s (Gazin 1936), an upper jaw transitional sequence is encountered fragment of the artiodactyl (even-toed before starting into the first formation of ungulate) Merycoidodon, and a vertebra the Pennsylvanian system – an un-named of a large rhino-like animal called a ‘early member’ of the Pocahontas brontothere (Evanoff and De Toledo formation. N. pocahontas is first 1999). New material I discovered in encountered in this transitional area and 2003 includes a large molar tooth of a occurs throughout the early brontothere, which confirms the the Pennsylvanian until it became extinct. continued on page 3 What is a Seed Fern? Seed ferns (Pteridospermales) are an extinct group of gymnosperms distantly related to living pine, spruce and cycads. Although their foliage resembled that of modern ferns, they reproduced by means of seeds. This distinguishes them from true ferns which reproduce by spores. Seed ferns were large, spongy-wooded trees that grew in swampy forests during the Carboniferous. Tooth of Eutypomys parvus, an and helped form many of our major coal deposits. Some seed ferns continued into extinct relative of beavers, from Leaf of the seed fern Neuropteris the Mesozoic. Florissant Fossil Beds. Scale is in pocahontas. http://taggart.glg.msu.edu/bot335/sfern.htm millimeters. 2 Park Paleontology which has thus far not been identified, and may be a member of the proscalopidae. This mammalian fauna is consistent with the Chadronian North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA), which agrees with the 40Ar/39Ar age of 34.07 ± 0.10 Ma of the Florissant Formation (Evanoff et al. 2001). The Florissant fauna appears to be most similar to the middle Lower jaw of Domninia, the earliest Chadronian Pipestone Springs Local Fauna of Montana and also closely General view of the Thomas Condon known shrew, from Florissant Paleontological Center. Fossils Beds. Scale in millimeters. resembles the middle Chadronian Calf Creek Local Fauna of Saskatchewan, and presence of the group in the Park.