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• the Geological SOCIETY of AMERICA® THE GEOlOGICAL SOCIETY Special Paper 435 OF AMERICA® • Paleontology of the Upper Eocene Florissant Formation, Colorado edited by Herbert W. Meyer National Park Service Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument P.O. Box 185 Florissant, Colorado 80816 USA Dena M. Smith University of Colorado Museum of Natural History—Paleontology and Department of Geological Sciences University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado 80309-0265 USA Special Paper 435 3300 Penrose Place, P.O. Box 9140 Boulder, Colorado 80301-9140, USA 2008 Copyright © 2008, The Geological Society of America, Inc. (GSA). All rights reserved. GSA grants permission to individual scientists to make unlimited photocopies of one or more items from this volume for noncommercial purposes advancing science or education, including classroom use. For permission to make photocopies of any item in this volume for other noncommercial, nonprofi t purposes, contact the Geological Society of America. Written permission is required from GSA for all other forms of capture or reproduction of any item in the volume including, but not limited to, all types of electronic or digital scanning or other digital or manual transformation of articles or any portion thereof, such as abstracts, into computer-readable and/or transmittable form for personal or corporate use, either noncommercial or commercial, for-profi t or otherwise. Send permission requests to GSA Copyright Permissions, 3300 Penrose Place, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, Colorado 80301-9140, USA. Copyright is not claimed on any material prepared wholly by government employees within the scope of their employment. Published by The Geological Society of America, Inc. 3300 Penrose Place, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, Colorado 80301-9140, USA www.geosociety.org Printed in U.S.A. GSA Books Science Editors: Marion E. Bickford and Donald I. Siegel Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Paleontology of the Upper Eocene fl orissant formation, Colorado / edited by Herbert W. Meyer, Dena M. Smith. p. cm.--(Special paper; 435) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8137-2435-5 (pbk.) 1. Paleobotany--Eocene. 2. Plants, Fossil--Colorado. 3. Paleontology--Eocene. 4. Insects, Fossil--Colorado. 5. Paleobotany--Colorado. 6. Paleontology--Colorado. 7. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (Colo.) I. Meyer, Herbert W. (Herbert William), 1954- II. Smith, Dena M., 1970- QE927.2.P35 2008 560'.178409788--dc22 2007032820 Cover: The Big Stump, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Back Cover: Left: Glossina oligocena; (tse-tse fl y); University of Colorado Museum of Natural History; UCM-31594. Scale = 5 mm. Right: Florissantia speirii; University of California Museum of Paleontology; UCMP-3619. Scale = 2.5 cm. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ii Contents Preface .........................................................................................................................................................v 1. History of paleontology at the Florissant fossil beds, Colorado ........................................................1 Steven W. Veatch and Herbert W. Meyer 2. The role of biofi lms in fossil preservation, Florissant Formation, Colorado ..................................19 Neal R. O’Brien, Herbert W. Meyer, and Ian C. Harding 3. Higher taxa as paleoecological and paleoclimatic indicators: A search for the modern ...............33 analog of the Florissant fossil fl ora Brad Boyle, Herbert W. Meyer, Brian Enquist, and Silvia Salas 4. Phytogeography of the late Eocene Florissant fl ora reconsidered ..................................................53 Estella B. Leopold, Steven R. Manchester, and Herbert W. Meyer 5. Magnetic stratigraphy of the Eocene-Oligocene fl oral transition in western North America ........71 Donald R. Prothero 6. A comparison of plant-insect associations in the middle Eocene Green River Formation ............89 and the Upper Eocene Florissant Formation and their climatic implications Dena M. Smith 7. An outline morphometric approach to identifying fossil spiders: A preliminary .........................105 examination from the Florissant Formation April Kinchloe Roberts, Dena M. Smith, Robert P. Guralnick, Paula E. Cushing, and Jonathan Krieger 8. The Chadronian mammalian fauna of the Florissant Formation, Florissant ............................117 Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado Karen J. Lloyd, Marie P. Worley-Georg, and Jaelyn J. Eberle 9. Mineralogy and geochemistry of late Eocene silicifi ed wood from Florissant ............................127 Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado George E. Mustoe 10. Conservation of an Eocene petrifi ed forest at Florissant Fossil Beds National ..........................141 Monument: Investigation of strategies and techniques for stabilizing in situ fossil stumps Jennifer L. Young, Herbert W. Meyer, and George E. Mustoe 11. Development of an integrated paleontological database and Web site of .....................................159 Florissant collections, taxonomy, and publications Herbert W. Meyer, Matthew S. Wasson, and Brent J. Frakes iii Preface The amazing diversity of fossil organisms preserved in the Florissant fossil beds has made it the focus of more than a century of research. Not only are the organisms from Florissant interesting them- selves, but Florissant has been an excellent system for testing broader questions in paleontology. The breadth of the papers in this volume not only illustrates the importance of Florissant, but shows how this site continues to contribute to our understanding of paleoecology, macroevolution, and taphonomy. New contributions to our understanding of Florissant include such topics as the history of scientifi c study at Florissant, mechanisms of preservation of the fossils, paleoclimate and biogeography based on fossil plants, magnetic stratigraphy of the Eocene-Oligocene fl oral transition, new additions to the fossil mam- malian fauna, fossil evidence for plant-insect interactions, aspects of the mineralogy of the petrifi ed trees and their conservation, and the application of information technology to the development of a paleonto- logical database for Florissant. This volume is an outcome of a special topical session titled “Paleontology and Stratigraphy of the Late Eocene Florissant Formation, Colorado,” which was convened by the editors during the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver. This session was complemented by a full day fi eld trip to examine the paleontology and volcanic setting of the Florissant fossil beds (Meyer et al., 2004). Thirteen papers were presented during the special session, fi ve of which are summarized in this volume. Three papers in the current volume are modifi cations of presentations in the symposium, and three others are new. Several of the papers presented during the symposium are not included here. The signifi cance of the Florissant fossil beds has been widely recognized for more than a century. The site began attracting considerable scientifi c attention during the Hayden Survey in the 1870s, and the fossils from Florissant were among the fi rst to be described from the American West. They have provided the basis for ~400 published studies resulting in the description of more than 1,700 still-valid species of fossil plants, insects, spiders, fi sh, and mammals, making Florissant one of the world’s most diverse fos- sil sites. These publications have included such monumental tomes as Lesquereux’s Contribution to the fossil fl ora of the Western Territories (Lesquereux, 1883), Scudder’s Tertiary Insects of North America (Scudder, 1890), and MacGinitie’s Fossil Plants of the Florissant Beds, Colorado (MacGinitie, 1953). T.D.A. Cockerell alone published ~140 papers that dealt with Florissant’s fossils (e.g., Cockerell, 1908a, 1908b). More recently, a volume on paleobotany was published in 2001 (Evanoff et al., 2001a) following an earlier GSA symposium during the 1994 Rocky Mountain Section Meeting. That volume included contributions dealing with the stratigraphy, palynology, leaf and fruit fl ora, climatic implications and anatomy of fossil woods, and paleoelevation. Other paleontologists over the decades have produced numerous publications dealing with fossils from Florissant, and this long history of paleontologic research is covered by Veatch and Meyer in the fi rst chapter of the present volume. Florissant’s fossils were deposited in the basin of a paleodrainage in which sedimentation was strongly infl uenced by nearby eruptive centers in forming the Florissant Formation (Figs. 1 and 2). Volcanic lahars, pyroclastic ash, and pumice eruptions, and the effects that these had on the lake’s diatom popula- tion, all contributed to the fossilization of the organisms at Florissant. Lahars originating from the Guffey volcanic center in the Thirtynine Mile volcanic center buried the bases of large redwood trees to form Florissant’s petrifi ed forest, and they created a natural impoundment to form a lake. Volcaniclastic lacus- trine sedimentation provided the setting for the preservation of the great diversity of plants and insects, and stream and fl oodplain deposition aided in the preservation of fossil mammals. A model describing the v vi Preface Figure 1. Geologic map of the Florissant area showing selected units, including the Florissant Formation (Tf, formerly described as Florissant “lake beds”). Lahars and lava fl ows of the Guffey volcano include units described as the lower member and upper member of the Thirtynine Mile Andesite (Ttml and Ttmu, respectively). Pikes Peak Granite (Ypp) forms
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