GEOLOGY OF THE INTERMOUNTAIN WEST an open-access journal of the Utah Geological Association ISSN 2380-7601 Volume 5 2018 PERMO-PENNSYLVANIAN SHARKS FROM THE LOWER CUTLER BEDS NEAR MOAB, UTAH Kenneth Carpenter and Lin Ottinger © 2018 Utah Geological Association. All rights reserved. For permission to copy and distribute, see the following page or visit the UGA website at www.utahgeology.org for information. Email inquiries to [email protected]. GEOLOGY OF THE INTERMOUNTAIN WEST an open-access journal of the Utah Geological Association ISSN 2380-7601 Volume 5 2018 Editors UGA Board Douglas A. 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Sprinkel UGA Website www.utahgeology.org Cover Shark teeth from the lower Cutler beds, Shafer Webmasters Paul Inkenbrandt [email protected] 801.537.3361 Lance Weaver [email protected] 801.403.1636 Basin from near Moab, Utah UGA Newsletter Newsletter Editor Bill Lund [email protected] 435.590.1338 Become a member of the UGA to help support the work of the Association and receive notices for monthly meetings, annual field conferences, and new publi- cations. Annual membership is $20 and annual student membership is only $5. Visit the UGA website at www.utahgeology.org for information and membership application. This is an open-access article in which the Utah The UGA board is elected annually by a voting process through UGA members. Geological Association permits unrestricted use, However, the UGA is a volunteer-driven organization, and we welcome your distribution, and reproduction of text and figures that voluntary service. 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Affiliated with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. i GEOLOGY OF THE INTERMOUNTAIN WEST an open-access journal of the Utah Geological Association Volume 5 2018 Permo-Pennsylvanian Shark Teeth from the Lower Cutler Beds Near Moab, Utah Kenneth Carpenter1 and Lin Ottinger2 1Prehistoric Museum, Utah State University Eastern, 155 Main St., Price, UT 84501; and Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80302; [email protected] 21095 Jackson St., Moab UT 84532; [email protected] ABSTRACT Several shark teeth have been collected from limestones in the marine-nonmarine transitional zone of the lower Cutler beds in the Shafer Basin near Moab, Utah. The shark teeth include the Pennsylvanian pet- alodontiform Petalodus ohioensis, which is the first described from the state, and the Permo-Carboniferous cladodontomorph Cladodus sp. ThePetalodus specimens are compared with the holotype P. hastingsae Owen, P. acuminatus (Agassiz), P. ohioensis (Shafer), and P. alleghaniensis (Leidy). Several of these key taxa are illustrated with photographs for the first time. INTRODUCTION Owing to the importance of documenting the new col- lection, we describe and illustrate the material below. The late Paleozoic shark record from Utah is poorly Original specimens or casts of specimens are curated at known, but what is known was summarized by Sum- the Prehistoric Museum, Utah State University Eastern, ida and others (1999). They report teeth of the fresh- Price, Utah. Exact locality information for each speci- water xenacanth Orthacanthus from the Lower Permian men is no longer known. Halgaito Shale (Cutler Group) and an unnamed partial chondrichthyean tooth from the nonmarine Lower GEOLOGICAL SETTING Permian Organ Rock Formation (Cutler Group). In addition, Miller (1981) reported on occurrences of the The specimens were collected in the Shafer Basin, form genus Cladodus sp. from the Mississippian Great which is located between Cane Creek and Shafer an- Blue Limestone and the Manning Canyon Shale in north ticlines, southwest of Moab Utah (figure 1). Here, the central Utah. One of us (Ottinger) amassed a small col- Permian strata are well exposed along the Colorado lection of marine shark teeth during the 1970s from the River below the cliffs of Dead Horse Point State Park area between the potash mine and evaporation ponds (figure 2A). Matrix adhering to the teeth show that all in the Shafer Basin southwest of Moab, Utah. This is the but one came from the Shafer limestone bed, an infor- same general area that Lohman (1974) reported the co- mal name applied to a prominent limestone in the Sha- chliodont shark Deltodus sp. and the petalodont shark fer Basin. This limestone caps a 90 m interval (figure Petalodus. Lohman’s specimens have not been figured 2B) of alternating marine limestones and muddy sand- or described and their current location are unknown. stones containing invertebrate fossils and burrows (fig- Citation for this article. Carpenter, K., and Ottinger, L., 2018, Permo-Pennsylvanian shark teeth from the Lower Cutler beds near Moab, Utah: Geology of the Intermountain West, v. 5, p. 105–116. © 2018 Utah Geological Association. All rights reserved. For permission to use, copy, or distribute see the preceeding page or the UGA website, www.utahgeology.org, for information. Email inquiries to [email protected]. 105 Permo-Pennsylvanian shark teeth from the Lower Cutler beds near Moab, Utah Carpenter, K., and Ottinger, L.. SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY Class Chondrichthyes Huxley 1880 Order Petalodontiformes Zangerl 1981 Family Petalodontidae Newberry and Worthen 1866 Genus Petalodus Owen 1840–1845 Species Petalodus ohioensis (Safford 1853) Material CEUM 81502, 81503, 81504 teeth CEUM 81643 cast, CEUM 81644 cast Figures 3A to 3G Petalodus is a distinctive form genus characterized by a labio-lingually compressed, vertically short, broad- based, triangular crown that is convex anteriorly and concave posteriorly. The base of the crown is bordered by a band or cingulum composed of imbricated ridg- Figure 1. Map showing the location of Shafer Basin southwest es that are especially well developed on the lingual side of Moab, Utah, where the shark teeth were found. Adapted (Leidy, 1856, first referred to the structure as a cingu- from Doelling and Chidsey (2004). lum and is followed here; Robb, 2003 refers to it as the “distal crown tongue”). The crown is situated on a long, tapering root (base). The five teeth vary in size and in ure 2C), and nonmarine arkosic sandstones and aeolian the height and width of the crowns; their measurements sandstones containing rhizoliths (figure 2D), including are given in table 1. Part of these differences may be on- a possible lycopod root (figure 2E). togenetic; wear and location in the jaws as has long been These strata have been variously called or mapped in recognized (e.g., Newberry and Worthen, 1866; East- this basin as the Rico Formation (Prommel, 1923; Baker man, 1896). The specimens are assigned to the species and others, 1927; McKnight, 1974; Hinrichs and oth- P. ohioenesis because of the vertically narrow cingulum ers, 1967; Loope, 1984), Rico transition facies (Weng- around the crowns; the cingulum is much wider in P. acuminatus. Hansen (1985) notes that P. ohioenesis is erd and Matheny, 1958), Elephant Canyon Formation the only species in the Pennsylvanian and Lower Perm- (Terrell, 1972; Campbell, 1987), the lower Cutler beds ian of the United States. (Condon, 1997; Doelling and others, 1994; Doelling and Chidsey, 2009; Dubiel and others, 2009), lower Cutler Group (Doelling, 2004), or simply considered as CEUM 81502 (figures 3A to 3C) part of the Cutler Formation undifferentiated (Mattox The most complete tooth in the collection, it has a and Brand, 1974; Huntoon and others, 2002). We refer crown that is convex on the labial surface and concave these marine-continental transition strata as the “lower on the lingual side just above the root. The concavity Cutler beds” as used by Loope and others (1990), with may accommodate the convex surface of the succeeding the Shafer limestone as the top of this unit. replacement tooth (figure 4A) in a manner similar to Specimen abbreviations: CEUM – College of those reported by Davis (1883) for the petalodontiforms Eastern Utah Museum (now Prehistoric Museum, Petalorhynchus and Glossodus. Lucas and others (2011) Utah State University Eastern), Price, Utah. MHNN suggested that the concavity accommodated the crown – Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Neuchâtel, Neuchâ- apex of the opposing tooth (figure 4B).