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Articles 1 - 27 of 27
Full-Text Articles in Paleontology
Diatoms Of The Intertidal Environments Of Willapa Bay, Washington, Usa As A Sea-Level Indicator, Isabel Hong, Benjamin P. Horton, Andrea D. Hawkes, Robert J. O.Donnell Iii, Jason S. Padgett, Tina Dura, Simon E. Engelhart
Diatoms Of The Intertidal Environments Of Willapa Bay, Washington, Usa As A Sea-Level Indicator, Isabel Hong, Benjamin P. Horton, Andrea D. Hawkes, Robert J. O.Donnell Iii, Jason S. Padgett, Tina Dura, Simon E. Engelhart
Geological Sciences Faculty Scholarship
An understanding of the modern relationship between diatom species and elevation is a prerequisite for using fossil diatoms to reconstruct relative sea level (RSL). We described modern diatom distributions from seven transects covering unvegetated subtidal environments to forested uplands from four tidal wetland sites (Smith Creek, Bone River, Niawiakum River, and Naselle River) of Willapa Bay, Washington, USA. We compared our diatom dataset (320 species from 104 samples) to a series of environmental variables (elevation, grain-size, total organic carbon (TOCSOM), and porewater salinity) using hierarchical clustering and ordination. While no single variable consistently explains variations in diatom assemblages …
A New Early Occurrence Of Cervidae In North America From The Miocene-Pliocene Ellensburg Formation In Washington, Usa, Meaghan M. Emery-Wetherell, Joseph F. Schilter
A New Early Occurrence Of Cervidae In North America From The Miocene-Pliocene Ellensburg Formation In Washington, Usa, Meaghan M. Emery-Wetherell, Joseph F. Schilter
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
A new fossil cervid from the Craig’s Hill locality of the Miocene-Pliocene Ellensburg Formation in the State of Washington, USA, may be one of the oldest fossil deer yet found in North America, underlying a date of 4.9 Ma ± 0.1 Ma. This mandible fragment with m2, m3, and associated p2 has a size that does not distinguish it from Bretzia pseudalces, Odocoileus hemionus, or Capreolus constantini, and distinguishes it from Eocoileus gentryorum and Odocoileus lucasi only in having a thinner p2. A strong paraconid on the p2, and ectostylids and cingulids on the m2 and m3 link it most …
Geochronology Of The Middle Eocene Purple Bench Locality (Devil’S Graveyard Formation), Trans-Pecos Texas, Usa, Amy L. Atwater, Kelly D. Thomson, E. Christopher Kirk, Meaghan Emery-Wetherell, Logan Wetherell, Daniel F. Stockli
Geochronology Of The Middle Eocene Purple Bench Locality (Devil’S Graveyard Formation), Trans-Pecos Texas, Usa, Amy L. Atwater, Kelly D. Thomson, E. Christopher Kirk, Meaghan Emery-Wetherell, Logan Wetherell, Daniel F. Stockli
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
Purple Bench is a middle Eocene fossil locality in the Devil’s Graveyard Formation of the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. In addition to yielding a range of taxa characteristic of the Uintan North American Land Mammal Age, the Purple Bench locality is noteworthy in documenting a number of endemic species that are known only from the site. Despite the Uintan character of the mammalian fauna, the absolute age of Purple Bench is a matter of debate. This uncertainty stems from the wide interval of time encompassed by current radiometric dates bracketing the Purple Bench locality and from conflicting magnetostratigraphic correlations …
Dental Measurements Do Not Diagnose Modern Artiodactyl Species: Implications For The Systematics Of Merycoidodontoidea, Meaghan M. Emery-Wetherell, Edward Byrd Davis
Dental Measurements Do Not Diagnose Modern Artiodactyl Species: Implications For The Systematics Of Merycoidodontoidea, Meaghan M. Emery-Wetherell, Edward Byrd Davis
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
Though dental measurements are frequently used to diagnose the fossil species of Merycoidodontoidea and other extinct artiodactyls, the effective diagnosis of modern artiodactyl taxa via dental measurements has not been extensively tested. Our study finds that variation in artiodactyl dentition is generally higher than in primates, carnivores, rodents and even elephants, with molar coefficients of variation ranging up to 18% (Camelus bactrianus), and that dental measurements poorly diagnose modern artiodactyls via discriminant function analysis, adjusted t -tests on coefficients of variation, or finite mixture analysis. The higher-than-expected coefficients of variation for artiodactyls imply that some fossil taxa may …
The Moxee City (Washington) Mammoth: Morphostratigraphic, Taphonomic, And Taxonomic Considerations, Karl Lillquist, Steve Lundblad, Bax R. Barton
The Moxee City (Washington) Mammoth: Morphostratigraphic, Taphonomic, And Taxonomic Considerations, Karl Lillquist, Steve Lundblad, Bax R. Barton
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
A nearly complete, but highly fractured, proboscidean tusk was unearthed during parking lot construction near Moxee City in central Washington in May 2001. Schreger angle analysis revealed that the tusk was from a mammoth. AMS radiocarbon dating of the tusk established that the mammoth died 14,570 14C yr BP. The age, combined with the biogeography of proboscidean finds in the Pacific Northwest, suggests the tusk is from a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). The condition of the tusk and its association with basalt and crystalline erratics suggest that a locally derived tusk was swept up in the advancing …
Tertiary Coniferous Woods Of Western North America, George F. Beck
Tertiary Coniferous Woods Of Western North America, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
Almost four decades have elapsed since Platen (1908), the German paleobotanist, published his report upon the fossil woods of the western United States. Since then no over-all treatment of these materials has been attempted. although Platen overlooked the Pacific Northwest with its abundance of Tertiary petrified woods. The purpose of this paper is to bring knowledge of the western coniferous woods of the Tertiary up to date. In this effort the writer recognizes that much of this information has been accumulated incidentally in the study of the Russell Petrified Forest series of central Washington, and that it is not as …
Nyssa Woods Of The Pacific-Northwest Tertiary, George F. Beck
Nyssa Woods Of The Pacific-Northwest Tertiary, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The nyssa gums are one of the modern genera of trees most certainly present among the petrified woods and forests of the Pacific Northwest. Almost every collection from the mid-Tertiary of this region contains a few specimens of typical tupelo or sour gum. These are fine-grained woods which to the unaided eye may be mistaken for conifers.
Ancient Maples Of The Central Washington Region, George F. Beck
Ancient Maples Of The Central Washington Region, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
When I began work on the petrified logs of the general Vantage area some 13 years ago, it became apparent at once that maple-like woods are commonplace in the main (Vantage) raft forest and slightly less abundant in two rooted units of the Yakima Canyon. So widely do these woods range throughout the structural variations found in modern maples that little success has attended the efforts to assign them to nominal species. The extremes can readily be established but few hints exist as to the boundaries between them.
Two Newly Discovered Conifers, George F. Beck
Two Newly Discovered Conifers, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
Two genera of coniferous wood, apparently not listed among the Tertiary woods of the western states, have been recognized in the Percy Train collections from Rainbow Ridge, northwestern Nevada. These two, Tsuga (hemlock) and Chamaecyparis (cedar) bring up to 14 the genera of coniferous wood more or less certainly identified from the period and area in question.
Status Of Tertiary Woods Of The Western States Representing The Juglandaceae, George F. Beck
Status Of Tertiary Woods Of The Western States Representing The Juglandaceae, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
For many years there has been uncertainty concerning the generic status of some fossil leaves belonging without question to the walnut family as a whole. A review of the woods of Juglandaceae as they have appeared in Tertiary horizons of the western states has suggested which genera are present, and in what proportions their leaves (or other remains) might be expected to appear.
Additions To The Late Tertiary Floras Of The Pacific Northwest, George F. Beck
Additions To The Late Tertiary Floras Of The Pacific Northwest, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The purpose of this paper and those which will follow, is to present new types of flora found in several older leaf localities of the Pacific Northwest. A study will also be made of a number of new localities as yet not reported upon in the literature. The present paper refers to several new species found at the Bull Quarry, Ellensburg, and the Brickyard locality, Spokane, Washington. Both sites have been studied and reported upon in the past, as noted in attached bibliography.
Washington Petrified Forests-Ginkgo Exotic Forest, George F. Beck
Washington Petrified Forests-Ginkgo Exotic Forest, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
Seven years ago we began our study of the Ginkgo Petrified Forest in Central Washington. This is in reality a series of forests occurring at various horizons in the Yakima ( and Wenas?) basalts throughout a vertical range of some 2,000 feet, and in a belt 150 miles long, and 50 miles wide, centering at Vantage on the Columbia River.
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Basswood In Ellensburg Formation), George F. Beck
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Basswood In Ellensburg Formation), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
From time to time isolated, rounded pebbles of petrified wood have been encountered in the Ellensburg gravels that overlie the Columbia Basalts in Central Washington. Recently a sufficient number of these specimens were collected to justify a study of the petrified woods of this above-named formation.
Determining Fossil Woods (Western Conifers), George F. Beck
Determining Fossil Woods (Western Conifers), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
In this paper we come to consider the problem of the coniferous woods. One cannot always recognize with certainty that a given wood is a conifer, yet in ninety percent of the specimens recognition is simple.
Remarkable West American Fossil, The Blue Lake Rhino, George F. Beck
Remarkable West American Fossil, The Blue Lake Rhino, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
Bidding for acceptance as fact, and for its place in the sun of fame and notoriety, we come now to the newly discovered fossil rhino animal mold of Blue Lake in Grand Coulee, central Washington. Not that fossil rhinos are rare or that their abundance in the Tertiary of America has waited until the present for revelation, is this fossil important. The feature in the Blue Lake rhino which taxes our credulity is the existence of the thing in what unquestionably must pass as once liquid basaltic lava. That anything organic could pass through the terrific heat and pressure of …
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part V-Beech-Sycamore-Alder), George F. Beck
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part V-Beech-Sycamore-Alder), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The group of woods considered in this paper are only superficially alike—no implication that they are closely related is intended. The beginner will almost certainly confuse the compound rays of these various woods with their annual rings.
Formations Of The Columbia Basin, Parade Of Extinct Mammals, George F. Beck
Formations Of The Columbia Basin, Parade Of Extinct Mammals, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
In this preliminary chart are shown the extinct mammals encountered as fossils in the various formations among and above the great Columbia Basalt series of the Pacific Northwest. A few shown as appearing in the Lake Vantage horizon of the basalts.
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part Iv-Walnut-Hickory-Persimmon), George F. Beck
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part Iv-Walnut-Hickory-Persimmon), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
These three woods undoubtedly ranged over Western America in Tertiary and were well represented in the Ginkgo series of forest during Miocene. Fossil walnut wood is the more abundant of the three species, while hickory is not common.
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part Iii-The Elms), George F. Beck
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part Iii-The Elms), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The elms are among the best known and most beloved trees found native to America. Like the redwood they belong to that large group of trees which in preglacial days grew generally over the northern hemisphere.
Camels Of The Columbia Plateau, George F. Beck
Camels Of The Columbia Plateau, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
However foreign they may seem to us the camels are one of our oldest American stocks. Our Western plains once supported large herds of them, humped and humpless, large and small, giraffe-necked and normal-necked. For some 35 million years, from Oligocene to the Pliocene, the camels were confined to North America and it was not until recently, geologically speaking that we shared the race with the Old World.
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part Ii-The Oaks), George F. Beck
Determination Of Fossil Woods (Part Ii-The Oaks), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The oaks, unlike the sacred ginkgo or temple tree, are thriving throughout the northern hemisphere today. Not only is the oak an entirely familiar and abundant element in existing landscapes, but its history goes back into the centuries and ages. Its leaves and woods are generously represented in fossil forests as far back as the early Tertiary and closely allied forms penetrate as far back as the Cretaceous.
Wood Occurring In The Ginkgo And Associated Petrified Forest (No. 1-The Gingko), George F. Beck
Wood Occurring In The Ginkgo And Associated Petrified Forest (No. 1-The Gingko), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The most interesting single fossil tree, but at the same time the most difficult to determine in the Ginkgo Petrified Forest (Washington), is the tree after which this unusual petrified forest takes its name. The ginkgo is not only the world's oldest and most remarkable living tree, but it has long been regarded as holding the most striking fossil record of any living thing, plant or animal.
Grinding Thin Sections For Determining Petrified Woods, George F. Beck
Grinding Thin Sections For Determining Petrified Woods, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The collector and student of petrified woods cannot long be satisfied to merely place these colorful and interesting specimens in the cabinet with the mere label, "petrified wood." Frequently determining the types of wood which once thrived in a given area is of importance to give a clue to climatic conditions of past geological ages. The collector should at least be qualified to recognize the more common woods and distinguish one family of trees from another.
Spruce In The Western Miocene, George F. Beck
Spruce In The Western Miocene, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
One of the real surprises in store for us as we began to section specimens of petrified wood from the Vantage and certain other horizons in Central Washington, was the prevalence of a spruce type hardly hinted at in the leaf lists as published for the various sediments of Yakima time (upper miocene?).
Fossil Bearing Basalts (More Particularly The Yakima Basalt Of Central Washington), George F. Beck
Fossil Bearing Basalts (More Particularly The Yakima Basalt Of Central Washington), George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
Such an overwhelming majority of the floral and faunal remains of the earth's crust have been yielded by rocks of sedimentary origin that generalized statements concerning the occurrence of fossils often neglect their more rare appearance in metamorphic and igneous rocks. In fact there is the temptation, after volcanic tuffs have been excluded as more or less sedimentary, to venture the positive assertion that by their very character igneous rocks are incapable of recording the presence of the life which may have existed at the time of their extrusion. As a result, most that has been written concerning fossil floras …
Exotic Ancient Forests Of Washington, George F. Beck
Exotic Ancient Forests Of Washington, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
The greatest fossil forest in the world is located within easy driving distance of the University of Washington campus in the State of Washington, near the Columbia River, east of the city of Ellensburg. Mr. George F. Beck, a member of the faculty of the Ellensburg State Normal School, and a former graduate student of the College of Forestry of the University of Washington, discovered this forest, which is now known as the Ginkgo Forest State Park. Aside from its importance from a scientific point of view, this "petrified forest," which contains a greater variety of species than any other …
Arrowhead Making In The Ginkgo Petrified Forest, George F. Beck
Arrowhead Making In The Ginkgo Petrified Forest, George F. Beck
All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences
In a sense we must give the Indians credit for being the original discoverers of these fossil forests of Central Washington. Not that I have been able to run down any legends or traditions regarding fossil logs or any certainty that the Indians recognized them as trees in stone. My opinion is that they could not have failed to recognize them as trees. Be that as it may, they long ago took recognition of the fact that certain logs were to be prized as the source of flint for their arrow-heads.