Paleontology Commons^™

Utilizing Phylogenetic And Geochemical Techniques To Examine Echinoderms Through Time, Maggie Ryan Limbeck

Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding biotic changes through Earth’s history has been the goal of paleobiology since the inception of the field. Advances in science and technology have progressed allowing us to reassess old questions and new questions that could have not been addressed without these new methods. Echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins, etc.) appear in the fossil record during the early Cambrian and are still abundant in marine ecosystems today. This persistence through time has made echinoderms model organisms to answer questions about Earth’s past and present. Despite this role as a model organism there are many questions that remain with respect to …

The Mystery Of The Missing Megafauna, Maggie Colangelo, Bernard Means

Virtual Curation Lab's Comic Publications

The creative team behind Founding Monsters and Founding Monsters Tales have created a new comic that takes a more scientific and less historic approach to the giant mammals that once roamed North America. The Mystery of the Missing Megafauna explores how changing climate impacted biodiversity and megafauna populations in North America at the end of the last Ice Age. Particular attention is placed on the extinction of mastodons, mammoths, giant ground sloths and other megafauna whose fossils are found at Saltville in southwestern Virginia. This comic draws a connection to contemporary climate change and the major extinctions happening today. The …

Founding Monsters, Maggie Colangelo, Bernard Means

Founding Monsters

The Founding Monsters comic book was created as a science-friendly graphical storytelling framework that tells the story of the Founding Fathers and their obsession with prehistoric megafauna, especially mastodons and giant ground sloths. Founding Monsters combines sequential art (e.g. comic book style) with historical and scientific data. The first mastodon (Mammut americanum) fossils were found in New York in the early 18th century. Later in the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson was sent fossils from what is now West Virginia for what were eventually identified as bones from a giant ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersoni). The founding fathers, …

Eocene Terrestrial Mammals From Central Georgia, Parker D. Rhinehart, Alfred J. Mead, Dennis Parmley

Georgia Journal of Science

Descriptions of fossils of Eocene terrestrial mammals from the southeastern United States are rare, and particularly so in the Eocene sediments of Georgia. Here we describe a small collection of fossilized teeth and tooth fragments representing four mammalian taxa. The fossils were recovered by surface collecting overburden sediments and screen washing in situ Clinchfield Formation sediments exposed in an inactive kaolin mine, Hardie Mine, in Wilkinson County, Georgia. The Clinchfield Formation has been described as a Late Eocene coastal unit with abundant gastropods, bivalves, sharks, and rays. This is the first detailed description of terrestrial mammals from this unit. Although …

Betting & Hierarchy In Paleontology, Leonard Finkelman

Faculty Publications

In his Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences, Adrian Currie argues that historical scientists should be optimistic about success in reconstructing the past on the basis of future research. This optimism follows in part from examples of success in paleontology. I argue that paleontologists’ success in these cases is underwritten by the hierarchical nature of biological information: extinct organisms have extant analogues at various levels of taxonomic, ecological, and physiological hierarchies, and paleontologists are adept at exploiting analogies within one informational hierarchy to infer information in another. On this account, fossils serve the role …

Devonian Stromatoporoid Interactions At The Falls Of The Ohio State Park, Clarksville, Indiana, Morgan Sierra Hall

Undergraduate Theses

Stromatoporoids are calcitic sponges that occurred in the fossil record from the Early Ordovician to Late Devonian period. These sponges interacted with other organisms, especially rugose and tabulate corals. Some corals appear to benefit from the rigidity of stromatoporoids in response to turbulent waters. Stromatoporoids and many corals went extinct during the Frasnian-Famennian crisis when paleoenvironmental parameters were shifting. Studying the relationships between these taxa may provide insight to their vulnerability during the extinction.

This research was performed at the Falls of the Ohio in Clarksville, Indiana. Organisms in the Coral Zone were studied using transect sampling. Each fossil along …

Fossils On The Floor In The Nebraska State Capitol: A Coloring And Activities Book, Robert F. Diffendal Jr.

Conservation and Survey Division

The Nebraska State Capitol is a wonderful place. This building is home to great treasures of art owned by the people of Nebraska. The floor of the Capitol Rotunda has beautiful works of art. Maybe you have seen this art. Small pieces of two kinds of rocks make pictures of people, their tools, the natural resources they used, and pictures of fossil animals and plants. These kinds of pictures are called mosaics [moe ZAY icks]. The animals and plants follow one another in a curved ribbon around the floor. In that ribbon of pictures are many kinds of fossil animals …

Interactive Map Portal Of Some Important Fossil Localities Along The Southern Tethyan Margin Of The Sephardic (Triassic) And Ethiopian (Jurassic) Faunal Provinces, Marcelo Rosensaft, Howard R. Feldman

Lander College for Women - The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School Publications and Research

The use of a “map portal” allows researchers to publish their maps and the data incorporated therein in a simple way that will reach a broad audience. Colleagues, as well as other workers worldwide, can connect to the portal through the internet and display the maps on desktop computers. The process is dynamic; any change made in the source map is immediately displayed on the user’s desktop. In this report we illustrate a map of Triassic and Jurassic brachiopod collecting localities on the southern Tethyan margin in the Middle East. The locations are shown as red points that overlie a …

The Triassic Saharonim Formation Of The Sephardic Province On The Southern Tethyan Margin Is An Analog For The Triassic Germanic Muschelkalk Of Western Europe, Howard R. Feldman, Talia J. Belowich

Lander College for Women - The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School Publications and Research

The Germanic Muschelkalk consists of a sedimentary sequence of limestone and dolostone units that overlies the Permian Buntsandstein Formation and underlies the Middle and Late Triassic Keuper Formation. The three formations form the Germanic Triassic Supergroup. The Muschelkalk was deposited in a shallow marine environment that was only partially connected to the Tethys Ocean to the south with the middle section evaporitic indicating a restricted basin. Fossiliferous beds are often biostromal such as the well-known Coenothyris brachiopod beds (e.g. Terebratula Bed, terebratulid facies) common in the Muschelkalk. The Saharonim Formation of the Sephardic Province, found along the southern shore of …

Constraining Neogene Temperature And Precipitation Histories In The Central Great Plains Using The Fossil Record Of Alligator, Evan Whiting

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Most amphibians and reptiles (excluding birds) are poikilothermic; their internal body temperature varies with that of their external environment. This makes them useful as climate proxies, especially when linked to geographic distributions of ambient climate. I evaluate the utility of the extant crocodylian genus Alligator as a paleoclimate proxy for the Central Great Plains (CGP) using species distribution modeling. Alligator is a readily identifiable taxon with a good CGP fossil record during the Neogene (~23–2.6 Ma). Alligator first appeared in the CGP in the late Eocene (~37 Ma), was absent during most of the Oligocene, reappeared in the early Miocene …

Interdisciplinary Science Connections, Fred Venne

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

No abstract provided.

Depositional Environment Of The St. Mary River Formation In Western Montana, Stacia M. Martineau

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In May 2013, the Two Medicine Dinosaur Center (TMDC) began excavation on a dinosaur bonebed in the St. Mary River Formation on Carey Butte, Montana. Since excavation started, four additional bonebeds have been discovered in the surrounding area. They display different depositional environments; two are in sandstone and the other three are in siltstone. The purpose of this study is to provide a depositional setting for the area that links all five sites together comprehensively by examining the sedimentology of the area. A stratigraphic analysis of the St. Mary River Formation of Carey Butte revealed four distinct facies associations. Facies …

A Middle Pleistocene Age And Biogeography For The Extinct Rodent Megalomys Curazensis From Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Joyce Lundberg

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

The extinct oryzomyine rodent Megalomys curazensis has been known from abundant but fragmentary remains on the island of Curaçao since 1959. Here we demonstrate an age of 130 000 to 400 000 years before present based on geomorphological context, and propose a biogeographical model for the genus.

Puerto Rican Karst - A Vital Resource, Ariel E. Lugo, Leopoldo Miranda Castro, Abel Vale, Tania Del Mar López, Enrique Hernández Prieto, Andrés García Martinó, Alberto R. Puente Rolón, Adrianne G. Tossas, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Tom Miller, Armando Rodríguez, Joyce Lundberg, John Thomlinson, José Colón, Johannes H. Schellekens, Olga Ramos, Eileen Helmer

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

The limestone region of Puerto Rico covers about 27.5 percent of the island's surface and is subdivided into the northern, southern, and dispersed limestone areas. All limestone areas have karst features. The karst belt is that part of the northern limestone with the most spectacular surficial karst landforms. It covers 142,544 ha or 65 percent of the northern limestone. The karst belt is the focus of this publication, although reference is made to all limestone regions. The northern limestone contains Puerto Rico's most extensive freshwater aquifer, largest continuous expanse of mature forest, and largest coastal wetland, estuary, and underground cave …

The Age Of The Woolly Rhino From Dream Cave, Derbyshire, Uk, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Joyce Lundberg, Derek C. Ford

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

The Dream Cave woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis, is a "classic" specimen of a "cold-stage" fossil fauna from central England. The find was illustrated and described by Dean William Buckland in his seminal tome Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823) during the first half of the 19th century, and made a significant contribution to the development of Buckland's views on the origin of extinct and extirpated fossil vertebrates. The report presents the first, albeit indirect, radiometric dates on the specimen, and argues that the animal fell into the cave just before 37,000 years BP, during the middle of Marine Isotope Stage 3 Interstadial (41 …

Late Quaternary Fossil Mammals And Last Occurrence Dates From Caves At Barahona, Puerto Rico, Donald A. Mcfarlane

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

Puerto Rico supported at least five genera of endemic terrestrial mammals in the late Quaternary, all of which are extinct. Whether these animals died out in the late Pleistocene, the mid-Holocene, or in post-Columbian time has not been established. This paper is the first attempt at radiometrically dating the 'last occurrences' of these taxa, together with the first unambiguous descriptions of localities reported by previous workers. Last occurrence dates for Nesophontes, Elasmodontomys and Heteropsomys are shown to be mid-Holocene and overlap with Amerindian occupation of the island. Acratocnus is known only from the late Pleistocene. No Puerto Rican taxon has …

The Age Of The Kirkdale Cave Palaeofauna, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Derek C. Ford

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

The Kirkdale Cave palaeofauna represents the original and classic 'warm', interglacial mammalian cave deposit in Britain. Although long considered to be 'Ipswichian' in age, no previous attempts to obtain radiometric dates have been recorded. Here we report a uranium-series disequilibrium date of 121,000 ± 4000 yr BP on a flowstone capping that overlay the original bone bed. The precision of the date exceeds that obtained at any other British Interglacial cave site, and permits tentative correlation with the high precision ice core records now available.

The Dinoflagellate Flora Of The Late Oligocene - Early Miocene Old Church Formation Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain, Alan P. Hoffmeister

OES Theses and Dissertations

The Old Church Formation contains the only presently known exposed Oligocene sediments in the North American mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. Some ambiguity concerning the exact age of the Old Church Formation exists because it may include both Oligocene and Miocene sediments. Two outcrops and four cores containing the Old Church Formation were examined for dinoflagellates to determine the composition of the dinoflagellate flora in the Old Church Formation, the age of the Old Church Formation as indicated by this flora, general depositional environment of the Old Church Formation and correlative relationships of the Old Church Formation with other Coastal Plain units. …

Amblyrhiza And The Vertebrate Paleontology Of Anguillean Caves, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Ross D. E. Macphee

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

Recorded interest in the caves of Anguilla dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century. The earliest explorations were concerned with the locating phosphatic cave earths, and resulted in the mining of several sites. Incidental to this work, the bones of the largest island rodent ever discovered were collected from Aguillan caves. Whereas the phosphate mining operations were short-lived, the remains of the giant rodent Amblyrhiza have catalyzed a continued interest in the caves of Anguilla. The most recent series of explorations have provided the first adequate documentation of Amhlyrhiza fossil sites, and have started to yield radiometric …

Carbon And Nitrogen Isotopic Signatures Of Bat Guanos As A Record Of Past Environments, Hiroshi Mizutani, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Yuko Kabaya

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

Carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios were measured for various ecogeochemical samples relevant to bat guano ecosystems. In particular, ca. 800-year-old subfossil guano from Jackson's Bay Cave Compex, Jamaica, yielded ratios similar to the modern guano from other Jamaican bat caves but quite different from modern guano of the same area. Diagenetic change and differences in bat food habits were unlikely explanations for the observation. Instead, insects that feed on C4 and CAM plants were the main prey for the bats in present Jackson's Bay area, while the ultimate source of organic matter for bats in other Jamaican caves and for …

Nitrogen And Carbon Isotope Studies Of A Bat Guano Core From Eagle Creek Cave, Arizona, Usa, Hiroshi Mizutani, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Yuko Kabaya

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

Nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios were studied in a stratified deposit of guano of Mexican Free-tailed bats in Eagle Creek Cave, Arizona, U.S.A. Little diagenetic change was observed over the 25-year time span of the guano deposit. High aridity and reduced circulation of air in the cave are hypothesized to have slowed the normally rapid decomposition of the excreta and the subsequent escape of resultant ammonia. The results suggest the high dependency of the speed of diagenetic change on specific physical and other conditions of the caves and indicate that great care need be exercised in the interpretation of the …

A Graphic Résumé Of The Pleistocene Of Nebraska (With Notes On The Fossil Mammalian Remains), C. Bertrand Schultz, Gilbert C. Lueninghoener, W. D. Frankforter

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

I T SEEMS desirable at this time to present a graphic resume of the Nebraska Pleistocene, together with a summary of the stratigraphic sequences of the fossil vertebrates. This report is based on data taken from various publications' in addition to information gathered by the present writers during the past fifteen or more field seasons. Intensive work has been done in the past five years in connection with recovery of paleontological material in the areas where government dams are under construction (Schultz, Lueninghoener, and Frankforter, 1948; Schultz and Frankforter, 1948; Holder and Wike, 1949). The information in the present paper …

The Geologic History Of The Bison In The Great Plains (A Preliminary Report), C. Bertrand Schultz, W. D. Frankforter

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

THE GEOLOGIC history of the bison in North America is a subject which has received little attention to date. Osteological rather than geological problems have been the main concern of most writers who have so far published. If the geologic history of the bison is to be learned, it will be necessary to devote more time and effort in the field in determining the age of the deposits in which various specimens have been discovered and in making more extensive collections from deposits of known age. Unfortunately the majority of the type specimens have been surface finds and little attempt …

Some Pleistocene Mammalian Inhabitants Of Minnesota, Clinton R. Stauffer

Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

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 …

State Geologist's Report On The Geology Of Maine 1930-1932, Joseph Conrad Twinem, Edward H. Perkins

Maine Collection

State Geologist's Report on the Geology of Maine 1930-1932

Joseph Conrad Twinem , State Geologist and Edward H. Perkins , Assistant Geologist

Second Series - Augusta 1932

Sections: Bibliography, Economic Geology, General Geology, Paleontology, Structural Geology

Prosthennops Xiphodonticus, Sp. Nov. A New Fossil Peccary From Nebraska, Erwin H. Barbour

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

During the field season of 1915, while collecting, a mile or two west of Valentine, Cherry County, Nebraska, Messrs. A. C. Whitford and J. B. Burnett secured for the Morrill-Maiben Palaeontological Collections, The Nebraska State Museum, The University of Nebraska, a finely preserved jaw of a small fossil hog, or peccary, belonging to the genus Frosthennops, accessioned No. 85-11-8-15B. & W.

The mandible under consideration was preserved in fine sand and is without blemish save that the condyle and coronoid are wanting. The dentition is perfect. In allusion to the sword-like tusks, which are unduly large, the species name xiphodonticus …

Extinct Pleistocene Mammals Of Minnesota, N. H. Winchell

Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Some Notes Upon The More Recent Fossil Flora Of North Dakota And An Inquiry Into The Causes That Have Led To The Development Of The Treeless Areas Of The Northwest, John B. Leiberg

Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science

No abstract provided.