Paleontology Commons^™

Stratigraphic Distribution Of Pleistocene Aves At Fossil Lake In Lake County, Oregon, Cole Bradley Phillips

Masters Theses

The Fossil Lake locality in south-central Oregon is rich in many species of fossil remains and is also home to packages of sandstone that grade upward into finer siltstone or claystone. These packages have been interpreted to represent rising and falling lake levels as a result of glacial transgressive and regressive sequences. The fossil vertebrates and invertebrates have also fluctuated because of the different climates at Fossil Lake. Although the stratigraphic distribution of most classes of animals have been determined, fossil birds have not. Here, the distribution of 329 avian fossils is presented in the stratigraphic framework. The species were …

Ontogenetically Driven Changes In The Endocranial Anatomy Of Maiasaura Peeblesorum And Its Implications For Sensory Functions, Emma Puetz

Masters Theses

"Hadrosaurids exhibited extreme morphological diversity and behavioral characteristics that can be compared with other, closely related members of Dinosauria – particularly through the study of neuroanatomy. X-ray CT generated endocrania of the Late Cretaceous saurolophine hadrosaur Maiasaura peeblesorum, known as the “good mother” dinosaur, offers a unique opportunity to compare complex ecological behaviors between non-avian dinosaurs and their modern archosaur relatives. The 3D reconstruction software ORS Dragonfly provided linear and volumetric measurements taken from the digital cranial endocast and endosseous labyrinths of three ontogenetically varied M. peeblesorum specimens from the Two Medicine Formation in Montana that were used to …

Palynological Interpretations Of Deep Sea Drilling Projects Cores In The Gulf Of Mexico And Bahamian Platform, Adam Patrick Barron

Masters Theses

"One hundred drill core samples were from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Sites 94, 98, and 540 were investigated for their palynological contents (pollen, spores, acritarchs, dinoflagellate cysts, and dispersed organic matter) to infer the paleoenvironmental and paleoceanographic history of the Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamian Platform during the middle Eocene to middle Miocene interval. At Sites 94 and 540, abundant dinoflagellate cysts (chiefly Operculodinium centrocarpum, Lingulodinium machaerophorum, Impagidinium sp., Nematosphaeropsis sp., and Spiniferites spp.) were used as paleoenvironmental indicators. Two alternating palynofacies assemblages were identified from dispersed organic matter analysis: terrestrially influenced assemblage A and marine dominated assemblage …

Predictive Modeling In The Search For Vertebrate Fossils: Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (Geobia) In The Eocene Of Wyoming, Bryan Bommersbach

Masters Theses

The development and testing of predictive models for identifying productive fossil localities represents a promising interdisciplinary endeavor among geographic information scientists, paleoanthropologists, and vertebrate paleontologists. This thesis analyzed high resolution (2m spatial resolution) commercial satellite imagery from the Worldview-2 satellite of five areas of the Great Divide Basin using a GEographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) technique, which segments the image into spectrally homogeneous, multi-pixel image objects. In addition to allowing statistical analysis of the spectral characteristics of the image objects, GEOBIA techniques also let analysts incorporate expert knowledge and contextual information to improve classification accuracy. The spectral characteristics of the …

Malacostracan Crustacea From The Sundance Formation (Jurassic) Of Wyoming, Elizabeth M. Herrick

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Conodonts Of The Mecca Quarry Shale, Timothy Charles O'Neill

Masters Theses

Conodonts were found to be abundant in the Middle Pennsylvanian, Mecca Quarry Shale, Parke County, Indiana. Nine forms were identified in this black fissile shale from a locality along Montgomery Creek near the town of Mecca. These elements are: Hindeodella parva, Idiognathodus delacatus, Gondolella sp. a, Ozarkodina delacatula, Lonchodina clarki, Ligonodina typa, Lonchodus simplex, Metalonchodina bidentata, and Neoprioniodus conjunctus.

Ratios of elements to each other were determined and used to arrive at an idea of what conodont assemblages were present. At least three asemblages are presented; Scottognathus, Duboisella, and Illinella …

Squillites Spinosus (Syncarida, Malacostraca) And A New Unnamed Crustacean From The Mississippian Of Central Montana, Joan Matthews Rumore

Masters Theses

A Mississippian syncarid from the Heath shale, Squillites spinosus Scott, 1938, is redescribed and a discussion of some aspects of Syncarid phylogeny is given. Modern Syncarid biogeographical distribution is discussed and an analysis of these zoogeographical patterns is provided. A strange animal, Crustacea (incerta sedis) from the Heath shale is described in as far as is possible.

In 1971, Dr. Richard Lund of the University of Pittsburgh while searching for fossil fish in the Upper Mississippian Heath Shale of Montana found the associated remains of fossil crustaceans. Two locations were involved, T14 N R20E sec. 28, Fergus County, Montana, 2 …