McInnis Canyons Mygatt-Moore Quarry Gives Up Fossil Clues

John and I have been continuing our research out at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in western Colorado, and recently had a paper on one of our findings published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in May.

Foster, John R. and Hunt-Foster, Rebecca K.(2011) 'New occurrences of dinosaur skin of two types (Sauropoda? and Dinosauria indet.) from the Late Jurassic of North America (Mygatt-Moore Quarry, Morrison Formation)', Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 31: 3, 717 — 721 DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2011.55741

We work each summer at this quarry under a paleontological permit from the Bureau of Land Management, which is located in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (NCA), near the Colorado/Utah state line. “The national significance of the area's paleontological resources is one of the many reasons this special place was designated as a National Conservation Area,” said Katie Stevens, NCA Manager for the BLM’s Grand Junction Field Office. “With experts like John and ReBecca working in these quarries, we can recover and share this exciting and important scientific information with the public.” John is currently working under a scientific grant from the BLM to better understand the extent of the quarry and the conditions that made it such an ideal location for preserving fossils [details].

The first specimen was located by Jim Kirkland and his expedition to the quarry in 1993 (MWC 1903). A expedition member, Dan Libecap, discovered the second specimen (MWC 5537) in 2003. Two of our museum volunteers, Kay Fredette and Ray Bley, uncovered the most recent specimen (MWC 6718) in 2008.

Two of the three specimens (MWC 6718 & 5537) are possibly from sauropods, and we attributed the third specimen to Dinosauria indeterminate (MWC 1993). The two possible sauropod specimens represent the first occurrence in the Morrison Formation of preserved sauropod skin associated with abundant nearby specimens of Apatosaurus. They also show how similar the general structure of skin patterns within known Morrison diplodocids are.

Specimen MWC 6718 - carbonized sauropod? skin impression from the Mygatt-Moore Quarry. Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of Mesa County, Colorado. scale bar =5 cm

These discoveries were unique because the soft tissue associated with the skin was preserved as carbonaceous layers rather than as trace fossil impressions, yielding better information about skin pattern, scale size and scale shape. This discovery is is the sixth occurrence recovered from the Morrison Formation.

If you would like a PDF of this paper please contact me here or by email and I would be happy to share one with you. We plan for this paper to be the first of many that will be published over the next few years. Below is a complete bibliography of research from Mygatt-Moore Quarry that has been done to date (PDF's of select papers are also available):

Foster, John R. and Hunt-Foster, Rebecca K. (2011). New occurrences of dinosaur skin of two types (Sauropoda? and Dinosauria indet.) from the Late Jurassic of North America (Mygatt-Moore Quarry, Morrison Formation) Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 31 (3), 717-721 : 10.1080/02724634.2011.55741

Foster, John R. 2007. Jurassic West: The Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and Their World. Indian University Press, 416 pages.

Foster, John R; Hunt, ReBecca K; King, Lorin. 2007. Taphonomy of the Mygatt-Moore quarry, a large dinosaur bonebed in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado. Geological Society of America, 2007 annual meeting, Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America, vol. 39, no. 6, pp.400

King, Lorin R; Foster, John. 2006. Under the feet of giants; an investigation of the small vertebrates at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, Morrison Formation, western Colorado. Sixty-sixth annual meeting, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology; abstracts of papers. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol.26, no.3, Suppl., pp.85

King, Lorin R; Foster, John R; Scheetz, Rodney D. 2006. New pterosaur specimens from the Morrison Formation and a summary of the Late Jurassic pterosaur record of the Rocky Mountain region. In (editors - Foster, John R; Lucas, Spencer G) Paleontology and geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. Bulletin - New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, vol.36, pp.109-113

Foster, John. 2005. Evidence of size-classes and scavenging in the theropod Allosaurus fragilis at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry (Late Jurassic), Rabbit Valley, Colorado. Sixty-fifth annual meeting, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology; abstracts of papers. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol.25, no.3, Suppl., pp.59

King, Lorin; Foster, John; Scheetz, Rodney. 2005. Mesadactylus and other new pterosaur specimens from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of western Colorado. Sixty-fifth annual meeting, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology; abstracts of papers. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol.25, no.3, Suppl., pp.78

Kirkland, James I. 1998. Morrison fishes. Modern Geology 22: 503-533

Tidwell, W.D., Britt, B.B., and Ash, S.R. 1998, Preliminary floral analysis of the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in the Jurassic Morrison Formation, west-central Colorado: Modern Geology 22: 341-378

Chin, K. and Kirkland, J.I. 1998. Probable herbivore coprolites from the Upper Jurassic Mygatt-Moore Quarry, Western Colorado. Modern Geology 23: 249-275.

Kirkland, J. and K. Carpenter. 1994. North America's first pre-Cretaceous ankylosaur (Dinosauria) from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Western Colorado. Brigham Young University Geology Studies, 40:25-42.

Kirkland, James I; Armstrong, Harley J. 1992. Taphonomy of the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, middle Brushy Basin Member, Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic), western Colorado. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, fifty-second annual meeting. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol. 12, no. 3, Suppl., pp.37A

Mygatt, Peter. 1991. The Mygatt-Moore Quarry, Rabbit Valley, Mesa County, Colorado. Pages 57-58 in (editor - Averett, Walter R.) Guidebook for dinosaur quarries and tracksite tour, western Colorado and eastern Utah. Grand Junction Geol. Soc., Grand Junction, CO

The BLM hires Breithaupt

Brent Breithaupt (left) and Dale Hanson (right)
after the 2008 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
Live Auction

I am very happy to spread the word that Brent Breithaupt has been recently hired as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Regional Paleontologist for Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska!! Brent will be taking over the job left by Dale Hanson, who recently retired. I am very, very excited and happy to see Brent moving on to this wonderful position, where I know he will excel. Congrats Brent!!!

Remember, you can find a list to all of the BLM Regional Paleontologist and their contact information here. You can also find links there for information on Paleontological laws, regulations, legislation, fossil collecting and education.


Photo © Neffra Matthews, post © ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Fieldwork Friday #5

After a long break, here is another episode of Fieldwork Friday.

This was the last of our spring trilobite collecting trips for this year. We headed out to the House Range of west-central Utah (west of the town of Delta), long known to be a trilobite collecting mecca of sorts. I had never visited this area before, but had long heard rumors that trilobites there are so common you could just pick them up off the ground. These are the common types of trilobites (usually Elrathia kingi) that you will see in nearly every rock shop across the United States. John was interested in visiting to gather some more data for his presentation at the International Conference on the Cambrian Explosion.

The trilobites we collected were from the Middle (to Late?) Cambrian Wheeler Shale, Marjum and Weeks Formations. Lucky for us we had a friend along who was familiar with the area and could show us some good collection localities. But it is not hard to see where others have looked. As you drive into the area it is pockmarked with hundreds of holes. It is kind of sad (to me) to see the area just destroyed all in the name of looking for trilobites. There are really no regulations it seems to keep people from doing this. The land in this area is mostly BLM land, and it is legal to collect a reasonable amount of common invertebrate fossils. But this is where the trouble starts. It appears that many people in the area operate "Flagstone quarries." The one I visited had already been shut down by the BLM, but sadly these people left a HUGE hole in the ground, large amounts of trash, and nearly a hundred banded up, ready to go, pallets of rock.

When you look closely at the rock, this is what you see:

Those are hundreds of inarticulate brachiopods (Acrothele?). I would guess they classify as a "common invertebrate fossil." But the BLM website clearly states "If you wish to collect common invertebrate or plant fossils for landscaping, sale, or commercial purposes you must apply to the BLM for a mineral materials sale." [link] I guess these people had not done that, or were being deceptive and selling trilobites. Who knows?! We observed trilobites in these pallets of rocks. The trilobites at this site however would typically require some sort of preparation (air abrasion).

It was cold and windy most of the time we were there, which was not a blast, but at least it was not raining or snowing. The last day was great - sunny and warm. We took the dog again and he seemed to have fun.

The shales were pretty easy to split. The limestones required a little more muscle, but were nice to work with. We found more complete trilobites here than we did in either the Marble Mountains or at Spence Gulch, but they are often missing their cheeks.

There were also some pretty big trilobites out there (larger than at any of the other sites we have collected at):

We also spend a morning looking for eocrinoids (Gogia). We found two.

There were also commercial collecting spots located in this area where you can actually pay these people to dig up rock with a back hoe and give it to you to sort though, so you can find your own trilobites. Seems barbaric and like cheating to me, but that is just my opinion. Why in the world would you pay people to do this for you when all you have to do is get out of your car, walk 100 yards and look down. Seriously, it was that easy in most areas. Looks for some shale and then look down. I guess if you did not know what you were really looking for, but it seems like a waste of money to me. In the first picture below you can see the number of trilobites we surface picked at one site.

Some other fun trilobite pictures from the trip:



© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster. Please see the "Field Work Friday Rules" about the work I do and collection practicies.

Fieldwork Friday #4

Sorry this is late - but it is still Friday (for  a few more seconds...)

What a week! We arrived home from our trip to the Marble Mountains Tuesday. I am home for a week and a half and then we are in and out of town until the second week of May! I should not complain - a little over a week of that is field work.

Our trip to the Mojave was wonderful! We could not have asked for better weather! A little background on the trip – we were in the Marble Mountains south of the Mojave National Preserve of California searching for trilobites in the late Cambrian Latham Shale. My husband has been working there since he was an undergraduate and is gathering data for a presentation he will be giving this fall at the International Conference on the Cambrian Explosion. Last year they collected 147 specimens. This year we collected close to 300 specimens. 

We met Dr. Andy Farke (curator of paleontology at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California) along the road on our way to the site. Andy worked out in the field with us the first day. I had a great time getting caught us with him. We realized it was out first time to do fieldwork together - and we were in the CAMBRIAN! What is the world coming to? We need to get out to the Cretaceous where we belong. ;)

We had great luck at our first site. The area was frequented by many hobby collectors while we were there and we had the pleasure to be seriated with gun fired from the camp below our pits (as their children ran loose on the mountain side trying to find trilobites). But everyone came away with a trilobite and no gun shot wounds, which always makes for a good day.

The second day we worked out first day’s area, and then moved to an area closer to camp. We had moderate success at this site. We worked pits that had been opened by others (minimizing any surface impact) and found an amazing amount of trilobite cephalons in the spoil piles. It appeared that many of the people who were working the area were looking for whole trilobites. I found 2 complete trilobites on this trip. The rest were cephalons (and some pretty nice ones!).

This area provided a nice view and we saw a nice variety of lizards (2 Chuckwalla’s!), a nice variety of spring flowers, some fun weird beetles, and 1 huge scorpion!! The weather was perfect with the exception of a strong wind we had our third night that threatened to take down our tents, and did take out our shade tarp. We all got a nice coating of dust and a free facial that day.

This trip was also our dog Tikka's first field excursion since we have had him. He is an Australian Shepherd/Border Collie mix, and an older dog. He enjoyed going out with us and stayed very close, enjoying any shade he could find. He did not even chase any lizards or bugs, just chilled out and watched us work, snapping at the occasional fly that would bug him. He did really well until the last day. We were returning to a quarry that was up a long shale covered, rocky hill and as soon as he saw where I was headed he sat down on the trail and refused to go any further. We decided, since it was the last day and he was so insistent on NOT going up that trail, to just let him hold down the fort at camp that day. He seemed to be feeling much better, although still sore, that evening.

All in all it was a great trip! Feel free to take a look at my pictures from the trip. I hope to take some pictures soon to share of the curation process and research the trilobites we collected will now be going though.

Olenellus (nevadensis?)

Mesonacis fremonti

Mesonacis fremonti

The brachiopod Paternia pospectensis (below)

Mesonacis fremonti

Olenellus nevadensis

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster. Please see the "Fieldwork Friday Rules" about the work I do and collection practicies.

Fieldwork Friday #3

Welcome to the third installment of Fieldwork Friday! This week we are headed out to the Marble Mountains of California this weekend to collect trilobites from the Lower Cambrian Latham Shale, below cliffs of Chambless Limestone. Last April the museum took a collecting trip out and came back with more than 147 specimens for the museum collections.

While trilobites are invertebrates and are legally collectible from BLM land (reasonable amounts for personal use, no permit required), when collecting large amounts for research you do need a permit (which the museum had). But what is a "reasonable amount?" According to the Utah BLM website, which has a nice descriptive paleontology section, "You may collect common invertebrate and plant fossils for NONCOMMERCIAL purposes only. A reasonable amount is what you may keep for a personal hobby collection or display in your home. Collecting common invertebrate or plant fossils for landscaping (even if it's just around your house) is not a hobby activity and must be done as a mineral materials sale." [link] If you are wondering if you need a permit, check out this link.

But anyway...last year they got some great specimens. Trilobites collected include:

• Olenellus gilberti
  
• Olenellus clarki
• Olenellus nevadensis
  
• Mesonacis fremonti
  
• Bristolia mohavensis
  
• Bristolia harringtoni
  

And the brachiopod Paterina pospectensis. Below are some pictures of last years trip. I will be sure to post pictures of our trip when I have internet access, hopefully before next Friday.

Camp

Prospecting for trilobites

One of the museums great volunteers, Darrell, and a trilobite he found.

Zeb sorting trilobites

More pictures to come! Have a great week!

View Larger Map

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster. Please see the "Fieldwork Friday Rules" about the work I do and collection practicies.

2009 GeoCorps America Positions

There are several jobs/internships opening up right now (some of them paleo related), so I will be posting them over the next few days!

To start off with, the 2009 GeoCorps America Positions have been listed today. You can check out the full list here. I did one of these back in 2005 at Glacier National Park (which was FANTASTIC!) and I really recommend them! I know a certain few of you out there who should particularly look into these ;)

Here is a list of the Paleo positions:

• Paleontologist, BLM Royal Gorge Field Office Canon City, CO
• Paleontologist, BLM Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area & Wilderness Montrose, CO
• Paleontologist, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument Florissant, CO
• Paleontologist / Education Specialist, BLM Price Field Office Price, UT
• Paleontology Technician, BLM Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Kanab, UT
• Geosciences Research Assistant / Paleontologist, Center for Urban Ecology, National Capital Region, National Park Service Washington, DC
• Field Paleontologist, Bryce Canyon National Park Bryce, UT
• Field Paleontologist, Badlands National Park Interior, SD
• Field Paleontologist, Guadalupe Mountains National Park Pine Springs, TX
• Field Paleontologist (2 positions), Dinosaur National Monument Jensen, UT
• Field Geologist / Paleo Technician (2 Positions), Denali National Park Denali Park, AK

So what is GeoCorps anyway? "GeoCorps America is a program of the Geological Society of America, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service. The program offers paid short-term geoscience positions...Discreet project areas include geology, hydrology, paleontology, mapping and GIS, minerals, soils, glaciology, geo-hazards, karst, and education....Geoscience professionals, retirees, and college students are eligible and encouraged to apply." [link]

The application deadline is February 2, 2009!!

More Fossil Theft

Sadly, there are two more stories on fossil theft in the news (not alleged theft either, straight out stealing). First, vertebrate fossils from a rich site in the Morrison Formation near Hanksville, Utah (the Hanksville-Burpee Quarry) have become the target of fossil thieves [link]. This is a really sad event, given the great work the Burpee Museum crew had been doing out there. The site was well publicized this summer (see these other links as well; it even has its own Wikipedia entry!), and that could possibly have given the bad guys the tip as to where to look. It is freaking sad that you would even have to worry about it in the first place. They obviously were being sneaky, to steal fossils and leave the jackets there. They probably figured no one would look till the Burpee returned and then it would be way to late. What good are they going to do in someones house or in some rock shop being sold to tourist?! John and I visited this site earlier this summer and they had some great stuff going on out there. I would totally publish the pictures on here and had intended to, but know I wonder if I would only be giving those with bad intentions another picture to help them find there way there. These are OUR public resources they are stealing, and it really makes me upset. Is there no respect for what researchers are trying to do there? Anywhere? You should be mad about this. We all should! If you see someone collection vertebrate fossils from public lands (BLM, forest service or national park service) please report it! It is up to us to help stop theft and help to keep an eye on the resources that belong to the public!

Second, pieces of a large fossilized conifer were stolen from public land near St. George, Utah. This tree had ~25 feet of its length preserved and the thieves went to great lengths to procure it. Luckily it was recovered and is now on display at the Dinosaur Discovery Site in St. George (read more of the story here)! The reason this was an issue, since collecting a reasonable amount of plant fossils is allowed on public land, is that these fossils were collected for commercial purposes, as outlined in the news story (and as far as I can tell). Fossils for commercial purposes are not allowed without a special permit (see below). From the "Hobby collecting in Utah" webpage: "You may collect common invertebrate and plant fossils for NONCOMMERCIAL purposes only. A reasonable amount is what you may keep for a personal hobby collection or display in your home. Collecting common invertebrate or plant fossils for landscaping (even if it's just around your house) is not a hobby activity and must be done as a mineral materials sale....If you wish to collect common invertebrate or plant fossils for landscaping, sale, or commercial purposes you must apply to the BLM for a mineral materials sale. (43CFR3602)" We can only hope that the bones stolen from the Hanksville-Burpee Quarry will be found as well.

These fossils were stolen from Bureau of Land Management land, and collecting vertebrate fossils without a permit is illegal. There are laws protecting fossils and they provide a variety of penalties if not collected with a permit. Some fines are smaller, with the the maximum fine being $250,000 and/or up to 10 years in jail (according to the AK BLM web page here).

Please see the Utah Paleontology website for more great information on fossils in Utah. The Hobby Collecting in Utah webpage can give you all the facts on fossils that are alowed to be collected in that state.

For more on fossil theft on BLM lands, see this webpage.