Three collaborative field teams—all part of the
Kaiparowits Basin Project—have just wrapped up their 2012 explorations in the
wilds of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), southern Utah.
The trio of paleontology crews, all working in rocks of Upper Cretaceous age,
came from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS), the Natural History
Museum of Utah (NHMU), and from the Monument itself. The results? More
dinosaurs. More crocs. More plants. And plenty of other amazing Late Cretaceous
fossils to add to the ancient treasures unearthed over the past dozen years [1].
The GSENM crew, led by Monument Paleontologist Alan Titus,
had another spectacular year of discoveries, including an ankylosaur skull with
partial skeleton from the Wahweap Formation, and a variety Kaiparowits Formation
finds, including multiple duck-billed dinosaurs (aka hadrosaurs). The NHMU crew, under Mike Getty's guidance, spent most of the fall working on a pair of Alan’s hadrosaur discoveries. One
of these has abundant skin impressions that seem to differ from anything we’ve
seen thus far. The other includes a well preserved skull.
The Kaiparowits badlands of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Alan and his crew also excavated yet another skull and
partial skeleton of Parasaurolophus in
2012. We now have on the order of six Parasaurolophus
skulls from the Monument, by far the largest collection of this tube-crested
duckbill known anywhere. At the end of the season, the Utah crew tried to get
into a more remote site to work on an exceptionally preserved lambeosaur
skeleton (perhaps another Parasaurolophus),
but torrential rains forced the crew to abandon the field area. Nevertheless, collaborator
and head hadrosaur researcher David Evans (whom I visited at the Royal Ontario
Museum just last week) is very excited by the sheer bounty of great fossils
emerging from GSENM.
After giving a talk at the Escalante Arts Festival on
September 28th (and seeing Alan Titus’ sensational cover band
“Mesozoic” rock the house the following day), I spent some time working with
the Denver field crew. The DMNS camp included interns, museum staff, and plenty
of enthusiastic volunteers, all capably led by paleobotanist Ian Miller and
vertebrate paleontologist Joe Sertich. They too had more fossils than they
could handle.
At one extensive leaf locality, Ian directed a large-scale
census, documenting over 1000 specimens. Meanwhile, Gussie, one of the DMNS
interns, checked every leaf for insect damage, collecting dozens of examples
for subsequent research. Although no body fossils of insects have been
discovered in the Kaiparowits Formation, Gussie’s study of the different damage
types on leaves should give us some sense of the insect diversity that lived
alongside these Cretaceous dinosaurs. As a devoted “dinosaur guy,” I learned a
lot splitting rocks in a leaf quarry. And I had to admit, with the rapid pace
of fossil discovery (one every few minutes or so), paleobotany quarrying can be
addictive!
A Fossil Leaf Quarry
While half the crew dug leaves, the other half dug bones.
Two hadrosaur quarries about 50 feet apart took the bulk of the effort. Like
many of our best specimens, one of these is preserved in concrete-like
sandstone, requiring abundant use of a rock saw just to get down to the bone
layer. Some of the fossils will require a helicopter airlift, but for this fall
we were able to haul out a number of specimens in backpacks and on a stretcher.
(Yes, it's seems a little odd to "rescue" a long extinct dinosaur—piece
by piece—from the badlands using a stretcher, but it works.) Together with my
long time friend Dale Penner, I also checked out a promising new crocodile
site. We excavated just enough to demonstrate that this locality (found by Joe)
has great potential.
Ian (background) and Gussie (foreground) looking for insect damage
After I departed, Ian and crew returned to a leaf site in
a southern pocket of the Kaiparowits that we’ve dubbed “the Lost Valley.” The
name derives from the remoteness of this place as well as the fact that it is
“guarded” by sheer cliff walls on all sides. At this Lost Valley quarry, the
DMNS crew uncovered many beautiful fossilized leaves, cones, and flowers,
including plenty of previously unseen varieties. Thanks to the abundance and
preservation of these plant parts, as well as the way the shale fractures into
large chunks (preserving whole leaves), Ian is convinced that this is one
of the best Mesozoic plant sites he’s ever seen!
Not far away, Joe Sertich and crew worked on a newly
discovered site with ceratopsian skull, vertebrae, and limb bones that may
belong to the 15 horned wonder known as Kosmoceratops.
While working the quarry, one of the volunteers, actor-photographer-weatherman-and-all-round-good-guy
Billy Doran walked to the other side of the same hill and found more
ceratopsian bones, including skull parts from a much bigger animal eroding out
of the hill at what appears to be the same layer. If so, this site may just
represent one of the first horned dinosaur “bonebeds” that we’ve found in
GSENM. These sites, some of which contain dozens of individuals in formations
up north in Alberta and Montana, have thus far been rare to nonexistent in
Grand Staircase, so we will be excited to dig in again next spring!
Carrying dinosaur bones from the badlands on a stretcher
Finally, although we have found plenty of dinosaur
eggshell fragments, and even the occasional large piece of fossilized egg, so
far the dinosaur nests have eluded us in GSENM. Till now anyway. Joe just informed
me today that his group came across a possible nesting horizon, with many big
chunks of shell along with tiny bones and teeth that could well be embryonic.
However, like the Utah crew, the Denver team was forced to escape before the
big rains hit (or, more accurately, while they were hitting), so this is
another site that we will have to wait until next year. So stay tuned for more updates!
Photographs
All photos taken by the author while in the field, September and October, 2012.
References
1. Sampson, S. D. 2012. Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent. Scientific American, March, 2012: 40-47.
1. Sampson, S. D. 2012. Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent. Scientific American, March, 2012: 40-47.
Photographs
All photos taken by the author while in the field, September and October, 2012.
