PALEONTOLOGICAL RESOURCE MITIGATION AT SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

Fossils represent important non-renewable resources. Construction projects present both a threat to these resources and an opportunity to preserve them for future study. Legislative requirements and professional standards are required to prevent fossil resources from being lost. In California, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) provides legal protection for fossils by requiring that adverse impacts to paleontological resources be considered as part of the environmental review process and that negative impacts should be mitigated. The professional guidelines outlined by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology provide the necessary professional framework to ensure adequate protection of fossils through mitigation. We present a sea-wall construction project near Santa Cruz, California, as an example of a successfully implemented paleontological mitigation program. Santa Cruz County replaced a sea wall at Pleasure Point. Excavation related to this project impacted the Miocene-Pliocene age Purisima Formation, exposed along the lower 4-10 meters of the sea cliff. The Purisima Formation is highly fossiliferous and has previously produced abundant and important marine invertebrate and vertebrate fossils. Without mitigation, any fossil resources exposed or disturbed by this project would be irretrievably lost. To ensure that this does not happen, PaleoResource Consultants was retained by Santa Cruz County to create and implement a paleontological monitoring and mitigation program, consisting of a pre-construction survey of the project site, monitoring of excavation activities, the salvage of representative fossil assemblages, and the eventual preparation of a final report on the results of the program and the donation of significant fossil material into a museum repository. The mitigation program is currently ongoing. As a result of the program, at least 12 molluscan taxa, 2 crab taxa, and a fossil asteroid have been collected. Abundant fossil marine mammal bones, mostly isolated vertebrae, have also been salvaged. The partial skeletons of a small mysticete and a juvenile odontocete have also been located and successfully salvaged from the construction site. None of these fossils would have been preserved for posterity without a paleontological mitigation program.