AN INVENTORY OF PALEONTOLOGICAL RESOURCES FROM NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AREAS IN THE SOUTHERN COLORADO PLATEAU

At least 219 National Park Service areas preserve paleontological resources, ranging from in-situ body or trace fossils, to artifacts made from fossils, to fossils incorporated into building material. To provide better baseline data regarding these fossils, paleontological data-mining efforts have been initiated in dozens of NPS areas in conjunction with NPS Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Networks. Paleontological resource inventories have been completed for over four-fifths of these networks. Such an inventory was recently undertaken for NPS areas in the Southern Colorado Plateau Network. The Southern Colorado Plateau Network consists of nineteen park areas throughout Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. This inventory was the first comprehensive literature search and summary of recent and historical paleontological research for the parks of the network. Eighteen of the network’s parks preserve fossil resources, including some of the best-known occurrences in the NPS at parks like Canyon de Chelly NM, Chaco Canyon NHP, Glen Canyon NRA, Grand Canyon NP, Mesa Verde NP, and Petrified Forest NP. Taken together, the parks and monuments of the network preserve a fossil record extending from the Mesoproterozoic to the present. Plants, invertebrates, vertebrates, and trace fossils are all well-represented. Fossils associated with cultural resources are also common in most of the network parks, such as tools made of petrified wood. The richness of the fossil record has promoted educational and interpretive efforts, and led to management challenges related to fossil theft and vandalism. Highlights include some of the oldest fossils of the American Southwest, Permian trace fossils and plants, Triassic petrified forests and their inhabitants, Early Jurassic tracks, marine invertebrates and vertebrates from the middle Cretaceous, and extensive collections of fossils useful for Quaternary paleoecological studies, such as pollen, packrat middens, and mammal dung. The network units are also sites of both historically important paleontological research and ongoing work of note. This inventory aims to stimulate future research, education, interpretation, and proper resource management of these paleontological resources.