THE FIRST PALEONTOLOGICAL RESOURCE INVENTORY FOR CARLSBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK, NEW MEXICO

Carlsbad Caverns National Park (CAVE) is located about 20 miles southwest of Carlsbad, New Mexico. The park is situated in the northern Chihuahuan Desert, and contains more than 119 caverns of various sizes. Though CAVE is best known for several cave systems with expansive rooms adorned with spectacular speleothems, the park also preserves significant paleontological resources. These include both middle Permian fossils of invertebrates, a few vertebrates, and microorganisms associated with the reef complex that formed the bedrock, and Pleistocene fossil deposits dominated by vertebrate remains.

From late 2019 into early 2020, a paleontological resources inventory was conducted at the park. This inventory synthesized published articles, unpublished reports, park records, museum collections, and field observation of fossil localities and in-situ specimens. This research resulted in the most complete list, to date, of park fossil fauna and fossil localities, including many taxa not known from publicly available sources. In total, 95 vertebrate taxa were confirmed from Pleistocene cave deposits at CAVE, and 209 invertebrate taxa were confirmed from Permian deposits both in caves and at the surface. The public version of the inventory details 44 Quaternary fossil localities within caves, 5 Quaternary fossil localities outside of caves, and a selection of 24 Permian localities among the hundreds present inside the park.

This inventory will provide a baseline source of data critical to future research, resource monitoring, and management decisions involving paleontological resources in the park. The inventory also highlights important paleoecological implications. The Pleistocene fossil record of CAVE documents species extinctions and extirpations associated with a drying climate. The Permian fossil record preserves the life and death of a reef complex in the face of a shallowing marine environment and increasing salinity, also possibly driven by climate change. Thus, the fossil record of CAVE is especially relevant to conservation paleobiology efforts in regions facing desertification, including the Chihuahuan Desert itself.