UNRAVELING PAST LIFE OF THE MOJAVE DESERT: BUILDING MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE'S PALEONTOLOGICAL INVENTORY

Mojave National Preserve (MOJA), the third-largest NPS unit in the contiguous United States, has a temporally extensive fossil record ranging from the late Proterozoic to the Holocene. In order to establish baseline paleontological resource data regarding the scope, significance, distribution, and management issues associated with MOJA’s fossil record, the first comprehensive park-wide paleontological resource inventory for MOJA is being undertaken. The inventory methodology includes literature searches and field studies. Literature searches identified fossil-bearing formations and their distribution within the preserve. Field surveys involved observation, photography, and documentation of both in situ fossils and host rocks. Extensive fieldwork, including a detailed measured section, was conducted at the site of a well-documented looting incident in the southern Kelso Mountains. This locality hosts a continuous early Cambrian sedimentary sequence from the Wood Canyon Formation to the Chambless Limestone. The Wood Canyon Formation contains abundant fossil tracks and burrows. The overlying Zabriskie Quartzite was not observed to be fossiliferous at this locality. The Latham Shale overlies the Zabriskie Quartzite and contains numerous olenellid trilobites. It is in exposed, conformable contact with the overlying Girvanella-bearing Chambless Limestone. This detailed section provides the foundation for future monitoring to protect these non-renewable resources. Several new paleontological localities were documented throughout the preserve and field checks were performed at sites previously reported by former MOJA scientists. One crinoid-rich Devonian limestone locality was field-confirmed and added to the locality database. Future field work is recommended, such as surveying the Aztec Sandstone reported in the Cowhole Mountains and the Latham Shale-Chambless Limestone sequence in the Providence Mountains. The findings of this project will be published in an upcoming Mojave National Preserve Paleontological Resource Inventory Report. The establishment of this inventory contributes to the state of scientific understanding of the paleontological history of the preserve and lays the groundwork for a comprehensive paleontological resource management and monitoring plan.