Quaternary paleontology at Channel Islands NP and Mammoth Cave NP

Here's a couple of quick entries on paleontological research going on in the National Parks. In this case, both examples are Quaternary. It's another case of serendipity: I was looking for the first article, and found the second article in the same volume. Neither Channel Islands National Park or Mammoth Cave National Park are slouches paleontologically, but they do get overshadowed. Places like Big Bend National Park, John Day Fossil Beds National Park, and Petrified Forest National Park get a paper or two every year, so it's nice to shine a light on some of the others.

Trilobites

To start it off, this being Father's Day as I write, I shamelessly link to my father's Flickr photostream.  He's got photos of landscapes and landmarks of places in Hawaii, Arizona, Utah, Washington D.C., South Dakota, Virginia, Idaho, Alaska, and Minnesota. I recommend the eagles on Grey Cloud Island.

Where were we? Yes, the majestic trilobite, the three-lobed former denizen of the deep, the oval with antennae, bearer of the first compound eye, shameless vandal of pristine Paleozoic sediment. Trilobites are one of the most famous types of extinct organism, perhaps not on par with certain vertebrates, but certainly the most renowned fossil invertebrates. (In second place, with plenty of daylight intervening, are ammonites. In last place, maybe edrioblastoids? Some kind of echinoderm, probably.) You can find online information on practically any aspect of trilobites you may want to know about, often lovingly illustrated with photos. You'll probably end up at Trilobite.info sooner rather than later. The American Museum of Natural History also has a good guide, with photos of several of the species mentioned below. Wikipedia and the Kansas Geological Survey have detailed entries, and more photo guides particularly relevant to our slice of time can be found at the Atlas of Ordovician Life, the Dry Dredgers, fossilid.info, and University of Georgia pages on the Cincinnatian and Nashville.

Monoclonius recurvicornis, and other things

Serendipity is an unsung force in the universe. I was reminded of the power of random connections when I first saw the skull of Regaliceratops peterhewsi. There, parked slightly behind the eyes, were a pair of small but distinct horn cores. It couldn't have come at a more propitious moment (and I'm not saying that just to work in the word "propitious"), because for various reasons I'd recently been kicking around the idea of posting on another ceratopsid with small but distinct brow horns: "Monoclonius" recurvicornis, one of life's persistent mysteries.

Won't somebody please think of the champsosaurs?

Every so often, you may stumble across a crocodile-like thing lurking at the edge of your typical "two-page spread of all kinds of prehistoric critters" found in popular dinosaur books. If the book is of any quality, it includes a legend identifying the denizens, and the crocodile-like thing will be tagged "Champsosaurus" (if there isn't an error in the legend, of course). Unless you're intrigued by the name, or something else tickles your fancy, you'll probably continue along. There are a lot of crocodiles and crocodile-like things to keep track of, after all. What makes this one unusual?

Snails (and not-snails?)

I am posting this on May 24, 2015, which also happens to be Bob Dylan's 74th birthday. I considered titling this "A Hard Shell's A-Gonna Crawl", but even I have standards. "Shell" doesn't sound a bit like "rain".

Hash slabs

It is common for fossils in the wild to be found in beds of uncountable fragments, some identifiable to species, others only barely recognizable as fossils. These assemblages are often called "fossil hash", for obvious reasons. Although you can have conceivably make a hash out of just about any kind of body fossil and some kinds of more discrete trace fossils (it takes a bit of creativity here), the term is usually applied to invertebrate fossils. This leads to the phenomenon of "hash slabs" or "hash plates", a more portable portion of a bed of fossil hash. Hash slabs can make great display or educational pieces, and a good slab rewards continued study; you can never find everything the first time, and as you learn more, you are able to find more. [2017/05/08: why have I been using "hash slab" as opposed to "hash plate"? I don't know, except I seem to be the kind of person who just has to reinvent the wheel.]

Chilesaurus

Well, sic transit gloria mundi to Chilesaurus, I guess. A couple of days on top of the world, and then hustled off the stage for a tiny-maniraptoran-slash-Batman-cosplayer. Could be worse; at least it's Batman. 'Round here, though, I've never really had much interest in the origins of flight, early bird evolution, or so on, so nuts to Yi. Let's bring Chilesaurus back on the stage for a few more minutes.