National Fossil Day is Tomorrow! Do You Know the Paleontological Heritage of Your Region?

A hadrosaur skull similar to Saurolophus, the first dinosaur ever found in California

Tomorrow is National Fossil Day, which if anything, is of far greater interest than a holiday concerning an Italian explorer discovering a Caribbean island a few hundred years ago. One of the really exciting changes in our region is that our fossil heritage is being celebrated, pretty much for the first time. We finally have a museum with the room to adequately showcase the incredible paleontological history of the Great Valley of California. If you've read my blog at all, you'll know it's the Great Valley Museum at Modesto Junior College.

Two fossils here, but one of them isn't quite dead yet. The other is a Mosasaur

The Great Valley of California has a rich history of fossil discovery. Sediments were accumulating here in Jurassic and Cretaceous time, so dinosaurs and other reptiles have been discovered here, although not in concentrations like those of the continental interior. The first dinosaur ever discovered in California was found in our county. It was a Saurolophus, a variety of duck-billed dinosaur (the hadrosaurs). It was found by a teenager exploring Del Puerto Canyon in the 1930s.

Even more interesting, especially in light of a certain dinosaur movie last summer, are the Mosasaurs, large marine reptiles that were the terrors of the Cretaceous seas. One of them, Plotosaurus bennisoni, was discovered by the same kid who found the Saurolophus. It may have been 35 feet or longer in length.

Some fossils are more mundane, but they're exciting because I found them. Those would include these Jurassic wood fragments from the Sierra Nevada foothills. They were carried into the ocean by turbidity currents in the vicinity of the subduction zone that was once active here.

The most diverse and plentiful fossils are those of the creatures that grazed and hunted up and down our valley in Pleistocene time. The Fossil Discovery Center in the Madera area a few miles south of us has the best collection on display of these animals. The animals include the sometimes terrifying Short-faced Bear, Saber-tooth Cat, American Lion, and Dire Wolf. The grazers included a number of species of horse, camel and antelope, as well as mammoths and giant ground sloths. Many other smaller animals have been found in the quarry at Madera (which doubles as the sanitary waste disposal pit).

Few people in our county and region have had a venue in which they could learn about this fascinating fossil history, which is why the newly opened Great Valley Museum is such a wonderful opportunity. We have a full-sized skeleton of a Saber-tooth Cat, and a life-sized Mosasaur skull.

The newest exhibit highlights the research being done in Miocene sediments of the Mehrten Formation near Turlock Lake by the faculty and students of California State University, Stanislaus. Former MJC student Jake Biewer designed the current exhibit. The students are investigating some of the fossil sites where six-foot long "saber-toothed" salmon remains were found, along with tortoises the size of those found on the Galapagos Islands. Other exhibits are currently in the planning stages.

It's hard to describe how exciting it is to finally have a place to tell the story of the fascinating animals that lived here before us. The response from the children of our valley has been infectious. They love finding out that their home was once the home of that terrifying creature from the dinosaur movie, but also that they themselves could be the one who makes the next great discovery.

Have a great fossil day tomorrow! Learn something new about the place that you live!

You Think Your Halloween Monsters are Scary? Imagine What Your Ancestors Thought About These Terrifyingly Real Beasts...

(Modified from my post of June 8, 2011)

Happy or scary All Saint's Eve or Halloween, whatever your pleasure might be. As you cheer on the zombies and alien predators extorting candy from you, give a few thoughts about what would have been really scary: the terrifying animals that humans lived with many centuries ago.

Have you ever wondered why shadows are so effective in the best horror movies? It's pretty clear to me that there is a collective genetic memory in all of us of the monsters that we think of as myths today, but which were horribly real as recently as 12,000-13,000 years ago. The world was full of creatures that wouldn't have minded dining on us, and deep in our collective consciousness is a reflexive response to particular shapes and shadows. The pareidolia I wrote of once was a survival mechanism; we needed to see those faces in the underbrush in time to climb or flee to safety.

So who belonged to that mysterious shadow above? It was a short-faced bear, Arctodus simus, that lived in my home region, the Central Valley of California. Grizzly bears were a common presence in California when the Europeans arrived two hundred years ago. They described many of the native Californians as bearing wounds of encounters with the grizzlies, and compared to spears or arrows their guns were not much better as a defense against them. The short-faced bear was bigger, maybe 2,000 lbs or more. It may have been the largest mammalian predator ever.

There were roving packs of Dire Wolves, Canis dirus, as large or larger than their cousins in Canada or Alaska...

...and there were the Saber-tooth Cats, Smilodon fatalis, (below) along with the American Cheetah (Myracinonyx sp.)  and the Scimitar Cat (Homotherium serum). We have been living with the comforting insulation of modern civilization for a long time, but even a glance at a skeleton of these long extinct creatures can awaken nightmares in the recesses of our brains.

This museum display in Sydney gave me the willies...

If you want to see the rest of these creatures in a slightly less threatening atmosphere, check out the Fossil Discovery Center of Madera County, which opened for business a few years ago. The fossil creatures on display were found by the bulldozers of the Fairmead Waste Facility. They were digging a garbage dump, and found a treasure trove of fossil bones; 27 species of mammals and a half dozen other creatures dating from the Pleistocene. I find it to be a wonderful science resource for the region. It is well worth a visit.

Fossil Discovery Center of Madera County

19450 Avenue 21 ½
Chowchilla, CA 93610

Take the Hwy 99 Exit 164, SW corner of Road 19 ½ & Avenue 21 ½

Our Human Nightmares...Shadows of our Collective Past

Have you ever wondered why shadows are so effective in the best horror movies? It's pretty clear to me that there is a collective genetic memory in all of us of the monsters that we think of as myths today, but which were terrifyingly real as recently as 12,000-13,000 years ago. The world was full of creatures that wouldn't have minded dining on us, and deep in our collective consciousness is a reflexive response to particular shapes and shadows. The pareidolia I wrote of in a recent post was a survival mechanism; we needed to see those faces in the underbrush in time to climb or flee to safety.

So who belonged to that mysterious shadow above? It was a short-faced bear, Arctodus simus, that lived in my home region, the Central Valley of California. Grizzly bears were a common presence in California when the Europeans arrived two hundred years ago. They described many of the native Californians as bearing wounds of encounters with the grizzlies, and compared to spears or arrows their guns were not much better as a defense against them. The short-faced bear was bigger, maybe 1,000 lbs or more...

There were roving packs of Dire Wolves, Canis dirus, as large or larger than their cousins in Canada or Alaska...

...and there were the Saber-tooth Cats, Smilodon fatalis, (below) along with the American Cheetah (Myracinonyx sp.)  and the Scimitar Cat (Homotherium serum). We have been living with the comforting insulation of modern civilization for a long time, but even a glance at a skeleton of these long extinct creatures can awaken nightmares in the recesses of our brains.

This museum display in Sydney gave me the willies...

But if you want to see the rest of these creatures in a slightly less threatening atmosphere, check out the Fossil Discovery Center of Madera County, which opened for business last year. The fossil creatures on display were found by the bulldozers of the Fairmead Waste Facility. They were digging a garbage dump, and found a treasure trove of fossil bones; 27 species of mammals and a half dozen other creatures dating from the Pleistocene. I finally got to see it a few weeks ago, and I find it to be a wonderful science resource for the region. It is well worth a visit.

Fossil Discovery Center of Madera County

19450 Avenue 21 ½
Chowchilla, CA 93610

Take the Hwy 99 Exit 164, SW corner of Road 19 ½ & Avenue 21 ½

The Other California: Mammoths and Sabertooths rise from the Prairies again!

Painting for the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation by David Douglas

Sometime back, I talked about the rich paleontological discoveries being made at the Madera County Landfill at Fairmead near the center of California's Great Valley. I mentioned the efforts to build a visitor facility, the Fossil Discovery Center, but also mentioned that I had not had the opportunity to visit the site yet. That changed today, and I am happy to report that the facility is rapidly becoming a reality. It is expected to be open for business in June.

The Fossil Discovery Center is on the corner of Road 21 1/2 and Road 19 a short distance from Highway 99, near the town of Fairmead. As can be seen, the exterior of the building is essentially complete, and when I stopped by, workers were busy putting in the high-tech connections, and working on the interior labs and classroom. I was pleased to have the opportunity to talk to Grady Billington, the President of the Board of the Directors of the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation. He kindly provided me a tour of the facility and discussed their plans for introducing valley residents to the fascinating prehistory of the region.

A full-sized mammoth skull has been hung in the central atrium. More than three dozen species of animals have been discovered at the landfill, including mammoths, mastodons, sloths, camels, horses, dire wolves, smilodon sabertooths, and short-faced bears. Skeletons of most of these animals will be part of the display when it is complete.

The original environment where the animals lived and died was a prairie with ponds and rivers flowing out of the adjacent Sierra Nevada. An outdoor pond has been constructed to recreate some of the conditions present when the Pleistocene animals were roaming the area. The hill in the background of the photo is the landfill site where the fossils were uncovered.

For more information, check out the website for the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation, or look for almost daily updates on the Fossil Discovery Center of Madera County site on Facebook.

For those who are new to Geotripper, the "Other California" is my long-running web series on the fascinating geological places in my fine state that don't usually show up on the postcards. Thanks for reading!

The Other California: The Prairies of the Past

Photo from the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation

A colleague of mine in an earlier phase of my life at Santa Barbara City College was fond of saying to field trippers that "I wouldn't take you JUST anywhere!" And a great Peanuts cartoon talked about a field trip the kids went on, and how they went and saw...a field. And that's what we have today: not just anyplace, and it is ... a field. And not just a field, it's a real dump. Well, ok, more like a municipal solid waste landfill.

My home, the Great Valley geomorphic province, is, well, a field. A really BIG field, about 400 miles long, and roughly 50 miles wide. It ranges from sea level to at most a few hundred feet above sea level, and it is exceedingly flat. I wasn't too thrilled when I first moved here; we geologists like to have some kind of topography in sight. Little remains of the original landscape, maybe 5%; most has been altered by agriculture and urban development. I discussed some of the remaining grasslands in the original post of this series.

When Europeans first came upon the valley in the 1700's, they found a prairie/ savannah environment with tule elk, deer, pronghorn antelopes, wolves, coyotes, and grizzly bears. It could actually be dangerous to be out and about without weaponry. Today the big danger is to avoid getting run over by a tractor/combine on the isolated country roads.

I always tell my students that the geological story of your home is fascinating, no matter where you live. I was challenged to make our Great Valley interesting, but just like people, the most interesting aspect is inside, beneath the surface.

In 1993, Madera county was excavating a landfill at Fairmead (about 20 miles northwest of Madera) when the big shovels uncovered bone fragments at a depth of 40 or so feet beneath the surface. Because of state regulations, a paleontologist was called in, and an intriguing story unfolded. During the ice ages around 500,000-700,000 years ago, this landscape was cooler, with a more humid climate, and shallow rivers coursed across the grasslands. And a host of wonderful and strange animals lived out their lives here. In the last 17 years, some 14,000 bones, representing 37 species have been found at the site. Numerous horse and camel species, pronghorn, giant ground sloths (three species),and Columbian mammoths are included among the plant-eaters. The carnivores include coyotes, wolves, sabertooth cats, and the hulking short-faced bear. A wide variety of smaller rodents, fish, amphibians, and reptiles rounded out the ecosystem. It turned out to be the one of the most important Irvingtonian aged fossil assemblages to be found anywhere in California.

So what is a dump operator to do? Apparently, the right thing! A foundation has been established, the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation, and construction has begun on a Fossil Discovery Center at the landfill site that will serve as an education/research facility housing many of the specimens (most are currently at Berkeley and CSU Fresno). Science education opportunities are sorely lacking in the Great Valley, and this center will be a wonderful addition to the few resources that are currently available.

So, the next time you happen to pass through Madera or Fresno (presumably on your way to someplace else), check on the progress of the Fairmead Fossil Discovery Center. It's a unique part of the geological landscape of California.

Note: I haven't been there yet. All the photos are from the website for the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation and other online sources (credited below).

Camel bones at the Fairmead Landfill, photo from the California Integrated Waste Management Board

Painting by David Douglas for the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation

Resources:

Geology and stratigraphy information about the site: http://dundaspaleolab.com/index-4.html

Preliminary 1996 report on the site

San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation

The Other California: Geology and the other State Symbols, Part III

I was walking alone a couple of years ago in Yosemite Valley, on a surprisingly lonely trail between the visitor center complex and Yosemite Falls. Yes, I know all that about not hiking alone, but I thought it was a busy trail and a short distance. Just the same I was enjoying myself, having found a bit of solitude in a very busy park. Until I got spooked. It wasn't that I saw or heard anything. It was that I didn't hear anything. It had been a few weeks since a mountain lion attack somewhere in the state, and I was walking along these huge boulders that had fallen from the cliffs above, and any of them would provide a great hiding place for the big cats.

Nothing happened, of course. My life has not been THAT interesting yet. But it got me thinking. Grizzly Bears have been extinct in the state since the 1920's. The remaining black bears have not caused a single fatality in Yosemite since the park was established (they have been a lot nicer to us than we have been to them). Despite a few newsmaking exceptions, cougars have not been much of a threat to humans. We have a better chance of dying from bee stings and car accidents. This has not always been the case in California.

Prior to 12,000 years BP, our state would have been an intimidating place. Packs of Dire Wolves and American Lions roamed our prairies, seeking their prey from among the herds of horses, camels, antelope, bison, elk, mastodons, and mammoths. Short-faced bears, larger than grizzlies and polar bears, would have at least considered having you for lunch. In more forested and brushy areas, the large plant-eaters faced a threat from one of the most intimidating predators of all, the saber tooth cat (Smilodon californicus).

The largest cougars today weigh in at 200 lbs or so. The saber-tooths were more like 700 lbs or more! They were heavily built, especially in the front, giving them in advantage in stealthy ambushes. Their dagger-like serrated fangs could be 11 inches long. They didn't waste time chasing their prey, they jumped, bit, and waited for the victim to bleed to death. Evidence suggested they worked in social units, somewhat like wolves (many specimens show evidence of recovery from broken bones that would have led to the death of solitary predators).

The La Brea Tarpits in Los Angeles provide one of the richest records of the Ice Age predators to be found anywhere in the world. Trapped plant-eaters attracted large numbers of predators to the pools of sticky tar, and the hunters were trapped as well (something like 90% of the specimens recovered are predators). Portions of 1,200 saber tooth individuals have been found so far, allowing for all manner of population variability and growth studies to take place.

From about 1.6 million years until just 10,000 years ago, the sabertooths and other large animals dominated the ecosystem of California. Their disappearance is linked to severe climate changes in the aftermath of the most recent ice age, or to overhunting by newly-arrived humans. The issue of the North American megafauna extinction is one of the more intriguing mysteries of the present day.

The Smilodon californicus was selected as the state fossil of California in 1973, beating out the trilobite species Fremontia fremonti for the honor. I understand the desire of many of the paleontologists to have a trilobite named the state fossil, but I must say I get a lot more oohs and ahs from elementary students when they see my Smilodon skull during their visits at the department. They are absolutely fascinated to find that the animal once lived, quite literally, in their backyards. So do I!

For more info:

http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/information/publications/cgs_notes/note_13/Pages/Index.aspx

http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/fossils/ca_fossil.htm

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/carnivora/sabretooth.html

http://www.tarpits.org/education/guide/flora/sabert.html

Time Beyond Imagining - A Final Struggle for Life on the Colorado Plateau

...the massive creature wandered slowly through the dry grasslands. It had been a long hot year, something that had been all too common during the decades the animal had been alive. Foraging was difficult, and the creature was near the point of starving. The large elephant-like animal felt vaguely lonely; it was a herd creature, but it had actually been years since he had seen another of his own kind. He was aware of the pack of predators that had been following him for several days now. They too had the look of hunger, too thin, gaunt, with intense yellow eyes following every movement of the mammoth, but not quite desperate enough to try attacking such a huge beast. They could see it was weak, and they hoped for an opening.

The elephant could smell water. There was stream nearby, maybe a promise of green grass. The trickle of water lay at the base of a dangerously steep slope, but the mammoth was becoming desperate. He carefully stepped over the ledge and started down the rocky slope towards the water. Disaster! Somehow a rock slipped, and the animal lost his footing and tumbled down the slope. There was a crunching sound, and a horrific pain shot through the creature's leg. Something was terribly wrong now, and despite his struggling, he could not stand. The wolves heard the commotion. What was a tragedy for the mammoth was the temporary salvation for the giant wolves. They moved in, and in the moments that followed, the very last individual of the elephant clan on the Colorado Plateau passed into oblivion. Though they ate their fill that day, the wolves were doomed too. In these final centuries and decades of changing climate, they would find fewer and fewer of the large creatures they had evolved to consume, and they too soon passed into oblivion...

The story I've just told is entirely fanciful, with no direct basis in reality. I'm not describing some paleontological excavation, because we don't have one that is known to be the final individual of a species. But the fact is, numerous species became extinct during the last 10,000 years, and there was a final living individual mammoth. There was a final pack of dire wolves, though not at the same precise time. My little story could just as easily have included human beings who stood over the dying mammoth instead of wolves. Anthropologists argue the point.

The last few thousand years of geologic events of the Colorado Plateau are really mostly biological in nature. And to me they represent one of the saddest episodes in the entire two billion history of life in the region. In the last two million years before the present, the canyons and mountains, mesas and buttes of the Plateau looked much as they do today with one major exception. An ice age gripped the world, with a dozen or more cold periods when ice advanced across the northern tier of the North American continent. Though the ice never reached the plateau country, the climate was cooler and wetter, and forests covered what are now sagebrush flats, and sagebrush covered what are now barren desert expanses.

In this environment of rich vegetation growth, a complex ecosystem evolved, with numerous large species of plant foraging mammals, the megafauna of North America. The species that lived on the plateau included mammoths (2nd photo), mastodons (1st photo), camels, giant sloths, bisons, horses, musk ox, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats. They were preyed upon by giant American lions (4th photo), saber-tooth cats, dire wolves (3rd photo), and occasionally by short-faced bears. The lions were bigger than their African cousins, the wolves and bears bigger than their living relatives by a factor of 50%. They had evolved to take down large prey.

These species lived across the continent, and the pictures above are actually specimens from southern California. They are examples of some of the incredible discoveries from the La Brea Tar Pits, where animals were trapped by the hundreds in the black goo. The animals thrived across the land for several million years, but around 10,000 years ago nearly all of them went extinct. Their disappearance coincided with two events: the end of the latest ice age, and the arrival of humans on the North American continent. Which brought about their end? Was it a combination of factors? We don't really know yet. There have even been some suggestions by researchers that an asteroid impact affected the North American megafauna.

In any case, I feel a sense of loss that these animals are gone. Part of the adventure of visiting a national park like Yellowstone is to see the bare remnants of this megafauna: the moose, elk, buffalo and grizzly bears. What an adventure it would have been to see mammoths and other giants wandering the mesas and buttes of the Colorado Plateau!

We've nearly reached the end. I have been exploring the geology of the Colorado Plateau for well over a year now, and one final major event in the geological story remains to be explored. Next time!