Paleontological Resources of the USGS in Denver

Earth Surface Processes Team - Central Region

Paleontological Resources of the USGS in Denver

This project contributes to Earth Surface Processes Team activities and academicians by providing paleontological, historical background and data based on the cooperative expertise and the massive USGS-Denver fossil collections. A key component of the project is maintaining and digitizing the fossil collection records accumulated by the former Branch of Paleontology and Stratigraphy. Collections feature Paleozoic trilobites and brachiopods, Mesozoic and Cenozoic mollusks and Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrates. The fossil collections are the biostratigraphic standard from which timing of important events in earth history are dated. The collections are routinely used as the research basis for analyses of climate change, faunal diversity and extinction events.

Our challenge is to prepare the vast collections and data into searchable databases in a virtual repository. We have approximately 1250 cases of fossils, 50 drawers of locality and taxonomic cards, more than a dozen ledger books. Additionally we have six file cabinets of supplementary identification reports called E&Rs (Examine and Report). The paleontology service is integrated within projects of the National Geological Mapping Program as well as research by university academicians. Principal users of historical and paleontological resources are researchers involved in geological mapping and paleontological analysis within the USGS, and academia. The National Park Service uses the data for their inventory of fossil localities on Park Service Lands. The project is supported as a permanent feature by the USGS Director's Office, the Central Regional Geologist's Office, and the Earth Surficial Processes Team.

Photo of horned rodent skull
Epigaulus hatcheri (Matthews 1901). This horned rodent is from the Miocene Dry Union Formation near Salida, CO. Partial skull discovered in 1968 by Glenn Scott and the horn cores discovered at the same locality one year later by Bob O'Donnell.

Highlights and Current Topics

Fossil Collection Database Progress

Mesozoic mollusks Western Interior, Cobban: 14,000 localities done
Mesozoic ammonites Gulfian Series, Conlin: 4,000 localities done
Mesozoic/Cenozoic western US vertebrates, Lewis collection: 1600 localities done
Cenozoic western US vertebrates, Repenning collection 1000 localities done
Paleozoic trilobites, Ross, Palmer, Taylor collections, 13,000 localities done
Paleozoic forams, Meyers collections, 400 records done

Staff

Kevin C. McKinney, Project leader
William Cobban, USGS paleontologist emeritus; advisor and current researcher
Robert O'Donnell, USGS retired; volunteer in collections
James Vigil, USGS retired; volunteer in collections
James Kennedy, Oxford University Museum Director and paleontologist; advisor and current researcher
Jann Thompson, USNM Department of Paleobiology Collections Manager; advisor
Scott Wing, USNM paleontologist, Department of Paleobiology Chairman; advisor
Ireneusz Walaszczyk, Institute of Geology, University of Warsaw; geologist and paleontologist, advisor and current researcher
Bob Hunt, Nebraska University Museum; paleontologist. advisor and current researcher
Jim Honey, University of Colorado; paleontologist. advisor and current researcher

Key Collaborators

US National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian)
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
USGS Field Records

Key Products

Blome, C., McKinney, K.C. and others. 1999, The USGS Denver Paleontological Collection: A Growing Resource for paleontological Research, GSA poster session 1999 annual meeting. Denver.

Cobban, W.A., Sawyer, D. and McKinney, K.C., 2004. Cross Section of Upper Cretaceous Rocks (Dakota Sadstone-Point Lookout Sandstone) From Gallup to Lamy, Northern New Mexico. USGS Open-File Report-2004-1093.

Digital Catalog of Cambrian-Ordovician trilobites: collections by Pete Palmer, Rube Ross, and Mike Taylor.

Digital Catalog of the Gulfian Cretaceous ammonites: collections by J.P. Conlin.

Digital Catalog of the late Miocene-Pleistocene vertebrates: collections by Chuck Repenning.

Digital Catalog of the Triassic- Pleistocene vertebrates: collections by Ed Lewis.

Digital Catalog of Western Interior Cretaceous mollusks: collections by Bill Cobban.

Honey, J.G. ,1996. Paleontology, taphonomy, and stratigraphy of the Browns Park formation (Oligocene and Miocene) near Maybell, Moffat County, Colorado. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 1358.

Landman, N. and Cobban, W.A. ( in review) Chronologic Distribution of Middle Cenomanian-Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) Scaphitid Ammonites in the Western Interior, Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Regions. Novitates of the American Museum of Natural History.

Kennedy, W.J. and Cobban, W.A. 2001. Campanian (late Cretaceous) ammonites from the Anacacho Limestone in central Texas. Acta Geologica Polonica, 51, 15-30, 6 pls.

Kennedy, W.J., Cobban, W.A. and Landman, N.H. 2001. Santonian ammonites from the Blossom Sand in northeast Texas. American Museum Novitates, 3332, 9pp., 5 figs.

Kennedy, W.J., Cobban, W.A. and Scott, G.R. 2000. Heteromorph ammonites from the Upper Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) Baculites cuneatus and Baculites reesidei zones of the Pierre Shale in Colorado, U.S.A. Acta Geologica Polonica, 50, 1-20, 5 pls.

Kennedy, W.J., Cobban, W.A. and Scott, G.R. 2000. Heteromorph ammonites from the Upper Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) Baculites scotti zone in the U.S. Western Interior. Acta Geologica Polonica, 50, 223-241, 15 pls.

Kennedy, W.J. and Gale, A.S. (In Press) Ammonites from the Weno Formation in Texas. Journal of Palaeontology.

Kennedy, W.J., Gale, A.S., Hancock, J.M. and Cobban, W. (In Press) Ammonites from the middle and upper Albian of Texas. Journal of Palaeontology.

Kennedy, W.J., Gale, A.S. and Hansen, T.P. 2001. The last Maastrichtian ammonites from the Brazos River section in Falls County, Texas. Cretaceous Research, 22, 163-171, 4 figs.

Kennedy, W.J., Landman, N.H., Cobban, W.A. and Scott, G.R., 2000. Late Campanian (Cretaceous) heteromorph ammonites from the Western Interior of the United States. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 251, 88 pp., 67 figs.

Kennedy, W.J., Walaszczyk, I. and Cobban, W.A. 2000. Pueblo, Colorado, USA, Candidate Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the base of the Middle Turonian Substage, with a revision of the Inoceramidae (Bivalvia). Acta Geologica Polonica, 50, 295-334, 12 figs, 15 pls.

McKinney, Kevin C., Digital Archive. Report upon the Colorado River of the West explored in 1857 and 1858 by Lieutenant Joseph C. Ives, Geological Report with maps by John S. Newberry, USGS Open-File 02-25 CD-ROM.

McKinney, Kevin C., 2001. Digital Archives. Thomas M. Bown's Bighorn Basin Maps- The Suite of Forty-four Office Master Copies. USGS Open-File 01-306 CD-ROM.

McKinney, Kevin C., Chaney, D. S. Williamson, T.E. and Tedford, R H.. 2002. Report Upon the Extinct Vertebrata Obtained in New Mexico by Parties of the Expedition of 1874, by Edward D. Cope, A Digital Archive with Multimedia Annotations, USGS Open-File 02-270 CD-ROM.

McKinney, Kevin C., Cobban, W.A. and Phan, N.T., 2003. GIS Application of the Newly Digitized USGS-Denver Cretaceous Fossil Mollusk Collection: GSA poster session 2003 annual meeting in Seattle.

McKinney, Kevin C., Cobban, W.A. and Phan, N.T, 2004. GIS Application of the Newly Digitized USGS-Denver Cretaceous Fossil Mollusk Collection. USGS Open-File Report-2004-1093.

McKinney, Kevin C., Tedford, R H., Morgan, G. and Williamson, T.E., 2002. Fossil Mammals of the Middle Rio Grande--Annotated Dataset and Bibliography of New Mexico Vertebrate Paleontology. USGS Open-File 01-023 CD-ROM.

Repenning, C.A., 1998. North American mammalian dispersal routes; rapid evolution and dispersal constrain precise biochronology. In Advances in vertebrate paleontology and geochronology , eds. Tomida, Y., Flynn, L.J., Jacobs, L.L., National Science Museum Monographs, vol.14, pp.39-78.

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