by Matthew Cobb
In high desert of southwestern Wyoming in the USA there is a deserted town with the apt name of Fossil (pop: 5. Yes, 5). Around 52 million years ago, it was a subtropical lake surrounded by forests and lying in the shadow of a volcano. One of Jerry’s colleagues, Lance Grande of the fabulous Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, has just published a beautifully-illustrated book on the amazing fossils to be found in the area, animals that were preserved at the bottom of the lake, and were then brought to light by the skill of paleontologists in an area now known as Fossil Butte, which is part of the famous Green River formation. Go look at it on Google Maps!
Here are just a few examples:
- Two specimens of an extinct constrictor, Boavus idelmani. The bottom is the first fossil of this species, or ‘holotype’, which is now lost.
[JAC: Note the separate toes in the horse relative above: all but one of these toes would gradually disappear in the lineage leading to modern horses, leaving them with a single middle toe—otherwise known as the “hoof.” The vestigial remnants of two of the flanking toes can still be seen as the “splint bones” on the skeletons of modern horses.]
The book is published by University of Chicago Press (who else), and is entitled The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time. All photos here © Lance Grande
Here’s the fab cover. The book is out now, buy it from your local bookshop, who almost certainly pay their taxes and also need support!
The history of Fossil, and of the fossils, is tied up with the history of coal and of the railway which ran past the town and carried the coal. Miners were the first to dig out the fossils. The deserted railway depot is now being restored. You can see what the place looks like now, and the restoration work 52 million years after the lake disappeared, in this YouTube video. These are our fossils:
Are these related to the Green River formations?
Yes. That’s where they are. Will edit.
I like the video as I am a train fan and I got fascinated by desert towns in the middle of nowehere.
How can they call 5 people a town??? It is not even a hamlet!
The theory is that methane/noxious gases of volcanic origin seeped up through a lake where lots of critters came to drink. Some were overcome by the fumes, fell into the lake, sank, got buried in the muck (along with plenty of fish, which are the most abundant critters in the formation) and fossilized. When quarrying in the strata and cracking layers apart, one can frequently smell hydrocarbon fumes, and can occasionally find fossils that have preserved original material. Very cool. Gotta get the book.
It’s easy to forget just how big the Universe is in both space and time. Just as eclipses and telescopes can help to put space into perspective, fossils can do the same with time.
Doug Adams was truly showing his genius when he “invented” the Total Perspective Vortex as the ultimate mind-blowing device.
b&
The Green River is a bit like the US’s own Solnhofen limestone.
monitor lizards in Wyoming?
too cool.
The varanoid is Saniwa, not Varanus, so a stem-varanid rather than part of the monitor crown-group. Probably got into North America from Asia in the Late Cretaceous, though I think all the Saniwa fossils are Paleogene (haven’t caught up with all Krister Smith’s recent work though).
The Green River Fm is temporally and taphonomically analogous to Messel in Germany, but Messel tends to have more larger critters rather than being massively dominated by small fish.
Great pictures. And while we’re talking about places that need support, maybe we could have a follow-up about the still-dire situation at Lance’s “fabulous” institution! When places like the Field stop employing curators like Lance, science takes a real hit…
Wow, those are sooo perfect and detailed! And that cover design is really excellent!
Fossils are a good reminder of how short our existence has been on this wonderful planet, I find it humbling.
Is there any reason other than proximity for the allegation that the sting rays are (or had just been, or were about to be) “doing it”? If not, then I have some worrying speculation about the Protohippus/fish orgy in the preceding picture.
Yeah I tried to figure that out too. It’s so sad – poor stingrays all happy that they got lucky or were about to get lucky or were getting lucky and then awww…dead.
Then again, one is reminded of the guys who want to die an old man in bed…shot to death by the jealous husband….
b&
I still feel sad for the sting rays….especially if it was just before getting lucky. :/
Mrs Asterotrygon maloneyi: Let’s just cuddle tonight
Mr Asterotrygon maloneyi: you’re killing me!
Mrs Asterotrygon maloneyi: oops
Ha ha, I had a good joke to add but it’s funny in a puerile way and everyone will think I’m a twelve year old boy 🙂
Actually, everybody will just think you’re a dog.
b&
Ha ha well maybe they already do lol
Now you know why my pseudonym starts with “lady” 😛
Back in the year 2000 my wife and I visited Fossil Butte. It truly is a remarkable site. We also met Carl and Shirley Ulrich. Carl was instrumental in getting Fossil Butte designated as a national monument. I don’t know if the couple are still with us, but if so they’d be in their late 80s. They owned and operated a fossil gallery that is located within a 100 feet or so of the entrance to Fossil Butte. My wife and I spent at least two hours there just talking to him. The gallery also served as their home. He took me into his fossil preparation room in the lower level. He had a remarkable assortment of fossils he prepared both for private collectors as well as museums. Their gallery is called Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery. The two of them started quarrying for fossils in the area in 1947. Fossil Butte was one of his early quarry sites. He told me that he eventually convinced the federal government to turn it into a national monument.
My wife and I also took one of Carl’s fossil collecting trips. For $50 (looking online it is now $85), they took us to one of their quarry sites where we collected fossil fish. I still have these specimens in my collection.
A new place to put on my bucket list!
I visited Fossil Butte National Monument in Jan 2012. I got to the visitor center in the afternoon, and was the second visitor that day. Much of the park was closed, but the visitor center and nearby area was open. The fossil displays inside are fantastic. Outside, there is a diagram of the history of the earth that is about a mile long. I shot lots of photos. I really hope to get back there in better weather.
Hey, why no birds? There are plenty of exquisitely preserved Green River birds in the Field Museum collection, many of them still undescribed as far as I know.
It should be pointed out that Knightia fossils are so common in the Green River that you can buy one for a couple of bucks.
You can’t see it all here – you need to buy the book 😉
If you click the link and look at the Google preview there are birds in the book.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
The first pic is hilarious… Looks as if the arboreal mammal was about to get bitten in the butt.
Amazing when you know these fossils date back 4,500 years and were drowned in the Flood having been created by a loving God only 1,500 years previously!
I know. And if you look at the first fossil, you can see a little cross right behind the left knee. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
If one holotype is lost/destryed, is it not possible for a second to take its place?
Is there a book – rather than a website – that describes all the rules of naming?
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is updated now and then, and you should be able to find a paper edition in a library or book dealer somewhere near you.
If a holotype is lost, destroyed, unidentifiable or was never specified (in older works, before it was compulsory), but there are other specimens available, a new type can be designated. There are several categories, such as lectotypes (selected from specimens available to the original describer) and neotypes.
There are still only two Boavus idelmani specimens known, the missing holotype was inadequately described in 1938 and the second (if actually the same species) hasn’t been described at all as far as I know; I saw news stories announcing it a few years ago, but it was in a private collection and may still be so, so there’s been no occasion to make it a neotype. There are several other Boavus ‘species’ named from scrappy material from other localities, but it’s not a well-known animal; I presume it’s more likely part of the North American endemic ungaliophine-‘erycine’ clade rather than a true boa.
Looking forward to making it out there soon. Very frequent excursions between Colorado and the Okanagan Valley (N-Central Wash State / BC) have brought us through a bunch of fascinating places… . Next stop, Fossil Butte.
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is available in PDF. If a Holotype is lost or destroyed, a Neotype can be erected.
I was a Research Associate in Fishes at the Field Museum for a number of years, and thousands of my specimens are deposited there. I’m very concerned, but at present, my support efforts are going to another museum. Is there website about contributing to the Field Museum?
You can help support The Field Museum by contacting either me, or Charles Katzenmeyer (development office), here at the museum. Thanks for your interest!
Been there…. picked out my own Knightia.
Parody on a primitive old chorus
” The wise man built his house upon the rock ” youtube/watch?v=dkNOcr5iHP4
THE WISE MAN STUDIES THE FOSSILS IN THE ROCKS
The wise thing to do is look at fossils in the rocks
The clever thing to do is study fossils in the rocks
And watch as religious myth tumbles down
Cause life is older than 6000 years old
Cause life is more like 3.5 billion years old
Cause life evolved by natural selection, as Darwin told
So there are errors in the bible mould
In fact I think the bible authors had very little clue
Their guesses are held together by a paranoid sort of glue
If you only read their ideas you could end up in a stew
Don’t let the ministers feed off of you
I think Jesus maybe never lived at all
And some folk along the way have told stories tall
No Exodus or Nazareth or revelation
Mostly primitive theillogical ammunition
But I guess there might be a few good ideas in there
Like how it is ok to drink wine & beer
And I guess you’d also find the golden rule in there
But hell is myth. To be quite clear.
So do yourself a favour and read, ” Why evolution is true ”
See, ” Rise of the continents ” on BBC2
History of physics, astronomy, geology will help
See the magic of reality.
Funny, I never read anything about this in my bible… you must all be mistaken.