Research Plan 2010

My research plan for 2010 consists of collecting samples from all fossil trees that can be shown to be in place. From these samples I will take 3 cuts from different directions: radial, cross section and tangential. From those cuts I will make thin section slides. In the field I'll also take measurements of tree length and diameter, and record the environment of deposition (or the conditions upon which the tree was deposited). When I am done collecting all of the samples and data, under the direction of Ian Miller and Kirk Johnson at DMNS, we should be able to determine genus of trees at Corral Bluffs, as well as noting how the trees changed over time.

I've collected 3 samples so far, but haven't been able to get back to the DMNS lab because of time and weather constraints. Spring weather has not been conducive to field work or the drive to Denver.

In the meantime I have rebuild and updated my website. My paper on Red Rock Canyon was published in the winter edition of the Mountain Geologist journal, and I have coauthored a book called Geologic Folio of Red Rock Canyon Open Space, under lead author Ken Weissenburger. It's been a busy winter, but I'm very ready for summer break and field season!

Spring 2010

Unlike last year, it's been a long winter with few opportunities to go out into the field. I've spend the winter straightening out my records and preparing the required information for DMNS to report my Corral Bluffs fossil localities to the state. I have dozens of localities including fossils of trees, leaves, turtles, crocodiles, gar fish and even a couple of champsosaurs. We did document one mammal jaw in 2009. It was found by the preparator up at DMNS while working on the skull of a baby crocodile collected from the bluffs last summer. It turns out the crocodile skull is in pretty poor shape, but the mammal jaw in quite nice. It still has several teeth intact. I'm not sure of the identification yet, beyond that it is a condylarth.

After a year and a half of searching, a couple of weeks ago I found my first mammal jaw out in the field. It is surprisingly large. It is tentatively identified as an arctocyonid, a raccoon-like mammal. The teeth are not well preserved, so identification will probably be difficult.

My other early spring project is to learn to make thin sections so we can identify the types of fossils trees in Corral Bluffs, of which there seem to be an endless supply! It involves cutting pieces of fossil wood into incredibly smaller and smaller slices, mounting the slices onto a glass slide, and then viewing the cell structure through a microscope. From the patterns of the cells we may be able to tell what kinds of trees were growing in Colorado Springs 65 million years ago.

I'm sitting here as it is snowing on the last day of winter. I've got a snow day from school, and tomorrow begins spring break! Hopefull we'll have some decent weather during break and I'll be able to go out and see if I can find any more pieces of that arctocyonid!