El Cobre Canyon Formation
| El Cobre Canyon Formation | |
|---|---|
| Stratigraphic range: | |
Cutler Group | |
| Underlies | Arroyo del Agua Formation |
| Overlies | Proterozoic basement |
| Thickness | 111 m (364 ft) |
| Lithology | |
| Primary | Siltstone |
| Other | Sandstone |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 36°18′29″N 106°21′12″W / 36.308044°N 106.353257°W |
| Region | New Mexico |
| Country | United States |
| Type section | |
| Named for | El Cobre Canyon |
| Named by | Lucas and Krainer |
| Year defined | 2005 |
  El Cobre Canyon Formation (the United States)  El Cobre Canyon Formation (New Mexico) | |
The El Cobre Canyon Formation is a
Description
The El Cobre Canyon Formation consists of
The formation correlates with the Atrasado Formation and lower Abo Formation to the south.[1]
Fossils
The El Cobre Canyon Formation contains some of the most extensive assemblages of early Permian fossil vertebrates in North America, which have been studied by numerous paleontologists from the 1870s onwards.
The lowermost beds of the El Cobre Formation in the floor of El Cobre Canyon include Alethopteris flora and the vertebrates Desmatodon and Limnoscelis. These suggest a later Pennsylvanian age. Fossils higher in the formation, such as Zatrachys, Eryops, Bolosaurus, and others, are typical of faunachron A of Lucas in the early Permian.[1] Chenoprosopus has also been found in the beds.[5]
The fossil quarries near Loma Salazar provided the first specimens of
History of investigation
The fossil beds of the
The sites were periodically revisited beginning in 1911, when a field party from University of Chicago led by S.W. Williston reexamined Baldwin's quarry. They traced the fossil horizon southeast along Mesa Montosa (then known as Mesa Poleo) and discovered the Miller bone bed. This was followed up by field parties from University of California, Berkeley in 1928 led by C.L. Camp and V.L.VanderHoof, who each discovered new fossil quarries now bearing their names. Fossil excavations continued in 1934 and 1935, when the Welles, Anderson, and Quarry Butte quarries were discovered close to Loma Salazar. These yielded important pelycosaur fossils.[5]
The final phase of collection began in 1979 and was carried out by joint field crews from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the University of Toronto. These discovered the Cardillo quarry near Loma Salazar and the Morfin bone bed on the southwest flank of Mesa Montosa. Collecting continued until the mid-1980s. From 2002 to 2004, a joint field crew from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History reopened the Cardillo quarry and resumed excavation.[5]
However, the lithology of the Cutler Formation in the Chama Basin was long neglected. Darton mapped the Permian redbeds of the Chama Basin as Abo Formation in 1928.[7] In 1946, Wood and Northrop mapped the Pennsylvanian-Permian red beds north of latitude 36 degrees as Cutler Formation and south of that latitude as Abo Formation.[8] It was not until 2005 that the lithology of these beds was well enough characterized for it to be raised to group rank and divided into the lower El Cobre Canyon Formation and upper Arroyo del Agua Formation by Lucas and Krainer in 2005.[1]
See also
Footnotes
- ^ a b c d e f Lucas & Krainer 2005.
- ^ Williston & Case 1913.
- ^ Langston 1953a.
- ^ Langston 1953b.
- ^ a b c d e Lucas et al. 2005.
- ISSN 0097-4463.
- ^ Darton 1928.
- ^ Wood & Northrop 1946.
References
- Darton, N. H. (1928). Geologic map of New Mexico. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Geological Survey.
- Langston, W. Jr. (1953a). "Permian amphibians from New Mexico". Publications in Geological Sciences. 29. University of California: 349–416.
- Langston, Wann (January 1953b). "The First Embolomerous Amphibians from New Mexico". The Journal of Geology. 61 (1): 68–71. doi:10.1086/626038.
- Lucas, Spencer G.; Harris, Susan K.; Spielmann, Justin A.; Berman, David S.; Henrici, Amy C.; Heckert, Andrew B.; Zeigler, Kate E.; Rinehart, Larry F. (2005). "Early Permian vertebrate assemblage and its biostratigraphic significance, Arroy del Agua, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico" (PDF). New Mexico Geological Society Field Conference Series. 56. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
- Lucas, Spencer G.; Krainer, Karl (2005). "Stratigraphy and correlation of the Permo-Carboniferous Cutler Group, Chama Basin, New Mexico" (PDF). New Mexico Geologic Society Field Conference Series. 56: 145–159. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
- Williston, S.W.; Case, E.C. (1913). "Description of the vertebrate-bearing beds of north-central New Mexico". Carnegie Institution of Washington Publications. 181: 37–59.
- Wood, G.H.; Northrop, S.A. (1946). "Geology of Nacimiento Mountains, San Pedro Mountain, and adjacent plateaus in parts of Sandoval and Rio Arriba Counties, New Mexico". U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigations. Preliminary Map OM-57.