Paleontology in Oklahoma refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma has a rich fossil record spanning all three eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. [1] Oklahoma is the best source of Pennsylvanian fossils in the United States due to having an exceptionally complete geologic record of the epoch. [2] From the Cambrian to the Devonian, all of Oklahoma was covered by a sea that would come to be home to creatures like brachiopods, bryozoans, graptolites and trilobites. During the Carboniferous, an expanse of coastal deltaic swamps formed in areas of the state where early tetrapods would leave behind footprints that would later fossilize. The sea withdrew altogether during the Permian period. Oklahoma was home a variety of insects as well as early amphibians and reptiles. Oklahoma stayed dry for most of the Mesozoic. During the Late Triassic, carnivorous dinosaurs left behind footprints that would later fossilize. During the Cretaceous, however, the state was mostly covered by the Western Interior Seaway, which was home to huge ammonites and other marine invertebrates. During the Cenozoic, Oklahoma became home to creatures like bison, camels, creodonts, and horses. During the Ice Age, the state was home to mammoths and mastodons. Local Native Americans are known to have used fossils for medicinal purposes. The Jurassic dinosaur Saurophaganax maximus is the Oklahoma state fossil.
No Precambrian fossils are known from Oklahoma, and the state's fossil record begins in the Paleozoic. [3] From the Cambrian to the Devonian, Oklahoma was covered by a sea. [3] Cambrian life of Oklahoma included brachiopods, graptolites, sponges, and trilobites. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Oklahoma's Ordovician life included several species of brachiopods, bryozoans, echinoderms, conodonts, and ostracods. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Abundant remains are fossilized at Rock Crossing in the Criner Hills of southern Oklahoma. One common Oklahoman graptolite was Climacograptus . [16] High quality specimens of the trilobite Isotelus were preserved southwest of Ardmore. [17] During the Silurian, Oklahoma was home to brachiopods, bryozoans, the trilobite Calymene , echinoderms, and sponges, all of which are preserved south of Lawrence Creek. [18] [19] [20] Oklahoma was home to an extremely diverse Devonian fauna in the Lawrence and White Mound areas. [21] [22]
During the Mississippian, Oklahoma's local fauna included Archimedes , brachiopods, conodonts, echinoderms, the blastoid Pentremites , and trilobites. [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] Contemporary brachiopod families included the productids and rhynchonellida. The best source of Mississippian fossils in Oklahoma is the state's northeastern region. [2] During the Carboniferous, Oklahoma was a terrestrial environment characterized by vast river systems and accompanying deltas. These deltas were home to vast swamps responsible for leaving behind many coal deposits. [3] During the Carboniferous, early tetrapods left behind footprints that would later fossilize. [31] Oklahoma's diverse Pennsylvanian life included blastoids, brachiopods, bryozoans, fusulinids, and pelecypods. [2] Vertebrates included various fishes, [32] [33] [34] and the early tetrapods [35] [36] likely responsible for the trackways. Occasionally during this period, sea levels would rise and cover the state again. [3]
This sea gradually retreated from the state before the end of the Paleozoic era. Oklahoma preserves one of the richest fossil records of non-marine vertebrates from the Permian of North America [37] [38] [39] with respect to both abundance of material and taxonomic diversity, with particularly notable records from early Permian sites such as Richards Spur in Comanche County and South Grandfield in Tillman County. [40] [41] Most of these deposits are distributed across the western half of the state, including in Logan, Noble, Grant, Garfield, Kay, Pawnee, and Payne Counties. In particular, there is extensive body fossil documentation of many groups of extinct vertebrates, including lungfish, [42] [43] various 'lepospondyls' like aïstopods, nectrideans, and 'microsaurs,' [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] temnospondyl amphibians, [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] parareptiles, [57] [58] [59] eureptiles, [60] [61] [62] [63] reptiliomorphs (stem amniotes), [64] [65] synapsids, [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] and diapsids. [72] The giant Permian foraminiferan Pseudoschwagerina was preserved in the Pawnee area. [73] Many of these tetrapods likely produced a variety of trackways also known from the early Permian of Oklahoma. [74] [75] There is also an extensive record of invertebrates, such as beetles and millipedes, as well as brachiopods and foraminifers. [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86]
It remains controversial whether there are any middle Permian tetrapods known from Oklahoma, which would represent perhaps the only such record from this time period in all of North America and perhaps the entire globe; if tetrapod records from the Chickasha Formation and the Flowerpot Formation in Blaine, Canadian, Grady, and Kingfisher Counties [87] [88] and their equivalents in Texas (the San Angelo Formation) are not considered to be middle Permian in age, there would be a hiatus in the fossil record, which is termed 'Olson's Gap,', [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] although records from other geographic regions may fill this gap regardless of whether it existed in North America. [96] [97]
Oklahoma was a terrestrial environment for most of the ensuing Mesozoic era. [3] The Late Triassic Dockum Group of western Oklahoma preserved remains of archosaurs and temnospondyls, although its fossil record is restricted to a narrow region of the panhandle and is far sparser than the equivalent records in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. [98] During the Late Triassic, small carnivorous dinosaurs left behind tracks near Kenton now classified in the ichnogenus Grallator . The sediments preserving these tracks later became the Sheep Pen Sandstone. [99] Other local tracks have been referred to Chirotherium , but Martin G. Lockley and Adrian Hunt have speculated that these might actually be Pseudotetrasauropus . [100] The Late Jurassic fossiliferous Morrison Formation is exposed in the western part of the state and has produced extensive remains of sauropod dinosaurs. [101] [102] Most of Oklahoma was submerged under the Western Interior Seaway during the Cretaceous. [103] Early Cretaceous life included "immense" ammonites, echinoids, and pelecypods. These fossils were preserved in Love and Marshall counties. The Late Cretaceous rocks of Bryan, Choctaw, and McCurtain counties bear abundant oysters like Exogyra and Ostraea . [73] However, there are also records of many terrestrial vertebrates, particularly from the Antlers and Cloverly Formations, including fish, amphibians, reptiles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, and mammals. [104] [105] [106] [101] [107] [108] [109] [110]
As the Rocky Mountains rose during the early Cenozoic, rivers drained off them and into Oklahoma. Sediments deposited by these rivers would preserve petrified wood and mammal fossils. [3] Sediments were generally being eroded away from Oklahoma during the later portion of the Cenozoic. [3] The High Plains of the western part of Oklahoma preserve evidence for the presence of camels, creodonts, and horses during the Pliocene. [73] During the ensuing Pleistocene epoch, resident animals included mammoths and mastodon. [111] Their fossils were preserved in several different regions of Oklahoma. Typical Oklahoman proboscidean fossils are teeth and tusks, often preserved in gravel pits, but complete skeletons are also known. [73] Other mammals found in Pleistocene Oklahoma included Glyptotherium , a large, heavily armored mammal related to the armadillo. [112]
The Comanche people gathered fossils in Comanche County, near Indiahoma to be used as medicine for sprains and bone fractures. The Comanche ground up the bone into a powder known as tsoapitsitsuhni, which translates to "ghost creature bone", and mixed it with water. This mixture could be made into a sort of plaster cast if the fossils used to make the powder contained sufficient gypsum or calcium sulphate content. The local geology consist largely of Permian-aged red beds, and Comanche County's eastern side contains Richards Spur, the best source of Permian fossils in the entire state. [113] Reptile and amphibian fossils like Captorhinus are found nearby in other counties. [114] Such Permian remains are viable candidates for the fossils used medicinally by the Comanche, but local Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaur remains like those of Apatosaurus , Saurophaganax , Sauroposeidon and Tenontosaurus are also candidates. More recent mammal fossils were also used by the Comanche for medicine like those of bears, giant bison, camels, glyptodonts, Columbian mammoths, and mastodons. Comanches used bits of mammoth leg bone to draw out boils, infections, poisons and pain from wounds. This usage is fairly plausible as the porous nature of fossil bone causes a capillary effect that could be used to dry infected wounds and sores. Mammoth bone used for this purpose was known as medicinebone or madstone. [115]
In 1931, University of Oklahoma geologist J. Willis Stovall received word that a road crew grading for the construction of U.S. Route 64 uncovered a rich deposit of fossils east of Kenton. [116] Stovall examined the site and was impressed by the fossils uncovered by the workers. [117] He organized an expedition to the region. By 1935, Stovall assembled a team consisting of students and a handful of Works Progress Administration workers. He placed a local named Crompton Tate in charge of the team. Stovall's team excavated the site for nearly three years, in the process digging through almost 100 metric tons of rock and sediment to extract the remains preserved there. The site was called Quarry 1, the first of seventeen quarries that the expedition would start in the region. The excavation uncovered the bones from many kinds of dinosaurs. [118] Finds of previously documented species included both sizable and hatchling Apatosaurus , hatchling Camarasaurus , several Camptosaurus of different age groups, and Stegosaurus fossils. [119] The new theropoda species that would come to be known as Saurophaganax was also discovered there. [118]
By December 1939, excavation had commenced on the Stovall team's fifth quarry. The most significant remains uncovered there are referable to the large sauropod Diplodocus . Prior to the cessation of digging at Quarry 5 in the middle of 1941, this quarry had attained impressive dimensions. Its walls were nine meters (30 feet) high and the breadth of the excavation 73 meters (240 feet) wide. Other notable quarries excavated by the Stovall team include the eighth, which produced fossils of ornithopod and theropod dinosaurs as well as other reptiles like a new species of crocodilian, Cteniogenys , and turtles. Lungfish were also preserved there. [120] Funding for Stovall's field work ended with the advent of World War II in 1942, interrupting excavations at Quarries 9 and 10. [120] In 1964, Charles Mook named the new crocodilian species uncovered by the Stovall team Goniopholis stovalli in his honor. [120] The new theropod from Quarry 1 was named Saurophagus . In 1995, Dan Chure published a new name for Saurophagus since that name had already been used for another kind of animal; he renamed it Saurophaganax maximus . [121] More recently, in 2004, Matt Bonnan and Matt Wedel noticed the presence of at least one Brachiosaurus bone among the fossils excavated by the Stovall Crew at Quarry 1. [118]
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Robert "Bob" Lynn Carroll was an American–Canadian vertebrate paleontologist who specialised in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles.
Dissorophidae is an extinct family of medium-sized temnospondyls that flourished during the late Carboniferous and early Permian periods. The clade is known almost exclusively from North America.
Temnospondyli or temnospondyls is a diverse ancient order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished worldwide during the Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic periods, with fossils being found on every continent. A few species continued into the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods, but all had gone extinct by the Late Cretaceous. During about 210 million years of evolutionary history, they adapted to a wide range of habitats, including freshwater, terrestrial, and even coastal marine environments. Their life history is well understood, with fossils known from the larval stage, metamorphosis and maturity. Most temnospondyls were semiaquatic, although some were almost fully terrestrial, returning to the water only to breed. These temnospondyls were some of the first vertebrates fully adapted to life on land. Although temnospondyls are amphibians, many had characteristics such as scales and large armour-like bony plates (osteoderms) that generally distinguish them from the modern soft-bodied lissamphibians.
Pseudhipparion is an extinct genus of three-toed horse endemic to North America during the Miocene. They were herding animals whose diet consisted of C3 plants. Fossils found in Georgia and Florida indicate that it was a lightweight horse, weighing up to 90 pounds. In 2005, fossils were unearthed in Oklahoma. Seven species of Pseudhipparion are known from the fossil record which were very small, following the trend of Bergmann's rule.
Cormohipparion is an extinct genus of horse belonging to the tribe Hipparionini that lived in North America during the late Miocene to Pliocene. They grew up to 3 feet long.
Colobomycter is an extinct genus of acleistorhinid parareptile known from the Early Permian of Oklahoma.
Trematopidae is a family of dissorophoid temnospondyls spanning the late Carboniferous to the early Permian. Together with Dissorophidae, the family forms Olsoniformes, a clade comprising the medium-large terrestrial dissorophoids. Trematopids are known from numerous localities in North America, primarily in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, and from the Bromacker quarry in Germany.
Acroplous is an extinct genus of dvinosaurian Temnospondyli within the family Eobrachyopidae.
Pasawioops is an extinct genus of early Permian dissorophoid temnospondyl within the clade Amphibamiformes.
Christian Alfred Sidor is an American vertebrate paleontologist. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Washington in Seattle, as well as Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and Associate Director for Research and Collections at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. His research focuses on Permian and Triassic tetrapod evolution, especially on therapsids.
Rubeostratilia is an extinct genus of amphibamiform temnospondyl from the early Permian of Texas. It is known from a single skull. This genus was named by Hélène Bourget and Jason S. Anderson in 2011, and the type species is Rubeostratilia texensis. The genus name comes from the Latin translation of 'redbeds' in reference to the Texas redbeds that produced both the holotype and many other early Permian fossils. The specific name is for the state of Texas. The holotype and only known specimen was collected in 1941 from the Nocona Formation exposures in Clay County by a Works Projects Administration project that was transferred to the Field Museum of Natural History through an interinstitutional exchange with the Texas Memorial Museum.
Plemmyradytes is an extinct genus of dissorophoid temnospondyl from the early Permian. It is an amphibamiform from the Eskridge Formation exposures of Nebraska. The type species is Plemmyradytes shintoni. The genus name derives from the Greek plemmyris and dytes ('diver'), while the specific name honors John Shinton, a fossil preparator at the Denver Museum of Natural History where all known specimens of this taxon are reposited following collection in the late 20th century.
The Chickasha Formation is a geologic formation in Oklahoma. It preserves fossils dating back to the Roadian stage of the Middle Permian. These include, among others, the dissorophoid temnospondyl Nooxobeia gracilis, the lepospondyl Diplocaulus parvus, and the captorhinid Rothianiscus robusta, initially called Rothia robusta by Olson.
The Lueders Formation is a geologic formation in Texas. It is the top formation of the Albany Group and preserves fossils dating back to the Permian period.
The Arroyo Formation, sometimes termed the Lower Clear Fork Formation, is a geologic formation in Texas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Kungurian stage of the Permian period. It is the lower-most portion of the Clear Fork Group, part of a series of fossiliferous Permian strata in the south-central United States known as the red beds.
The Vale Formation is a geological formation in north-central Texas, a component of the Texas red beds preserving sediments and fossils from the Early Permian Leonardian series. It occupies the middle part of the Clear Fork Group, above the Arroyo Formation and below the Choza Formation. Some sources consider the Vale Formation to be merely an informal subunit of the Clear Fork Formation, thus renaming it to the Middle Clear Fork Formation.
Amphibamiformes is an unranked clade with Dissorophoidea created by Schoch (2018). It encompasses all of the taxa traditionally considered to be "amphibamids", branchiosaurids, and hypothetically lissamphibians under the traditional temnospondyl hypothesis of lissamphibian origins. These taxa are typically small-bodied dissorophoids and form the sister group to Olsoniformes, which comprises dissorophids and trematopids.
Richards Spur is a Permian fossil locality located at the Dolese Brothers Limestone Quarry north of Lawton, Oklahoma. The locality preserves clay and mudstone fissure fills of a karst system eroded out of Ordovician limestone and dolomite, with the infilling dating to the Artinskian stage of the early Permian (Cisuralian), around 289 to 286 million years ago. Fossils of terrestrial animals are abundant and well-preserved, representing one of the most diverse Paleozoic tetrapod communities known. A common historical name for the site is Fort Sill, in reference to the nearby military base. Fossils were first reported at the quarry by workers in 1932, spurring a wave of collecting by local and international geologists. Early taxa of interest included the abundant reptile Captorhinus and microsaurs such as Cardiocephalus and Euryodus. Later notable discoveries include Doleserpeton, the most diverse assortment of parareptiles in the Early Permian, and the rare early diapsid Orovenator.