Mancos Shale, Colorado
My collaborators and I are exploring the paleontology, sedimentology, and geochemistry of the Upper Cretaceous Mancos Shale in western Colorado. In this area, the Mancos is over 1200 meters thick and represents over 15 million years (Cenomanian-Campanian) of deposition in the Western Interior Seaway. This section preserves fluctuations in paleoceanography including OAE2 (a period of global anoxia) and has the potential to capture the origin and diversification of mosasaurs. Our paleontological discoveries so far include specimens of mosasaurs, fish, ammonites, and inoceramid bivalves. My collaborators on this project include Selva Marroquin (Virginia Tech), Libby Robinson (University of Southampton), and David Noe (retired, Colorado Geological Survey). Kaiparowits Formation, Utah In collaboration with the Natural History Museum of Utah and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, I have spent the last 8 years working to discover, excavate, document, and contextualize this rich terrestrial and fluvial assemblage. The Kaiparowits preserves a high diversity of turtles, crocodilians, squamates, dinosaurs, invertebrates, and plants from between 76.5 and 74.5 million years ago. Other Field Experience Upper Cretaceous Taylor Group, Texas Upper Cretaceous Wahweap Formation, Utah Upper Cretaceous Straight Cliffs Formation, Utah Upper Cretaceous Tropic Shale, Utah Upper Cretaceous 'beds on Tarantula Mesa,' Utah Upper Cretaceous Fruitland and Kirtland formations, New Mexico Lower Cretaceous Cloverly Formation, Wyoming Upper Jurassic Malone Formation, Texas Eocene Paracas and Otuma formations, Ica, Peru Eocene Lisbon Formation, Alabama Philip's Pleistocene Paleo Cave, Texas Triassic Chinle Formation, New Mexico and Utah Upper Cretaceous Eutaw Formation, Alabama |