Paleontology of the Bears Ears National Monument: history of exploration and designation of the monument
Author and article information
Abstract
Bears Ears National Monument (BENM) is a new, landscape-scale national monument jointly administered by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service in southeastern Utah as part of the National Conservation Lands system. As initially designated, BENM encompasses 1.3 million acres of land with exceptionally fossiliferous rock units. These units comprise a semi-continuous depositional record from the Pennsylvanian Period through the middle of the Cretaceous Period. Additional Quaternary and Holocene deposits are known from unconsolidated river gravels and cave deposits. The fossil record from BENM provides unique insights into several important paleontological periods of time, including the Pennsylvanian-Permian transition from fully aquatic to more fully terrestrial tetrapods; the rise of the dinosaurs following the Triassic-Jurassic extinction; and the response of ecosystems in dry climates to sudden temperature increases at the end of the last ice age and across the Holocene. While the paleontological resources of BENM are extensive, they have historically been under-studied. Here we summarize prior paleontological work in BENM and review the data used to support paleontological resource protection in the 2016 BENM proclamation.
Cite this as
2018. Paleontology of the Bears Ears National Monument: history of exploration and designation of the monument. PeerJ Preprints 6:e3442v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3442v2Author comment
Added two authors, revised majority of sections to include additional information and conclusions, expanded citations, performed additional analysis on publication data and revised figures to reflect this.
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Supplemental Information
Supplementary data with publications by author, date, topic, and full citation
Each row lists a single publication with author, date, journal, pages, and title.
Additional Information
Competing Interests
Robert J. Gay is an employee of Colorado Canyons Association.
Author Contributions
Jessica Uglesich conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Robert J Gay conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
M. Allison Stegner conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Adam K Huttenlocker conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Randall B Irmis conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
The research in this article did not generate any data or code, as this is primarily a literature reivew.
Funding
The authors received no funding for this work.
