Kaiparowits Formation
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The Kaiparowits Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in the Kaiparowits Plateau in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, in the southern part of the Utah in the western United States. It is over 2800 feet (850 m) thick, and is Campanian in age. This Upper Cretaceous formation was formed from alluvial floodplains of large rivers; sandstone beds represent rivers, and mudstone beds represent floodplain deposits. It is fossiliferous, with most specimens from the lower half of the formation, but exploration is only comparatively recent, with most work being done since 1982. Animals present include chondrichthyans (sharks and rays), gars, bowfin, sturgeons, frogs, salamanders, turtles, lizards, crocodilians, coelurosaurian theropods such as dromaeosaurids, troodontids, and Ornithomimus velox, armored dinosaurs, the duckbill Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus, and a variety of early mammals including multituberculates, marsupials, and insectivorans.[1] Recent finds include large specimens of the duckbill Gryposaurus,[2] including the new species G. monumentensis,[2] and the first described remains of the oviraptorosaurian Hagryphus giganteus.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Eaton, Jeffrey G.; Cifelli, Richard L.; Hutchinson, J. Howard; Kirkland, James I.; and Parrish, J. Michael (1999). "Cretaceous vertebrate faunas from the Kaiparowits Plateau, south-central Utah", in Gillete, David D. (ed.): Vertebrate Paleontology in Utah, Miscellaneous Publication 99-1. Salt Lake City: Utah Geological Survey, 345-353. ISBN 1-55791-634-9.
- ^ a b Gates, Terry; and Sampson, Scott (2006). "A new species of Gryposaurus (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) from the Upper Campanian Kaiparowits Formation of Utah". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26 (3, Suppl.): 65A.
- ^ Zanno, Lindsay E.; and Sampson, Scott D. (2005). "A new oviraptorosaur (Theropoda; Maniraptora) from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) of Utah". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 25 (4): 897–904. doi:.
