Garden Park, in southcentral Colorado, is known for its Jurassic dinosaurs and the role the specimens played in the infamous bone wars of the late 19th century. Located 10 km (6.2 mi) north of Cañon City, Colorado, the name originates from the area providing vegetables to the miners at nearby Cripple Creek in the 19th century. Garden Park proper is a triangular valley surrounded by cliffs on the southeast and southwest and by mountains to the north; however, the name is also refers to the dinosaur sites on top and along the cliffs. The dinosaur sites now form the Garden Park Paleontological Resource Area, which is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management.
One of the few photographs taken shortly after the discovery of dinosaur bones in the Garden Park area. These bones are of the first
Camarasaurus supremus skeleton being excavated by Oramel Lucas for
E. D. Cope
Felch Quarry 1 (Marsh-Felch Quarry) in the Garden Park Paleontological Resource Area. Discovered in 1877, this site produced numerous holotypes of dinosaurs, which were named by
O. C. Marsh. Most of the specimens are at the
National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
Geology
Garden Park was formed by erosion of sedimentary rocks that have been distorted by uplift of the Rocky Mountains. The region is bisected by Four Mile Creek (also called Oil Creek), which has carved a canyon through the Mesozoic and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. One of these Mesozoic strata is the Morrison Formation, which is exposed within the canyon. However because the formation contains high amounts of swelling clays, large faulted blocks or slump-blocks of the formation are slowly moving towards the creek. The result is to make it difficult to correlate the various dinosaur quarries because exposures are limited and not continuous.
The formation in Garden Park can be divided informally into a lower and upper unit.[1] The lower unit is composed primarily green and gray mudstones, with numerous lenticular, white to tan to gray sandstones. The upper is composed mostly of red mudstone, with lesser amounts of yellowish, often tabular sandstone. These two units probably correspond to the Tidwell, Saltwash and Brushy Basin members of the Morrison Formation on the Colorado Plateau.
Dinosaurs
The discovery of dinosaurs in the Garden Park area has been presented numerous times by Schuchert and LeVene,[2] Shur,[3] Ostrom and McIntosh,[4] and Jaffe.[5] The lesser known post-Marsh and Cope collecting of dinosaurs has been presented by Monaco.[6] She recounts the expeditions by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the early 20th century, the Denver Museum of Natural History in the 1930 and 1990s, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the mid-1950s.
Dinosaurs from Garden Park on display include Allosaurus fragilis, Diplodocus longus, Ceratosaurus nasicornis, and Stegosaurus stenops at the National Museum of Natural History, Haplocanthosaurus delfsi at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Othnielosaurus consors (then called Othnielia rex), Stegosaurus stenops and a clutch of Preprismatoolithus coloradensis eggs at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Major vertebrate quarries
references [7][8] (h) = holotype
Cleveland Museum of Natural History Quarry
- Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Glyptops plicatus
- Crocodilia
- Mesosuchia
- Eutretauranosuchus delfsi
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Haplocanthosaurus delfsi
Cope's Quarries
CS 1 (Cope's Nipple = Saurian Hill)
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Camarasaurus supremus (h)
- Caulodon leptoganus (h) nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus sp.)
- Theropod
- Laelaps nomen dubium (now Allosaurus)
Quarry 1
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Morosaurus laticollis (h) nomen dubium (now Apatosaurus sp.)
- Theropod
- Laelaps trihedrodon (h) nomen dubium (now Allosaurus)
Quarry 2
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Camarasaurus leptodirus (h) nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus supremus)
- Theropoda
- Epanterias amplexus (h) nomen dubium (now Allosaurus?)
- Ornithischia
- Stegosauria
- Hypsirophus discurus
Quarry 3
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Amphicoelias fragillimus (h)
Quarry 4
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Amphicoelias fragillimus?
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- Symphyrophus musculosus (h) nomen dubium (now Goniopholis?)
Quarry 5 (=Denver Museum of Natural History Camarasaurus)
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Camarasaurus supremus
Quarry 6
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Camarasaurus supremus
Quarry 7
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Amphicoelias sp.
- Camarasaurus supremus
Quarry 8 (CS 2; The Fort)
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Camarasaurus supremus
Quarry 9
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda?
Quarry 10
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda?
Quarry 11
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda?
Quarry 12
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Amphicoelias altus (h)
Quarry 13
- Dinosauria indeterminant
Quarry 14
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Amphicoelias latus nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus supremus)
Quarry 15 (Oil Tract)
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Amphiceolias latus (h) (now Camarasaurus sp.)
The following cannot be assigned to specific quarries
- Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Glyptops plicatulus
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Caulodon diversidens (h) nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus sp.)
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda?
- Tichosteus lucasanus (h) nomen dubium (ornithopod?)
- Tichosteus aequifacies (h) nomen dubium (Glyptops?)
- Brachyrophus altarkansanus (h) nomen dubium (now Camptosaurus sp.)
- Stegosauria
- Hypsirophus seeleyanus (h)
Denver Museum of Natural History
Deweese Quarry (DMNH)
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Diplodocus sp.
Egg Gulch
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Theropoda
- Prismatoolithus coloradensis (eggs)
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- Dryosaurus? sp.
Kessler's Quarry
- Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Glyptops plicatus
- Crocodilia
- Mesosuchia
- Goniopholis sp.
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Theropoda
- Torvosaurus sp.
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- genus and species indeterminant
- Stegosauria
- Stegosaurus stenops
|
Denver Museum of Natural History - continued
Lindsey Quarry
- Amphibia
- Anura
- Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Glyptops plicatus
- Rhynchocephalia
- Opisthias rarus
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Camarasaurus grandis
- Theropoda
- Allosaurus fragilis
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- genus and species indeterminant
- Mammalia
- Multituberculata
- genus and species indeterminant
Meyer Site 1
- Reptilia
- Crocodilia
- Mesosuchia
- Goniopholis sp.
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- genus and species indeterminant
- Theropoda
- Allosaurus sp.
Meyer Site 2
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Theropoda
- Torvosaurus cf. T. tanneri
Meyer Site 3
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Diplodocus sp.
Not-A-Haplocanthosaurus Quarry
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Diplodocidae indeterminant
- Theropoda
- genus and species unknown
Small's Quarry
- Osteichthyes
- Actinopterygii
- genus and species indeterminant
- Sarcopterygii
- Dipnoi
- Ceratodus guentheri
- Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Dinochelys whitei
- Glyptops plicatus
- Squamata
- ?Sauria indeterminant
- Lacertilia
- Pterosauria
- Kepodactylus grandis (h)
- Crocodylia
- Mesosuchia
- Goniopholis sp.
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Apatosaurus excelsus
- Theropoda
- Elaphrosaurus sp.
- genus and species indeterminant
- Ornithiscia
- Ornithopoda
- Dryosaurus altus
- genus and species indeterminant
- Stegosauria
- Stegosaurus stenops
- Ankylosauria
- ?Mymoorapelta sp.
- Mammalia
- Docodonta
- Docodontidae
- Docodon sp.
- Dryolestidae
- new genus and species
Valley of Death Locality
- Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Glyptops plicatulus
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Diplodocus sp.
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- Othnielosaurus consor
Marsh Quarries
Jennings and Johnson Locality
- Reptilia
- Crocodilia
- Hallopus victor
Felch Quarry 1
- Osteichthyes
- Sarcopterygii
- Dipnoi
- Ceratodus guentheri
- Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Dinochelys whitei
- Glyptops plicatulus' '
- Crocodylia
- Mesosuchia
- Eutretauranosuchus sp.
- Goniophotis felchi (h)
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Apatosaurus sp.
- Brachiosaurus sp.
- Diplodocus longus (h)
- Haplocanthosaurus priscus (h)
- Haplocanthosaurus utterbacki (h) nomen dubium (now H. priscus)
- Theropoda
- Allosaurus fragilis (h)
- Ceratosaurus nasicornis (h)
- Coelurus agilis
- Elaphrosaurus sp.
- Labrosaurus ferox (h) nomen dubium (now Allosaurus fragilis)
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- Dryosaurus altus
- Othnielia rex and now Othnielosaurus consor
- Stegosauria
- Stegosaurus stenops (h)
- Stegosaurus armatus
Felch Quarry 2
- Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Sauropoda
- Diplodocus longus
- Theropoda
- genus and species indeterminant
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- Laosaurus sp.
Lucas's Site
- Reptilia
- Crocodylia
- Mesosuchia
- Goniopholis lucasii
- Dinosauria
- Ornithischia
- Ornithopoda
- Nanosaurus agilis (h)
|
References
- ↑ Carpenter, K. 1998. Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Morrison Formation near Cañon City, Colorado. In Carpenter, K., Chure, D. and Kirkland, J.I. (eds.) The Morrison Formation: An Interdisciplinary Study. Modern Geology 23:407-426.
- ↑ Schuchert, C., and LeVene, C.M. 1940. O.C.Marsh, Pioneer in Paleontology. Yale University Press, New Haven.
- ↑ Shur, E. 1974. The Fossil Feud. Exposition Press, NY. 340p.
- ↑ Ostrom, J,H., and McIntosh, J.S. 1966. Marsh's Dinosaurs: The Collections from Como Bluff. Yale University Press, New Haven.
- ↑ Jaffe, M. 2000. The Gilded Dinosaur. Crown Publ., New York.
- ↑ Monaco, P.E. 1998.A short history of dinosaur collecting in the Garden Park Fossil Area, Canon City, Colorado. In, Carpenter, K., Chure, D. and Kirkland, J.I. (eds.) The Morrison Formation: An Interdisciplinary Study. Modern Geology 23: 465-480.
- ↑ Carpenter, K. 1998. Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Morrison Formation near Cañon City, Colorado. In Carpenter, K., Chure, D. and Kirkland, J.I. (eds.) The Morrison Formation: An Interdisciplinary Study. Modern Geology 23:407-426.
- ↑ McIntosh, J.S. 1998. New information about the Cope collection of sauropods from Garden Park, Colorado. In Carpenter, K., Chure, D. and Kirkland, J.I. (eds.) The Morrison Formation: An Interdisciplinary Study. Modern Geology 23:481-506.
External links
Coordinates: 38°34′24″N 105°13′31″W / 38.57333°N 105.22528°W / 38.57333; -105.22528