Geologic Field Trips along the Boundary between the Central Lowlands and Great Plains

Geological and human forces have created some spectacular treasures at the boundary between the Central Lowlands and the Great Plains, and three of them are explored in this guide. In northern Nebraska, the Ashfall Fossil Beds site, a world-class Lagerstätte of articulated mammal, reptile, and bird skeletons, reveals the mass death of a Miocene biotic community. Chapter 1 provides a detailed overview of the geology, paleontology, and reconstructed paleocommunity at Ashfall. The bluffs of the Missouri River in eastern Iowa contain some classic type sections of Pleistocene stratigraphic units. Chapter 2 explores the historical development of Pleistocene stratigraphy in this area and presents new data to refine understanding of the area’s complex geological history. Finally, Chapter 3 presents a unique tour of the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, which is clad with Indiana limestone and adorned with igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks from European and U.S. quarries. The field guide describes the historical, architectural, and geological aspects of these stones.
The geology and paleontology of Ashfall Fossil Beds, a late Miocene (Clarendonian) mass-death assemblage, Antelope County and adjacent Knox County, Nebraska, USA
-
Published:January 01, 2014
-
CiteCitation
S. T. Tucker, R. E. Otto, R. M. Joeckel, M. R. Voorhies, 2014. "The geology and paleontology of Ashfall Fossil Beds, a late Miocene (Clarendonian) mass-death assemblage, Antelope County and adjacent Knox County, Nebraska, USA", Geologic Field Trips along the Boundary between the Central Lowlands and Great Plains, Jesse T. Korus
Download citation file:
- Share
-
Tools
Abstract
The Lagerstätte at Ashfall Fossil Beds—the result of supervolcanic eruption—preserves a mass-death assemblage of articulated skeletons of reptiles, birds, and mammals in a 3-m-thick pure volcanic ash near the base of the Cap Rock Member of the Ash Hollow Formation in Antelope County, Nebraska. The ash originated from the Bruneau-Jarbidge caldera in southwest Idaho, some 1600 km away, and it is geochemically matched with the Ibex Hollow tuff (11.93 Ma).
Ashfall is a critical Clarendonian North American Land Mammal Age locality. More than 20 taxa—predominantly medium- and large-sized ungulates preserved in three dimensions—are buried in a late Miocene paleodepression...
- Antelope County Nebraska
- Artiodactyla
- Ash Hollow Formation
- assemblages
- Aves
- burrows
- Camelidae
- Canidae
- Carnivora
- Cenozoic
- Ceratomorpha
- Chiroptera
- Chordata
- Clarendonian
- coprolites
- Equidae
- Eutheria
- extinct taxa
- field trips
- Fissipeda
- Great Plains
- guidebook
- Hippomorpha
- Idaho
- igneous rocks
- Knox County Nebraska
- Lagerstatten
- Lagomorpha
- Mammalia
- Miocene
- Nebraska
- Neogene
- North America
- Ogallala Formation
- Perissodactyla
- preservation
- provenance
- pyroclastics
- reconstruction
- Reptilia
- Rhinoceros
- Rhinocerotidae
- road log
- Rodentia
- Ruminantia
- skeletons
- Tertiary
- Tetrapoda
- thanatocenoses
- Theria
- Tylopoda
- United States
- upper Miocene
- Valentine Formation
- variations
- Vertebrata
- volcanic ash
- volcanic rocks
- Rhinoceratidae
- Gelocidae
- Moschidae
- Merycoidodontidae
- Broadwater Formation
- Poison Ivy Quarry
- Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park
- Eulipotyphla
- Bruneau-Jarbidge Caldera
- Ashfall Formation