Twenty-Five Years of Paleontological Research in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah: Public Lands in Service to Science and the Public

Titus, Alan L; Irmis, Randall B; Sampson, Scott D; Zanno, Lindsay E; Albright, L Barry; Sertich, Joseph JW; Roberts, Eric M; Farke, Andrew A

doi:10.5070/P5.52866

On September 18, 1996, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) became the first national monument managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and one of the first to protect a landscape based partly on its opportunity for scientific discovery. Its creation was a watershed moment in public land management, because to meet the mandates for its first monument, BLM opted to implement unprecedented support of resource investigations for numerous natural and cultural sciences, including establishing its first ever in-house paleontological field program. The rationale for this was taken directly from the establishing presidential proclamation (6920) which called out GSENM’s untapped paleontological treasure trove as “world-class.” The proclamation also singled out the Late Cretaceous vertebrate fossil record of the Kaiparowits Plateau, largely known at the time through the pioneering work of Drs. Jeff Eaton and Rich Cifelli, who had spent years teasing out the mammalian evolutionary story preserved within. Their work on Mesozoic mammals, alongside sporadic work by other institutions (mainly the University of Utah and Brigham Young University) in the 1970s and 1980s, demonstrated that the Kaiparowits Plateau also held a substantial macrovertebrate record that included beautifully preserved dinosaur skeletons. However, a lack of coordinated effort and the difficult nature of fieldwork in the rugged badlands led to what can only be described as desultory results. The leverage that came with monument status, including logistical and financial support provided by BLM, made this resource more accessible to the paleontological community, stimulating a sudden burst of new field research and discovery. Initial, coordinated, and collaborative fossil inventories started in 2000 by joint BLM, Utah Museum of Natural History, Museum of Northern Arizona, and Utah Geological Survey teams led to a cascade of discoveries, including sites preserving plants, invertebrates, trace fossils, microvertebrates, and macrovertebrates, contextualized by new geological insights. Many of these new fossil finds represent species entirely new to science, with some sites preserving intact snapshots of Late Cretaceous ecosystems that are unmatched globally. Unique geologic conditions resulted in spectacular preservation, sometimes even including soft tissue traces. This renaissance in North American Late Cretaceous paleontology would not have been possible without the focused resources and effort facilitated by the creation of GSENM and the subsequent prioritization of inventory and basic research in its mission. In addition to the science, the public benefits of these efforts have been immense, providing opportunities for direct involvement in the scientific process through volunteer programs, training for several generations of future paleontologists and geologists, innumerable educational programs, and exposure in national and international media outlets through articles, television, and interviews. The collaborative and far-reaching paleontological effort at GSENM has highlighted an often overlooked aspect of public lands management: the importance of US public lands for scientific discovery and education.

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