References
Reference
Graffam, Merle H. (2000) pliosaurs - email; Email,
pliosaurs - email
Principal Author
Merle H. Graffam
Header
Email
Journal
Email
Abstract
I live in Big Water, Utah, which is a gateway community to the Grand Staircase/Escalane National Monument recently established (albeit in a strange and probably illegal executive order). Big Water is in Kane County and this small community of 400 souls sits on a mesa-like sandy platform overlooking Wahweap Creek and the Straight Cliffs Formation to the north and Lake Powell to the east.
Wahweap Creek is a wash that drains the Kaiparowits Plateau into the Colorado River Gorge at Glen Canyon Dam. The floor of the wash is Dakota Sandstone and the wash cuts through hundreds of feet of Tropic Shale (called Mancos shale in other areas). The shale consists of layers of silt and ash flows (Bentonite) from the bottom of the Cretaceous Western Inland Seaway. We sit very close to the ancient western boundary of that seaway. Kansas has studied their side of the seaway extensively, but most maps of the Cretaceous Era show the western boundar of the seaway a hundred miles east and north of here. A wondrous outcropping of this shale layer is open wide here and in the Dakota sandstone billions of oyster are embedded. Above this the blue-gray Tropic shale is layered with limestone concretions full of baculites, ammonites, oysters, clams, wormholes, turritella, etc.
Above these are eroded dunes of shale in which are found billion of shark teeth, including lamna, squalicorax, etc., and massive to microscopic ptychodus shark teeth. Plesiosaur and mosasaur teeth are also found scattered in the powdered shale.
I have personally found the remains of five pliosaurs within ten miles of my house. One was excavated last summer. It consisted of several vertebrae (about 11) and ribs. The Museum of Northern Arizona under Dr. David D. Gillette (excavator of the famous Seismosaur) will excave my other four beasts the week of June 3 to 10.
Wahweap Creek is a wash that drains the Kaiparowits Plateau into the Colorado River Gorge at Glen Canyon Dam. The floor of the wash is Dakota Sandstone and the wash cuts through hundreds of feet of Tropic Shale (called Mancos shale in other areas). The shale consists of layers of silt and ash flows (Bentonite) from the bottom of the Cretaceous Western Inland Seaway. We sit very close to the ancient western boundary of that seaway. Kansas has studied their side of the seaway extensively, but most maps of the Cretaceous Era show the western boundar of the seaway a hundred miles east and north of here. A wondrous outcropping of this shale layer is open wide here and in the Dakota sandstone billions of oyster are embedded. Above this the blue-gray Tropic shale is layered with limestone concretions full of baculites, ammonites, oysters, clams, wormholes, turritella, etc.
Above these are eroded dunes of shale in which are found billion of shark teeth, including lamna, squalicorax, etc., and massive to microscopic ptychodus shark teeth. Plesiosaur and mosasaur teeth are also found scattered in the powdered shale.
I have personally found the remains of five pliosaurs within ten miles of my house. One was excavated last summer. It consisted of several vertebrae (about 11) and ribs. The Museum of Northern Arizona under Dr. David D. Gillette (excavator of the famous Seismosaur) will excave my other four beasts the week of June 3 to 10.
Language
English