TY - JOUR
T1 - Ungulates of the middle Miocene Monarch Mill Formation, Churchill County, Nevada, USA
AU - Smith, Kent S.
AU - Czaplewski, Nicholas J.
AU - Coombs, Margery C.
N1 - Funding Information:
KSS has been mentored by many professors but few who possess a rare combination of talents, devotion, enthusiasm, humor, and professionalism which collectively had an impact on him. Over the decades, in various ways and degrees, KSS has tried to mold himself after those individuals. Therefore, KSS (and NJC and MCC) are honored to contribute to this expression of gratitude to one such unique professor, Richard L. Cifelli. For help with fieldwork, the authors thank the late Donald E. Savage and J. Howard Hutchison (both UCMP) and other UCMP field crews; Dale Harber (retired from US Forest Service, Price, USA); Ian Browne (Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine OSU-COM, Tulsa, USA); Darrin Pagnac (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City South Dakota, USA); Alan Deino (Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, USA); David Schmidt (National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., USA); Jeff Hargrave (Native Explorers Foundation, Edmond, USA); Patrick Ballard, Nathan Claver, Linden Cowley, Steven Dyer, Jessica Fisher, Kelly Fitzpatrick, Erin Kratz, Kayci Lewis, and Ryan Sullivan (OSU-COM); and participants in the 2014 Native Explorers Program. We thank Janz Hunter (OSU-COM) for editing raw photographs for this manuscript. For curatorial assistance, we thank Jennifer Larsen and Kyle Davies (both OMNH). For the loan of and curatorial assistants with UCMP specimens, we thank Donald E. Savage, Patricia A. Holroyd, J. Howard Hutchison, Neil Burmester, and Jere H. Lipps (all UCMP). A special thanks is extended to our spouses for their unyielding support of our work. For their logistical support in fieldwork, we thank Patty Smith, Lotsee Patterson, and Cheryl and Jessica Czaplewski (Norman, USA). Richard Hilton (Rocklin, USA) generously facilitated examination of material at Sierra College collected by his field group. The University of Massachusetts Natural History Collections has helped fund the research travel necessary to further this study. Collecting permits from the Bureau of Land Management were provided by Thom Burke and Bryan Hockett of the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management at the State office in Reno, Nevada, and Rachel Crews, Kristin Bowen, and Patricia Mecham of the Sierra Front Field Office (formerly the Carson City District Office) in Carson City, Nevada, Antiquities Permit for the State of Nevada were graciously provided by Gene Hattori (Curator of Anthropology), Margaret Brown (Curation Assistant), and James Barmore (Director) of the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nevada. We sincerely thank Gary Morgan (New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, USA) and Darrin Pagnac (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, USA) and editors Brian Davis (University of Louisville, USA) and Mathew Wedel (Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, USA) of Acta Palaeontologica Polonica for their thoughtful and thorough reviews of an earlier draft that improved the final version of the paper. Funding for this project was provided by the Chickasaw Nation; Whitten-Newman Foundation; Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences; University of Oklahoma Department of Zoology; Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Doctoral Study Grant; Southern Regional Education Board Doctoral Scholars Program Dissertation Year Fellowship; the American Indian Graduate Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and the Lt. William Johnson Scott Memorial Scholarship.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 K.S. Smith et al.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - A middle Miocene, early Barstovian land mammal age vertebrate assemblage, the Eastgate local fauna (LF), is known in the basal-most part of the Monarch Mill Formation. This rich assemblage of fossil vertebrates occurs within the Middlegate Basin in Churchill County, Nevada, USA. The Eastgate LF includes the fossil remains of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and over 25 families of mammals. Previous studies on the mammalian remains have revealed several endemic taxa of rodents and carnivores. Herein, we describe the ungulates, which include two taxa from two families of Artiodactyla (Ticholeptus sp., Merycoidodontidae and Barbouromeryx trigonocorneus, Palaeomerycidae) and three taxa from three families of Perissodactyla (Equidae gen. et sp. indet., Moropus merriami, Chalicotheriidae, and Teleoceras sp., Rhinocerotidae). Independent paleobotanical evidence nearly contemporaneous with the vertebrates indicates forest and shrubland paleovegetation, and suggests that the area had been uplifted to 2700–2800 m paleoaltitude. Therefore, this local fauna adds a rare glimpse of a medium-to high-altitude vertebrate community in the intermountain western interior of North America. Temporally-restricted taxa (especially the rodent Tardontia nevadans and chalicothere Moropus merriami) reinforce the early Barstovian age of the Eastgate LF and are consistent with tephrochronological dates and radiometric analyses. The presence of Barbouromeryx trigonocorneus at Eastgate is significant in that its occurrence potentially represents a temporal range extension into the early Barstovian (previously known from latest Arikareean to middle Hemingfordian), and extends the paleobiogeographic range from the Great Plains to the Great Basin. Unequivocally, the ungulates and other mammals of the Eastgate LF support the presence of a temperate forest ecosystem in the Great Basin just subsequent to the Miocene Climatic Optimum.
AB - A middle Miocene, early Barstovian land mammal age vertebrate assemblage, the Eastgate local fauna (LF), is known in the basal-most part of the Monarch Mill Formation. This rich assemblage of fossil vertebrates occurs within the Middlegate Basin in Churchill County, Nevada, USA. The Eastgate LF includes the fossil remains of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and over 25 families of mammals. Previous studies on the mammalian remains have revealed several endemic taxa of rodents and carnivores. Herein, we describe the ungulates, which include two taxa from two families of Artiodactyla (Ticholeptus sp., Merycoidodontidae and Barbouromeryx trigonocorneus, Palaeomerycidae) and three taxa from three families of Perissodactyla (Equidae gen. et sp. indet., Moropus merriami, Chalicotheriidae, and Teleoceras sp., Rhinocerotidae). Independent paleobotanical evidence nearly contemporaneous with the vertebrates indicates forest and shrubland paleovegetation, and suggests that the area had been uplifted to 2700–2800 m paleoaltitude. Therefore, this local fauna adds a rare glimpse of a medium-to high-altitude vertebrate community in the intermountain western interior of North America. Temporally-restricted taxa (especially the rodent Tardontia nevadans and chalicothere Moropus merriami) reinforce the early Barstovian age of the Eastgate LF and are consistent with tephrochronological dates and radiometric analyses. The presence of Barbouromeryx trigonocorneus at Eastgate is significant in that its occurrence potentially represents a temporal range extension into the early Barstovian (previously known from latest Arikareean to middle Hemingfordian), and extends the paleobiogeographic range from the Great Plains to the Great Basin. Unequivocally, the ungulates and other mammals of the Eastgate LF support the presence of a temperate forest ecosystem in the Great Basin just subsequent to the Miocene Climatic Optimum.
KW - Barstovian
KW - Mammalia
KW - Middlegate Basin
KW - Miocene
KW - Nevada
KW - palaeoclimate
KW - paleoecology
KW - Ungulata
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85129024707&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4202/app.00907.2021
DO - 10.4202/app.00907.2021
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85129024707
SN - 0567-7920
VL - 67
SP - 239
EP - 256
JO - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
JF - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
IS - 1
ER -