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2. Schematic drawing of the Western Interior Seaway of North America during the Cretaceous. Denali National Park and Preserve, Yukon- Charley Rivers National Preserve, and Big Bend National Park are designated respectively by DENA, YUCH, and BIBE. These parks illustrate the range of NPS units that contain rocks deposited during the Cretaceous. Map modified from Gill and Cobban (1973).
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Introduction National park units have at times been referred to as "ecological islands." More recently, such units have begun to be viewed as ecological mosaics rather than sepa-rate island units as managers of publicly owned, federally managed lands have in-creasingly gained an appreciation for park boundaries and their relationships to par-ticula...
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The first articulated fossil fishes (Actinopterygii) unequivocally discovered in the United States were collected in the Early Jurassic lacustrine deposits of the Newark Supergroup. They were reported in 1816 by Benjamin Silliman (1779 –1864), the founder of the American Journal of Science, in Parker Cleaveland (1780 –1858)’s Elementary treatise on...
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Paleontological resources (fossils) are any remains of past life preserved in a geologic context.
Paleontological resources are non-renewable resources found in at least 232 National Park System units.
Despite the abundance and diversity of these resources throughout the National Park Service (NPS), until
recently few parks have had adequate baseline paleontological resource data.
The NPS National Inventory and Monitoring Program and the NPS Geologic Resources Division have
developed various strategies to provide parks with the baseline paleontological resource data necessary
for greater understanding and appropriate management of these resources. This report presents a
paleontological resource summary for the parks of the Central Alaska Network (CAKN). The summary
was compiled through extensive literature reviews and interviews with park staff and professional
geologists and paleontologists. Preliminary paleontological resource management recommendations are
also included for each park. The Central Alaska Network Paletontological Resource Inventory Report
represents the final of the 32 networks to have this baseline information compiled. This work represents
nearly a decade of work accomplished by a team of paleontologists and paleontology interns.
The parks of the CAKN contain significant paleontological resources and represent areas of active
paleontological research. During more than half a century U.S. Geological Survey field crews made
extensive collections of fossil specimens from each of the parks within the CAKN network. These fossil
collections supported geologic mapping projects and contributed to stratigraphic interpretations.
The paleontological history of Denali National Park and Preserve has been the focus of recent research.
Through the work of the late Phil Brease (DENA Geologist) and field teams led by Anthony Fiorillo have
helped to further uncover a rich and scientifically important fossil record of plants and animals from
DENA’s past.
Most of the paleontological discoveries at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST)
occurred during geological mapping by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), between the late 1890s up into
the early 1980s. Collections from WRST were made and studied by USGS paleontologists including: G.H.
Girty, T.W. Stanton, J.P. Smith, R.W. Imlay, N.J. Silberling, and D.L. Jones, as well as several academic
paleontologists (J.P. Smith and Tatsuro Matsumoto) who utilized the USGS collections.
Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve (YUCH) is one of the rare locations in North America (and
especially in Alaska) where an extensive geologic history is preserved, spanning from the Precambrian to
the Cenozoic, nearly 1.3 billion years. YUCH was established under the authority of the Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA). This enabling legislation for YUCH specifically
references the park’s fossil resources mandating “…to protect and interpret… the geological and
paleontological history…”
