FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Who first claimed the Navajo Nation? Some had scales, some had horns, and some had beaks.
Dinosaurs roamed the Nation starting over 200 million years ago. Some remnants, like the Moenkopi dinosaur tracks that reside in Tuba City are well known, but there have been dozens of other fossils that have been uncovered and are continuing to be discovered on and around the Nation.
The lead paleontologist of the Petrified National Forest, Adam D. Marsh, PhD, talked about some of the discoveries to an overflowing crowd during his talk, “Dinosaurs of the Navajo Nation,” given at the Museum of Northern Arizona during the Flagstaff Festival of Science Sept. 26.
“The Navajo know fossils are on heir land, and they’re meaningful to them,” Marsh said. “Dinosaur tracks have been described as birds or big lizards tracks in their oral ceremonies (since time immemorial).”
Marsh said the USGS was behind the first geological surveys on the Nation in 1869 and dinosaur fossils started to be found in the 1930s.
A few of the dinosaurs that Marsh talked about in his lecture were found by Navajos.
In 1933, Kayenta resident Max Littlesalt, along with members of naturalist Ansel Hall’s exploration party, found a small meat-eating dinosaur, Segisaurus, at Tsegi Canyon.
The specimen was discovered in early Jurassic strata, is the only known specimen, and is the only dinosaur to have ever been excavated from the area. It is around 3 feet wide and 9-15 pounds.
In 1940, Tuba City resident Jesse William discovered two skeletons of the large meat-eating dinosaur, Dilophosaurus. Two years later, paleontologists Sam Welles and Dr. Camp were on expeditions on Navajo land and William led Welles’ team to the skeleton, where it was excavated.
Dilophosaurus lived 186 million years ago in the early Jurassic Period. It stood on two feet and had a huge tail and two large distinctive crests on its head. The dinosaur is highlighted in the movie, Jurassic Park, but producers added neck frills that protruded when angry. At 6 feet tall and over 20 feet long, its only true predator was the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Both the Segisaurus and Dilophosaurus fossils are housed at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley, California. But the public was able to view other Navajo Nation dinosaurs in the special collections area of the Museum of Northern Arizona before Marsh’s talk.
The fossils remain property of the Navajo Nation. For around 15 years, MNA has been the sole repository for Navajo Nation fossils. Anyone wishing to conduct scientific investigations of the land needs to apply to the Navajo Nation Minerals Department in Window Rock and receive a permit.
“They’ve been nothing but helpful and we continue to have a relationship with them,” Marsh said.
Marsh said researchers from around the world visit Flagstaff to study the specimens, and they are instrumental to understanding Deep Time, evolution and mass extinctions, especially in the early part of the Mesozoic era – Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic periods.
Also in the MNA collections is a large slab of rock from a dig of a Coelophysis from Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico.
Coelophysis is one of the earliest known dinosaurs, living as early as 228 million years ago. It was small and slender, and could have been about 10 feet long. It walked on two feet, was a fast runner and a meat eater. The first remains were found in 1881 in the Chinle formation, and in 1947 an entire “graveyard” of Coelophysis was found in Ghost Ranch.
Many dinosaurs and early reptiles are named after where they are found on the Navajo Nation. One dinosaur is even called Navajoceratops, meaning “Navajo horned faced.” It looked like a giant triceratops, but with two horns instead of three. It lived in the late Cretaceous Period, around 75 million years ago. It was found in 2002 in the Kirtland Formation, west of Shiprock, New Mexico.
More than dinosaurs
It isn’t just dinosaurs that have been found on the Nation, either. Other amphibians and even mammals have been found.
Fossils of 40 Placerias were found near St. Johns, in the Chinle formation in the 1930s. Placerias lived during the Triassic Period 230 million years ago. They were mammal-like herbivores, and have been compared to a modern-day hippo, but with a beak as well as two short tusks.
Early amphibians and crocodile-like reptiles were rampant in northern Arizona when it was abundant with water 120 – 220 million years ago.
Temnospondyls were found in the Moenkopi Formation in Cameron in the 1950s. Temnospondyls is considered a primitive amphibian, and many have flat heads resembling alligators and smaller reptilian bodies. Temnospondyls went extinct around 120 million years ago.
Many early reptiles were found in the Kayenta Formation in the Adeii Eichii Cliffs east of Cameron in the 1980s and 90s. Prosalirus was an early Jurassic jumping frog and Eocaecilia was an early salamander with limbs.
Other reptiles including Kayentachelys (Jurassic turtle), Navajosphenodon (early lizard), and Rhamphinion (flying reptile) were also found in the same area.
Protosuchus is thought to be an early crocodile relative from the early Jurassic Period. It was about 3 feet long and weighed 88 pounds. It was found in Dinosaur Canyon in the Moenave formation, northeast of Cameron.
Also resembling a tiny crocodile was Hesperosuchus, which was also found in the Chinle Formation in Cameron, close to the Old Tanner Crossing of the Little Colorado River, where a lot of Triassic vertebrate has been discovered. It was a fast runner and had many small teeth. It lived around 220 million years ago.
“New” finds
Marsh is originally from Indiana but now lives in Holbrook living out his childhood dream of being a paleontologist at the Petrified Forest National Park. He is also on the Holbrook City Council.
Marsh travels the Southwest helping with different finds. In March, he went to Glen Canyon Recreation Site to help with what the National Park Service calls one of the most important fossil vertebrate found in the U.S. this year.
“The water was historically low to the point where someone on a bathroom break found a bone bed in the Navajo Sandstone,” Marsh said. “So we had an emergency salvage permit from Glen Canyon to go up and get them before the water rose again.”
The crew excavated the first Tritylodontid bonebed found in the Navajo Sandstone in Utah, which includes bones and teeth. According to the NPS, “Studying these fossils will help paleontologists learn more about how early mammal relatives survived the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic Period and diversified through the Jurassic Period.”
Currently, Marsh is researching some newly found crocodiles from the Kayenta formation, Gold Spring and Rockhead areas. He uses digital CT scans to map out all their vertebrate and bones.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Who first claimed the Navajo Nation? Some had scales, some had horns, and some had beaks.
Dinosaurs roamed the Nation starting over 200 million years ago. Some remnants, like the Moenkopi dinosaur tracks that reside in Tuba City are well known, but there have been dozens of other fossils that have been uncovered and are continuing to be discovered on and around the Nation.
The lead paleontologist of the Petrified National Forest, Adam D. Marsh, PhD, talked about some of the discoveries to an overflowing crowd during his talk, “Dinosaurs of the Navajo Nation,” given at the Museum of Northern Arizona during the Flagstaff Festival of Science Sept. 26.
“The Navajo know fossils are on heir land, and they’re meaningful to them,” Marsh said. “Dinosaur tracks have been described as birds or big lizards tracks in their oral ceremonies (since time immemorial).”
Marsh said the USGS was behind the first geological surveys on the Nation in 1869 and dinosaur fossils started to be found in the 1930s.
A few of the dinosaurs that Marsh talked about in his lecture were found by Navajos.
In 1933, Kayenta resident Max Littlesalt, along with members of naturalist Ansel Hall’s exploration party, found a small meat-eating dinosaur, Segisaurus, at Tsegi Canyon.
The specimen was discovered in early Jurassic strata, is the only known specimen, and is the only dinosaur to have ever been excavated from the area. It is around 3 feet wide and 9-15 pounds.
In 1940, Tuba City resident Jesse William discovered two skeletons of the large meat-eating dinosaur, Dilophosaurus. Two years later, paleontologists Sam Welles and Dr. Camp were on expeditions on Navajo land and William led Welles’ team to the skeleton, where it was excavated.
Dilophosaurus lived 186 million years ago in the early Jurassic Period. It stood on two feet and had a huge tail and two large distinctive crests on its head. The dinosaur is highlighted in the movie, Jurassic Park, but producers added neck frills that protruded when angry. At 6 feet tall and over 20 feet long, its only true predator was the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Both the Segisaurus and Dilophosaurus fossils are housed at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley, California. But the public was able to view other Navajo Nation dinosaurs in the special collections area of the Museum of Northern Arizona before Marsh’s talk.
The fossils remain property of the Navajo Nation. For around 15 years, MNA has been the sole repository for Navajo Nation fossils. Anyone wishing to conduct scientific investigations of the land needs to apply to the Navajo Nation Minerals Department in Window Rock and receive a permit.
“They’ve been nothing but helpful and we continue to have a relationship with them,” Marsh said.
Marsh said researchers from around the world visit Flagstaff to study the specimens, and they are instrumental to understanding Deep Time, evolution and mass extinctions, especially in the early part of the Mesozoic era – Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic periods.
Also in the MNA collections is a large slab of rock from a dig of a Coelophysis from Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico.
Coelophysis is one of the earliest known dinosaurs, living as early as 228 million years ago. It was small and slender, and could have been about 10 feet long. It walked on two feet, was a fast runner and a meat eater. The first remains were found in 1881 in the Chinle formation, and in 1947 an entire “graveyard” of Coelophysis was found in Ghost Ranch.
Many dinosaurs and early reptiles are named after where they are found on the Navajo Nation. One dinosaur is even called Navajoceratops, meaning “Navajo horned faced.” It looked like a giant triceratops, but with two horns instead of three. It lived in the late Cretaceous Period, around 75 million years ago. It was found in 2002 in the Kirtland Formation, west of Shiprock, New Mexico.
More than dinosaurs
It isn’t just dinosaurs that have been found on the Nation, either. Other amphibians and even mammals have been found.
Fossils of 40 Placerias were found near St. Johns, in the Chinle formation in the 1930s. Placerias lived during the Triassic Period 230 million years ago. They were mammal-like herbivores, and have been compared to a modern-day hippo, but with a beak as well as two short tusks.
Early amphibians and crocodile-like reptiles were rampant in northern Arizona when it was abundant with water 120 – 220 million years ago.
Temnospondyls were found in the Moenkopi Formation in Cameron in the 1950s. Temnospondyls is considered a primitive amphibian, and many have flat heads resembling alligators and smaller reptilian bodies. Temnospondyls went extinct around 120 million years ago.
Many early reptiles were found in the Kayenta Formation in the Adeii Eichii Cliffs east of Cameron in the 1980s and 90s. Prosalirus was an early Jurassic jumping frog and Eocaecilia was an early salamander with limbs.
Other reptiles including Kayentachelys (Jurassic turtle), Navajosphenodon (early lizard), and Rhamphinion (flying reptile) were also found in the same area.
Protosuchus is thought to be an early crocodile relative from the early Jurassic Period. It was about 3 feet long and weighed 88 pounds. It was found in Dinosaur Canyon in the Moenave formation, northeast of Cameron.
Also resembling a tiny crocodile was Hesperosuchus, which was also found in the Chinle Formation in Cameron, close to the Old Tanner Crossing of the Little Colorado River, where a lot of Triassic vertebrate has been discovered. It was a fast runner and had many small teeth. It lived around 220 million years ago.
“New” finds
Marsh is originally from Indiana but now lives in Holbrook living out his childhood dream of being a paleontologist at the Petrified Forest National Park. He is also on the Holbrook City Council.
Marsh travels the Southwest helping with different finds. In March, he went to Glen Canyon Recreation Site to help with what the National Park Service calls one of the most important fossil vertebrate found in the U.S. this year.
“The water was historically low to the point where someone on a bathroom break found a bone bed in the Navajo Sandstone,” Marsh said. “So we had an emergency salvage permit from Glen Canyon to go up and get them before the water rose again.”
The crew excavated the first Tritylodontid bonebed found in the Navajo Sandstone in Utah, which includes bones and teeth. According to the NPS, “Studying these fossils will help paleontologists learn more about how early mammal relatives survived the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic Period and diversified through the Jurassic Period.”
Currently, Marsh is researching some newly found crocodiles from the Kayenta formation, Gold Spring and Rockhead areas. He uses digital CT scans to map out all their vertebrate and bones.