The following is a chronological list of feature articles (with the volume and number) that were published in the Bulletin between 1996 and 2005. A complete set of the bulletins is available for viewing at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.

Fossil Rhinoceros Discovered(Teleocerastooth from Scotts Valley) 1(1).
Secrets of Past Plants (Flora of the Monterey Formation, Scotts Valley) 1(1)
Diatoms 1(2)
Watsonville Mammoth 1(2)
The Ancient Paradox (Extinct marine mammals called desmostylians) 1(3)
A Living Relic of the Miocene (Snaggletooth sharks) 1(4)
Tracks through Time (Trace Fossils at Point Lobos) 2(1)
Fossil Birds 2(2)
Evolution of a Dollar (Origin of the sand dollar Dendraster) 2(3)
Saga of the Sea Cow 2(4)
Recollections of a "Dinosaur" Hunter (discovering a Metoposaur at the Petrified Forest, Arizona) 3(1)
Of Concretions, Sea Serpents, and Ancient Ruins (19th century stories about concretions) 3(2)
It's About Time (A primer on geologic time with local examples) 3(3)
Every Fossil Tells a Story (The story of the slipper shell) 3(4)
Tales of Ancient Whales 4(1)
In Praise of the Imperfect (Why imperfect fossils can be of scientific importance) 4(2)
Local Discoveries Made 19th Century Headlines (Early fossil finds near Santa Cruz) 4(3)
And the Results Are...(Fossils salvaged during development of the Graham Quarry, Scotts Valley) 4(3)
Seashells and Mountain Tops - An Excursion into the Mesozoic. 4(4)
Dinosaurs in California 5(1)
Reinventing the Walrus 5(2)
Ghosts of Oceans Past (Trace fossils of Ghost Shrimp) 5(3)
Fossil Collection Enters the Computer age (Putting the collections of the Santa Cruz City Museum on computer) 5(3)
Fossil Identification at a Snail's Pace (How scientific names change) 5(4)
Why Cold Seeps are a Hot Topic 6(1)
In the Jaws of a Dilemma (about the evolutionary history of the Great White Shark) 6(2)
Petrified and Not So Petrified Wood. 6(3)
Mammoths, Mastodons, & Mysteries of the Past. 6(4)
The Perils of Paleogeography. 7(1)
Recycling Fossils (fossils reworked from older rocks) 7(2)
The Challenge of Scientific Names. 7(2)
They Dined on Mammoths... (Condor evolution) 7(3)
Knowledge and "Progress" (quotations) 7(3)
The Urban Paleontologist (field trip guide) 7:4
Stepping Back in Time (marine terraces) 8:1
Point Lobos Revisited (trace fossil named) 8:2
Bringing Fossils to Life (Seacliff Beach exhibit) 8:3
The Monterey Pine Through Geologic Time 8:4
Exploring the Coastline (West Cliff Drive Field Trip) 9:1
When Fossils Break The Rules (unusually occurrences) 9:2
Geology Road Trip (Through Santa Cruz County) 9:3
Jurassic Park Meets Star Wars (similarities between paleontology and astronomy) 9:4

A headline like this one easily conjures up images of a giant skeleton laid out in an excavation, its lifeless but intact form still partly entombed in sandstone. Oh, how I wish! But one need not discover an entire set of bones to prove an animal once lived in a particular area. To the trained observer, a single fossil bone or tooth, or even a piece of one, can do quite nicely.

Stan Jarocki of Santa Cruz found more than just a piece of a tooth, he found nearly an entire molar. This might at first not seem like much, but it is the first definite record of a rhinoceros from the Santa Cruz Mountains. His discovery adds a new member to the list of land mammals found in the Santa Margarita Formation, a deposit of sand and gravel laid down some 10 to 12 million years ago in what is now the Scotts Valley region.

Like many groups of mammals, rhinoceroses (or is it rhinoceri?) were much more diverse and widely distributed in the geologic past. The Rhinoceros family dates back to the late Eocene and early Oligocene (30 to 40 million years ago). There were numerous species, and they flourished in a variety of habitats throughout North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. One kind from Asia, called Indricotherium, was the largest mammal that ever lived. It is estimated to have weighed over four times that of the heaviest recorded elephant! By five million years ago, rhinocerouses had become extinct in North America. The Wooley Rhinocerous, however, invaded the northern part of the continent from Asia during the Ice Age before it, too, disappeared. Only five species occur today, all in Africa and Asia.

The tooth, found near Scotts Valley, appears to be from an animal called Teleoceras.More complete remains found elsehwere show that it had hippopotamus-like proportions with a short horn and stubby legs. The rhinocerous horn is made of matted hair, not bone, and does not fossilize. Nevertheless, details on the skull give clues to the horn's size. Many years ago a skull from Teleoceraswas found in rocks of similar age near the town of Rodeo, north of Oakland.

Teleoceraswas hippo-like both in build, and in habitat preferences. It liked to hang out in rivers, lakes, and streams. Because it lived where sediments were being deposited, its remains were often buried in sediments and eventually fossilized. It reached a length of 13 feet.

The Santa Margarita Formation mostly contains marine fossils such as sand dollars, shark teeth, and remains of marine mammals such as whales and pinnipeds (sea lions and kin). Fossils of land animals are scarce, making Stan's find all the more important. Other land mammals found in the same deposit include three kinds of horses, camels, and an elephant-like beast called Gomphotherium.

Looking back over the fossil record of these incredible creatures brings to mind the urgent need to protect the few remaining rhinocerous species. We are privileged that we can still see them as living, breathing animals. They are literally relicts of past geologic ages, and indeed they look the part.

--Frank Perry

Teloceras

To top of page

Collecting fossils is only half the fun. The next job is trying to identifiy them. This can be just as challenging as the search for that perfect specimen.

Some twenty years ago, while researching a booklet on Santa Cruz County fossils, I came across a citation to an article published in 1928 summarizing the "fauna and flora" of the Monterey Formation. Having found a number of leaf imprints in shale from this formation near Scotts Valley, I was excited to discover a reference on the flora of these rocks. I eventually tracked down the volume in the bowels of the old Science Library at U.C. Santa Cruz. When I finally found the article, my excitement faded. The paper turned out to be about diatoms--not exactly my idea of flora. Diatoms are single-celled organisms that used to be considered plants because they are photosynthetic. Today, most biologists classify them as protists.

It wasn't until several years later, when I showed the leaf imprints to a specialist on California's Cenozoic land plants, that I finally got some of my questions answered.

The Monterey Formation is a Middle Miocene marine deposit that occurs at many localities in the Coast Ranges of central and southern California. It was originally named from outcrops near the city of Monterey, but also occurs locally in the mountains near Scotts Valley and at Point Año Nuevo. Having been deposited by the sea, it mostly contains fossils of marine organisms. These include plankton, trace fossils, fish, marine mammals, and mollusks. But like many marine deposits laid down close to shore, it also contains a smattering of terrestrial fossils. Undoubtedly, the leaves and other debris were transported into the sea by rivers--a process we can readily observe today.

Many of the leaf imprints in the Monterey Formation are incomplete. This is not surprising in light of the considerable distance they likely traveled prior to final deposition. If you try to identify the tattered leaves that wash up on the beach after a storm, you will get a feel for what paleobotanists are up against.

Fortunately, several of the fossil leaves are complete enough to be identified. There is canyon oak (Quercus chrysolepis),pine (Pinus), mountain mahogany (Cerocarpus),blackbead (Pithecellobium),avocado (Persea),and the genus Cordia(a shrub in the borage family). Fragments of grass and wood have also been found. Fossil pollen recovered from the formation includes that of pine, willow (Salix),and hickory (Carya).

Although we have but a tiny sample of this ancient flora, it clearly indicates a climate different from the present. We still have pines, canyon oaks, and willows growing along the central California coast, but avocado, blackbead, and Cordiaare subtropical and no longer native to the region. Cordia is native to southern Florida, southern Texas and Mexico. Blackbead is also native to southern Texas and Mexico. Avocados readily grow here in gardens, but they need summer water (they are native to the subtropics and tropics). Hickory is mostly native to the eastern U.S., but also grows in the highlands of Mexico.

Overall, the flora points to a Miocene climate that was milder and with significant summer rainfall. This is not surprising, for fossil evidence from elsewhere in California (and throughout the world) shows that there has been an overall cooling trend during the past 65 million years. Palms, cycads and other tropical vegitation occupied California when dinosaurs reigned. Since then, the climate has cooled and developed greater seasonality. Global changes such as shifting continents, the resultant changes in air and ocean currents, and the uplift of mountain ranges such as the Sierra, are thought to have played a major role in the climate shift.

--Frank Perry

To top of page

Often it is during major construction projects, when large amounts of rock are being moved, that unusual discoveries are made. That's exactly what happened in 1973 when Highway 1 was widened between Watsonville and Aptos. To obtain additional gravel needed for the project, Granite Construction Company opened a quarry on nearby Buena Vista Drive where the county landfill is today. It was during this quarrying that a heavy equipment operator exposed a mammoth tusk and two giant teeth. Granite Construction Company agreed to donate the fossils to the Santa Cruz City Museum of Natural History so that they could be preserved, studied, and displayed. The fossils arrived at the museum in boxes - several boxes, and in pieces - many pieces. Despite assurances that all of it had been retrieved, I had my doubts. Some of the fossils could have been destroyed by the equipment, and there were rumors that souvenir hunters had kept some pieces. One of the foot-long teeth was complete; half of the other tooth was missing. Fortunately, most of the tusk sections fit together. Altogether it was about 7 feet long. There was only one gap where the tusk sections did not match. This was near the outer end. Since I didn't know how much was missing, I simply set the last piece in line with the rest of the tusk and did not fasten them together.

The Watsonville find was not the first time mammoth fossils turned up locally. A report dated 1909 tells of a well-preserved jaw of a Columbian Mammoth found "near Aptos" and of a tooth of the same species discovered "immediately northwest" of Santa Cruz. In 1983 a tusk and two teeth from this species weathered out of the cliffs at Año Nuevo State Reserve. These used to be on display at the park visitor center but are currently in storage. A cast of one of the teeth is in a diorama at the Santa Cruz City Museum of Natural History.

The Watsonville tusk and one of the associated teeth were on display at the City Museum for many years but are not presently on display due to limited space and the need for a change of exhibits. The story of their discovery, however, continues to unfold. Recently a small box arrived at the Museum. In it were specimens being transferred from the Pajaro Valley Historical Association (P.V.H.A.) Museum. Guess what was in the box. Would you believe the missing section of tusk? Well, it sure looked like it. It was the right size (about 8 inches long) and shape, and it had the same gray and white color and pitted texture. And it even came with a hand-written label: "Piece of tusk found by construction worker in 1974 off Buena Vista Drive." The date was off by a year, but this could be an error.

Now the big question: Would it fit? Sally Legakis of the Museum and I retrieved the original specimen and carefully laid it out on a table. We tried all the possible combinations of old and new connections. The new specimen was the right size to fit in that gap. It was close, oh so close. Alas, the pieces just didnÕt quite articulate. Still, seeing the pieces side by side, it was clear that the new section was part of the same tusk. So, at least we now have another 8 inches of it. And it's still possible that, given more time and effort, the piece will fit precisely. There is a box of several dozen fragments, left over from the original mount, that may hold the key. For 20 years neither museum knew that the other had part of the same specimen. It was only because the P.V.H.A. decided that the fossils, not being historical artifacts, belonged in a natural sciences museum, that the specimens were united. Now that most of the tusk is in one place (we hope), does anyone know where the other half of the tooth is?

--Frank Perry

Further Reading: Mammothsby Adrian Lister and Paul Bahn (New York: Macmillan, 1994).

Mammoth tooth

To top of page

In May of 1998 a paleontological salvage operation was conducted at the old Graham Quarry in Scotts Valley. The developer of the site, who was building a mini-storage facility, was required to have paleontologists monitor the earth-moving activities and salvage any fossils that were discovered. The site was in the Miocene Santa Margarita Formation and was famous for abundant fossil shark teeth. It was popular with amateur collectors and educational groups beginning in the 1950s, and it's a shame that it has been lost. Curiously, no formal scientific study had ever been conducted there by professional paleontologists. So it was important to carry out such a study before the locality was covered. All of the fossils that were collected have been deposited in a museum where they will be available for continued study by scientists.

Dr. Fran Govean of Petra Paleontology, the consulting firm which conducted the mitigation work, kindly supplied a copy of the final report. Dr. Govean is also a member of our society. According to the report, several thousand fossils were recovered, including 1,229 that were deemed scientifically significant. The latter fell into several categories: 1) fossils useful in comparative studies, 2) specimens considered rare, 3) specimens applicable to the study of marine mammal evolution, 4) fossils useful in chemical testing, and 5) a new record (that of a sea turtle) for the locality.

Not surprisingly, shark teeth were an important component of the collection. Eight different kinds of sharks were identified from teeth: the shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus),mackerel shark (Isurus planus),a second mackerel shark (Isurus hastalis),bigtooth shark (Carcharocles megalodon),snaggletooth shark (Hemipristis serra),tiger shark (Galeocerdo sp.),ragged-tooth shark (Odontaspis sp.)and gray shark (Carcharhinus sp.).Teeth of the bat ray (Myliobatis sp.)were also collected.

Two types of bony fishes were found, both represented by teeth. Fifty-three teeth were from the sheepshead fish (Semicossyphus sp.). Also found were the plate-like teeth of the porcupine fish (family Diodontidae). Members of this family prefer warm seas and are only rarely found in the waters off California today.

Marine mammal fossils included bones and teeth of sea cows, pinnipeds, whales, and dolphins. Particularly significant was the discovery of several teeth of desmostylians (dez-moe-STY-lee-uns). This family of extinct hippopotamus-like marine mammals is only known from the North Pacific rim and their remains are relatively rare.

Several coprolites (fossilized excrement) were found in the gravels. The coprolites contain the bone and tooth fragments of ingested food and provide clues to the feeding habits of Miocene marine predators. Plates from the leatherback sea turtle, Psephorphorus,were also found. In the living animal, these plates fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to form the turtle's carapace. This genus ranges from the Eocene to Miocene in North America and was similar to the modern leatherback, Dermochelys, which is sometimes seen in Monterey Bay.

The development of the old Graham Sand Quarry helped make Scotts Valley officials aware of the scientific importance of local fossils. Such scientifically important fossils are protected under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and are supposed to be given protection equal to that of archaeological artifacts. But frequently these regulations are not enforced, often through ignorance and through reluctance to add yet another layer of bureaucracy to the permit process. Since the Graham project, the City of Scotts Valley has required paleontological site evaluations and, when appropriate, mitigation measures for several other developments.

--Frank Perry

To top of page

home