Paleontological resources monitoring at Fossil Point, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve: 2019 field report
Lanik A, Ruga MR, Hults CP, Schmid CE. 2024. Paleontological resources monitoring at Fossil Point, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve: 2019 field report. Natural Resource Report. NPS/LACL/NRR—2024/2635. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado. https://doi.org/10.36967/2300633
Fossil Point is an exceptionally rich and scientifically important fossil locality found in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. The rocks at Fossil Point are known for their abundant and well-preserved Middle Jurassic invertebrate fossils, including bivalves, ammonites, and belemnites. The abundance and quality, as well as the relatively easy coastal access, makes the fossils at Fossil Point vulnerable to unauthorized collection. Anecdotal evidence suggests that collection without a permit is occurring at Fossil Point and has been for decades. Monitoring of the prevalence and scale of unauthorized collecting was initiated at Fossil Point in 2018 (Lanik et al. 2019). The findings of the 2018 fieldwork indicated that visitors to Fossil Point were exhibiting behaviors related to fossil collection. However, flaws in the study design made it impossible to differentiate if the loss of fossils over the summer season was related to natural erosional processes or anthropogenic activity. This report summarizes monitoring of fossils and visitors at Fossil Point in the summer (May-August) of 2019. This study built upon the monitoring of the previous summer and the purpose was twofold: (1) assess visitation to Fossil Point, and (2) document the loss of paleontological resources via unauthorized collection.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Lanik, Amanda; Ruga, Mikaela; Hults, Chad; Schmid, Claire
- Date of Issue
- 2024-03
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- DOI
- 10.36967/2300633
- Units
- AKR , LACL , NRSS
- Keywords
- ammonite, belemnite, bivalve, Fossil Point, fossils, Jurassic, paleontological resources
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Paleontology | Paleontology