Paleontological Resource Inventory and Monitoring—Sierra Nevada Network

Santucci, Vincent; Kenworthy, Jason

Paleontological resources (fossils) are any remains of past life preserved in a geologic context. Paleontological resources are non-renewable resources found in more than 180 National Park Service units. Despite the abundance and diversity of these resources throughout the NPS, few parks have 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 appropriate management of these resources. This report presents a paleontological resource summary for the parks of the Sierra Nevada Network. The summary was compiled through extensive literature review and interviews with park staff and professional geologists and paleontologists. Preliminary paleontological resource management recommendations are also included for each park. Similar summaries have already been prepared for 16 other NPS Inventory and Monitoring Networks. The National Inventory and Monitoring Program provided funding to complete these paleontological resource summaries for each of the remaining networks. Despite the primarily igneous and metamorphic geology of the Sierra Nevada Network, fossils are known from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and Yosemite National Park. These fossils occur both in situ within the parks and as part of parks’ museum collections. The more than 225 caves within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are the source of the parks’ paleontological resources. Highly deformed Triassic-Jurassic marine invertebrates are known from the metamorphosed limestones making up the bedrock where the caves are located. Two of these marine invertebrates (ammonites) are within Sequoia-Kings Canyon museum collections. The caves themselves preserve a rich assemblage of Pleistocene-Holocene fauna and flora. Packrat middens and lake sediment cores within Sequoia-Kings Canyon provided the basis for paleoecological reconstruction of the Sierra Nevada area dating back to the Pleistocene. A number of researchers from NPS, U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Arizona University and other institutions have studied the fossil resources from Sequoia-Kings Canyon. Paleontological resources are rare in Yosemite National Park. The park’s collections include some fossil material from outside of the park in addition to rare marine invertebrate fossils found in metamorphosed sediments within the park. Fossil flora and pollen recovered within lake sediment cores in the park (along with similar data from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks) contribute to a greater understanding of the post-glacial vegetation throughout the Sierra Nevada.

Paleontological Resource Inventory and Monitoring—Sierra Nevada Network

Series

Collections