The Giant Carnivorous Sea Snail Clinopegma stantoni

The story of Clinopegma stantoni has been simmering here in Santa Cruz County for the past 116 years but is one that has been 5 million years in the making!  A little background on the name and history of this giant sea snail: Clino refers to slope and pegma is peg = pointed stick  The species is named in honor of Dr. Timothy W. Stanton, chief paleontologist. United States Geological Survey, whose work on Mesozoic faunas is well known.

The genus Clinopegma was named by Ulysses S. Grant, IV and Hoyt Rodney Gale published in 1931 in their monumental work on Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil mollusks of California.  Interestingly, here, U.S. Grant the IV, was the grandson of Ulysses S. Grant the first, president of the United States.  His grandson became a distinguished professor of paleontology at Berkeley

With regards to Clinopegma stantoni the species was named by Ralph Arnold in 1908 from the Año Nuevo park on the south side of the point in the upper member of the Purisima Fm. between Tunitas Creek and Pescadero Creek and near Ano Nuevo Creek in San Mateo County and also between New Brighton and Capitola beaches here in Santa Cruz and a couple other minor places and that’s it!

Coincidentally, Arnold also named a brand new species of Brittle Star, Amphiura sanctaecrucis that very same year of 1908 and that was discovered high up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and recently re-discovered en masse, dozens of individuals, in what’s called a brittle bed, but more on that in the movie…

“From the Ancient Sea, to the Rock, to the Lab, and Onward to the Museum”

 

This is WT967; the extinct sand dollar Dendraster ashleyi (Arnold, 1907) or Dendraster gibbsii (Rémond, 1863).  Discovered in May 2024 embedded in its 5 million year old sandy seafloor tomb, now turned to stone on a Santa Cruz beach, this specimen has been prepared and is on on its way to the Department of Invertebrate Geology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco as a small component of our scientific research into the paleontology and evolution of life in the ancient Monterey Bay.  We are additionally examining the Pliocene current-protected sediments from under these ancient sand dollars for microscopic fossilized plankton called foraminifera to help us refine the age and environments that these faunas represent.  Very exciting ongoing research happening here at Pacific Paleontology Labs.

“THE DEVELOPMENTAL ARCHITECTURE OF SIX ARTICULATED ROCKFALLS FROM 2020 to JANUARY, 2023: RF10.20A-F”

 

One of the more important pieces that I didn’t fully convey in the video is that from this and other rockfalls happening here, several hundred in all, my colleagues and I have recorded from the rock history record several dozen fossil species that indicate the potential for much warmer periods of water in Monterey Bay if you go back several million years.  These species have never been known from this region in the past and, of the ones that are not extinct today, represent species with modern ranges that are much further south.  More data needs to be collected and analyzed before we can make definitive conclusions, but the outlook initially is for periods of warmer water in Monterey Bay and Eustatic sea levels much higher than today by several hundreds of feet.  And we are also discovering and describing new species that have never been known to science until now as well, all of which is very exciting!   “This is the story of six articulated rock falls in Santa Cruz, California, that I mapped over time: it all started very small with a very small rock fall back in 2020…

"Sand Dollars Under the Sea: Fossil Sand Dollar Extraction and Prep"

 

This is an example of Dendraster ashleyi or Dandraster gibbsii; we believe the two are synonymous.  This is one of the most common fossil sand dollars found in Santa Cruz.  There are some other specimens from our area that look more closely like Dendraster excentricus but those are extremely rare, only two specimens are known, and there is another species in a different genus called Scuttellaster of the species oregonensis that are found more commonly in the south bay but these are beautiful fossils; They are all extinct species, no longer living today, and they are gorgeous to find along the beach especially in the strand line, and just very beautiful.  The genus Dendraster living today out in the Bay form big colonies on the bottom of the ocean if you dive down under surface you can see them there forming a purple carpet, all nestled in the sand at about a 45-degree angle.  Here's one of the living species on the left hand side and on the right is the fossil, probably ancestral to the modern one.

#paleontologist, #paleontology, #SantaCruz #santacruzcounty #pacificpaleontology

Pacific Paleontology #FossilFriday #beachfossils #fossils #fossilhunting

#fieldworkresearch #beachcombing #santacruzmuseum #montereybay

#scmnh #universityofcaliforniamuseumofpaleontology #ucmp

#californiaacademyofsciences #academyofsciences #ucmpberkeley

#lacmip #nhmla #fosssilprep #paleo #purisima #PurisimaFormation #sanddollar

#fosssilprep #paleo #purisima

 “And… That’s a Wrap”

We are wrapping up our first paleontological mitigation contract here in my hometown of Scotts Valley and we took this opportunity for a promotional marketing photoshoot over the weekend for our new business website.  Pacific Paleontology was hired to monitor a small subdivision construction project here that involved digging down into the Santa Margarita Formation layer of rock, which is about 10-12 million years old.  This is a rock layer that is common in our area, is one that I have been studying here for the past four decades, and have discovered many hundreds of fossils from, primarily sharks.  The marine vertebrate fauna includes toothed and baleen whales, sharks, fish, rays, skates, dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, birds, pinnipeds (eared and earless seals and primitive walruses), sirenians, and desmostylians, among others.  Marine clams, snails, and other invertebrates also occur here and are highly diverse in the local region.  Terrestrial vertebrates, such as camels and horses, as well as rare woody plants are also known to occur in the Santa Margarita.  No fossils were uncovered during construction in the massive medium-grained unconsolidated sands that used to make up the bottom of the ocean here.  Now that the grading is completed, Pacific Paleontology is tasked with producing the reports that will show compliance of the project to federal, state, and local legislation for the conservation of protected historical resources.  These regulations are relatively new within the past 20 years, and our understanding of the evolutionary history of life in California and elsewhere has advanced significantly due to the recovery of fossils through these protections.  As a coincidental aside, I worked closely onsite with Tracy Miller of MTM Tractor.  As it turns out, Tracy and I have a history together!  The last time we saw each other he was in jr. high and I was in high school and we were working together at a local restaurant in town; so we had some catching up to do!  Small world!!!

For more information on the fossils of the Santa Margarita Formation check out our video on the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History website: https://www.santacruzmuseum.org/naturalist-night-santa-cruz-sandhills/ 

#Paleontologist, #paleontology,  #SantaCruz, #mitigation, #mitigationpaleontology, #pacificpaleontology, #fossil, #fossilhunting, #santacruzmuseum, #fosssilprep, #fossil, #scottsvalley, #Miocene, #SantaMargarita, #SantaMargaritaFormation, 

 

“Rock Removal is About to Get a Lot Easier!”

 

When a fossil is found in the rock, paleontologists don’t actually just dig the fossil itself out of the rock but they remove it along with a block of the surrounding rock, called matrix, to later be prepared further in the lab. Like this 4 million year old ?Macoma sp. clam you see here, the matrix needs to be carefully cut back or completely removed, depending upon the fragility of the fossil.  Here you see traditional hand pick removal of the matrix, which fine-tunes the block for later compact storage in a public museum!  That method is about to be augmented with pneumatic help.

With our new small business development grant I’ll be purchasing two new air scribes; the “Velociraptor Mark II” and the “T. rex” from Zoic Palaeotech.  I’ve wanted air scribes for quite awhile, but have never been able to afford them for prep work until now!  Looking forward to upping my prep game now that my business is off the ground.

zoicpaleotech.com/ 

Patterns & Processes in Rockfall Dynamics from 1977-2022

 

The author in about 1977.  My dog Blackie in the foreground.

Since 1977 when I was 17 I have been fascinated by the dynamic nature of our coast here along the Monterey Bay.  I can never go down to the same shore twice; it’s in constant flux, never the same as it was the day before.  One of the things that I have been tracking as a paleontologist here are the rockfalls that are continually happening as a coastal erosional process.  These rockfalls are singularly amazing, not only in

Capitola Beach looking toward New Brighton, early 1900's and 2019.

their size and scope, but in the history of our bay that they reveal.  With each new fall, like turning the pages of a book, new information comes to light and a more complete picture of the history of our bay begins to form in my mind.  This process is a decadal revelation; only imaginable over long periods of time, with emergent information coming to light in the longer scale that is not visible from year to year.  Not year-to-

The scale of some of these rockfalls is immense.  Here is Susan for perspective.

year; but more expansive time over 10-, 20-, 30-, and 40-years that allows one to understand geological time, Deep Time, better.  With each turn of the page, new and varied creatures are revealed that were not known before and more details of the ancient physical oceanography of the California coast emerges with each new strata set that comes to the light of day.  Interacting with a single place over a large expanse

My dog Blackie and I taking a break from prospecting, The Point, 1980.

of time such as this can engage one in processes that are not visible in the day to day.  There is a larger periodicity of non-random dynamic processes that overlies a place such as this.  Some of those processes present themselves to me, others may only be inferred over even larger expanses of time, not known to a single life span.  I will end with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Pulitzer Prize winning Wallace Stegner

Rockfall 10.20 is a series of interconnected and developmentally related rockfalls, 2020.

who has written some of my most comforting literature on the American west.  I came to know Wallace, or rather his writing, through my father, who I did not really know at all in the sense of “father” since he past away when I was 5.  From a longing to know who my father was, I was introduced to Wallace, since my father and Wallace

grew up in the same small Canadian town together, Eastend, in the early 1900’s.  In reading the words of Stegner it allowed me to feel close to the father I never knew, and at the same time allowed me to learn an appreciation for a sense of place.  This is a quote from one of Wallace’s last essays, the year before he died at age 84; from “The

Sense of Place” by Wallace Stegner. Copyright 1992 by Wallace Stegner. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. “So I must believe that, at least to human perception, a place is not a place until people have been born in it, have grown up in it, lived in it, known it, died in it – have both experienced and shaped it, as individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities, over more than one generation. Some are born in their place, some find it, some realize after long searching that the place they left is the one they have been searching for. But whatever their relation to it, it is made a place only by slow accrual, like a coral reef.”  I hope you all have a strong sense of place, wherever that may be, however diversified, however tangible or conceptual. In this particular place on Earth I am comforted, because it recalls the work of Wallace Stegner, who in turn certainly knew my father, and by such circuitous routes I, too, can know my father.

#Paleontologist, #paleontology, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #beachfossils, #SantaCruz, #santacruzcounty, #fossil, #fossilhunting, #fieldwork, #beachcombing, #santacruzmuseum, #MontereyBay, #SCMNH, #mitigationpaleontology, #universityofcaliforniamuseumofpaleontology, #UCMP, #californiaacademyofscience, #academyofscience,  #ucmpberkeley, #LACMIP, #NHMLA, 

#sierraclub, #Monterey, #fosssilprep, #paleo, #montereycounty, #Purisima, #PurisimaFormation, #fossil, #gastropod, #Constructionsite, #fossilhunting, #collectingtechniques, #Bivalve, #Research, #Pliocene, #foundartifacts, #fossilpreservation, #invertpaleo, #vertpaleo, #taphonomy, #fossilcollections, #museumcuration, #collectionsmanagement, #fossilcollection, #fossilcollector, #fossilconservation, #digitization, #onlinecollections, #Rockfalls, #Coastalerosion, #Dynamiccoast, #Landslide, #Stratigraphy, #GeologicalProcesses, #Geology,   #FossilFriday

Olivella's graveyard at Pandora's Cave!

Here is Olivella's Graveyard (now referred to the genus Callianax) at Pandora's Cave, New Brighton State Beach; the first shell bed unconformably overlying the finer sandstone layer immediately below it.  One can see here bivalves such as Leukoma and Macoma, a naticid, perhaps Natica clausa, and the Nassariids Demondia californicus and Nassarius.  Portions of this shell layer, which does not stretch continuously for the entire length of the section and is thus more aptly referred to as a Lag or Shell Bed or Lens, consists partly of concreted shell blobs and loosely concentrated shells in which the gastropods are preserved mostly whole and the bivalves are predominantly broken prior to burial.  Olivella's Graveyard represents a moderately shallow water (27-46m) storm deposit and is one of many dozens of examples of "missing time", or  unconformities, in the evolutionary record of our Monterey Bay where once-existing layers have been eroded away by storms during the Pliocene Period about 3 million years ago, never to be seen again.

#Paleontologist, #paleontology, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #beachfossils,

#SantaCruz, #santacruzcounty, #fossil, #fossilhunting, #fieldwork, #beachcombing, #santacruzmuseum,

#MontereyBay, #SCMNH, #mitigationpaleontology, #universityofcaliforniamuseumofpaleontology,

#UCMP, #californiaacademyofscience, #academyofscience,  #ucmpberkeley, #LACMIP, #NHMLA, #sierraclub, #Monterey, #fosssilprep, #paleo, #montereycounty, #Purisima, #PurisimaFormation, #fossil, #gastropod, #Constructionsite, #fossilhunting, #collectingtechniques, #Bivalve, #Research, #Pliocene, #foundartifacts, #fossilpreservation, #invertpaleo, #vertpaleo, #taphonomy, #FossilFriday

Life's Perfect Circle...

 

I am happy to share that I’m adding a new position as Paleontology Collections Advisor at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History to my schedule! I officially began my career as a paleontologist with the museum 46 years ago now, in 1976 when I was 16. It brings me unparalleled joy to now be working with the museum once again, completing my life's circle with the original institution that I began with all those years ago. https://www.santacruzmuseum.org/

#Paleontologist, #paleontology, #pacificpaleontology, #beachfossils, #SantaCruz, #santacruzcounty, #fossil, #museum, #fossilhunting, #fieldwork, #beachcombing, #santacruzmuseum, #MontereyBay, #SCMNH, #digitization, #museumcollections, #fosssilprep, #paleo, #fossil, #Research, #career, #share #foundartifacts, #fossilpreservation, #invertpaleo, #vertpaleo, #taphonomy, #fossilcollections, #museumcuration

New record of a previously unknown species from the Pliocene of Monterey Bay!

WY890.1: Turcica brevis was described from the the Pliocene of the Central Valley but this is the first record from Monterey Bay! .

 

“An Example of Remarkably Well-Preserved fossils”

 

Sometimes creatures are preserved astonishingly well that it boggles the mind!  From Dinosaur skin impressions, to frozen mammoths and glass insect fossils, the world of fossil preservation is incredibly bewildering!  And such was the case with the whole, unfilled, baby Arc Clams, Anadara trilineata, shown here.  Preserved so well, without a gap between the two valves of the shell, no ocean sediment filled into the inner area of the shell and the shells are “empty”.  These shells were likely moved very little from their original burial spot, so as to preserve both valves together.  Almost universally, fossil clams are discovered with sediment-filled interiors, meaning they were moved around on the bottom of the sea floor before being buried.  Even clams that are preserved “in-situ” or in life-position are usually preserved with sediment filling inside the two valves, making these clams extremely exceptionally, uber rare.  Additionally, almost universally the surrounding rock exerts a degree of pressure on a fossil and can even break, squish, or completely pulverize the organism.  

These Arc Clams seem to have avoided that.  Clams can live either in the sediment, or infaunal, or on the sediment, or epifaunal, at the bottom of the ocean; the two most common lifestyles–there are others.  This particular species lived just below the sediment-water interface.  Reconstructing the ancient lifestyle of this clam was the focus of one of my earliest research papers as a young paleontologist at U.C. Berkeley back in 1984.  I was able to use the commensal marine Polychaete worm Polydora, which leaves a scar on the shell of Anadara, as a proxy measure to reconstruct the lifestyle orientation of these ancient fossils from 4 million years ago.  Commensalism is when two creatures share an ecological relationship that neither harms (parasitism) nor benefits (symbiosis) the two species involved.  The link to the manuscript, and some of the diagrams used, appear below.

Thompson, W., 1984.  Anadara from the Purisima Formation along the Monterey Bay

#Paleontologist, #paleontology, #pacificpaleontology,

@pacificpaleontology, #beachfossils, #SantaCruz,

#santacruzcounty, #fossil, #fossilhunting, #beachcombing,

#santacruzmuseumofnaturalhistory, #SCMNH,

#universityofcaliforniamuseumofpaleontology, #UCMP, #CAS,

#californiaacademyofsciences, #Monterey, #montereycounty,

#mitigationpaleontology, #Purisima, #PurisimaFormation,

#fossil, #gastropod, #Constructionsite, #fossilhunting,

#collectingtechniques, #Bivalve, #Research, #Pliocene,

#foundartifacts, #fossilpreservation, #taphonomy

Looking into the eye of the next big storm?

Capitola winter storm waves, 1-13-2019;

Engaging others, whether it be students in their classrooms or the public, in scientific dialogue over global-scale natural science topics is one of the great unspoken duties, in my mind, of scientists and educators. And nowhere is that at once easier and more difficult than with climate, and specifically with ocean-atmosphere interactions that manifest in the regular cycles we call “El Nino and La Nina”. These cycles are regulated by changes in, and interactions between, sea surface temperature, rainfall, air pressure and temperature, and ocean and atmospheric circulation. Of course, in conversations with both students in the classroom and friends and family, these processes can be broken down further into basic ideas of volume, mass, density, temperature, pressure, and so on.

The idea of climate and oceanic oscillations doubtless began prior to the 1800’s, but the idea of El Nino/La Nina cycles, at least in the Pacific, started when fishermen on the coast South America, in Peru, noticed warm ocean currents appearing around Christmas time every few years. Referring to the birth of Christ, they nicknamed the events “El Nino”, which is of course “the boy” in Spanish. Fishing here is best in La Nina years, when cold upwelling ocean water drives rich nutrients to the surface from the deep.

An El Niño occurs when surface water in the equatorial Pacific becomes warmer than average and east winds blow weaker than normal. The opposite condition is called La Niña: water that is cooler than normal and the east winds are stronger. El Niños typically occur every 3 to 5 years. NOAA “El Nino and La Nina”

We are currently in an uncommon “Triple La Nina”. Here’s an out take from the journal “Nature”: “The current [2022] La Niña started around September 2020 and has been mild-to-moderate most of the time since then. As of April 2022, it intensified, leading to a cold snap over the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean not seen at that time of year since 1950. “That’s pretty impressive,”…

The latest forecast from the World Meteorological Organization, issued on 10 June, gives a 50–60% chance of La Niña persisting until July or September… NOAA’s Climate Prediction Centre has forecast a 51% chance of La Niña in early 2023.

…this prolonged La Niña, unlike previous triple dips, hasn’t come after a strong El Niño, which tends to build up a lot of ocean heat that takes a year or two to dissipate1. “I keep wondering, where’s the dynamics for this?” …” Nature News, 23 June, 2022

One of the advantages of living so close to the ocean is to be intricately connected to these cycles, and being engaged in one spot, one relatively small chunk of land, for many decades is that one can experience these cycles and feel their presence and effect on the land, the ocean, the weather, the climate, and the community. We are indeed very fortunate to live where we do!

The two tables and data are courtesy of https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

2014: Weak El Nino

2015: Very Strong El Nino

2016: Weak La Nina

2017: Weak La Nina

2018: Weak El Nino

2019: Weak El Nino to Enso Neutral (in Between El/La)

2020: Moderate La Nina

2021: Moderate La Nina

2022:

#Paleontologist, #paleontology, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #beachfossils, #SantaCruz, #santacruzcounty, #fossil, #fossilhunting, #beachcombing, #santacruzmuseumofnaturalhistory, #SCMNH, #universityofcaliforniamuseumofpaleontology, #UCMP, #CAS, #californiaacademyofsciences, #Monterey, #montereycounty, #mitigationpaleontology, #Purisima, #PurisimaFormation, #fossil, #gastropod, #Constructionsite, #fossilhunting, #collectingtechniques, #Bivalve, #Research, #Pliocene, #foundartifacts, #FossilFriday

 

Oh for '70's days gone by...

 

Two months out pre-pandemic hordes, January 11th, 2020. Oh for '70's days gone by... #Paleontologist, #paleontology, #SantaCruz, #santacruzcounty, #Monterey, #montereycounty, #paleontology, #beachfossils, #mitigationpaleontology, #Purisima, #PurisimaFormation, #fossil, #gastropod, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #Constructionsite, #fossilhunting, #collectingtechniques, #Bivalve, #Research, #Pliocene

Meanwhile, Back at the Paleo Prep Lab

 Once fossils are blocked out of the rock in the field, those blocks with the fossils inside are brought back to the lab. Once there, as in this case with this Macoma sp. clam (WT892.14) (not a Cryptomya), paleontologists will begin to dig and prepare underneath the fossil to release it completely from its rocky tomb. This can only be done with the most robust fossils; many are so delicate that they need to remain in their original rocky blocks. Once the fossil is completely cleaned of sediment it can be preserved with liquid consolidant that soaks into it and which will harden and preserve the fossil for many decades of research in the museum. Finally, it is recorded numerically, which corresponds to the descriptive data on where and when it was discovered! #Paleontologist, #SantaCruz, #Monterey, #paleontology, #beachfossils, #mitigationpaleontology, #Purisima, #PurisimaFormation, #fossil, #gastropod, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #Constructionsite, #fossilhunting, #collectingtechniques, #Bivalve, #Research, #Pliocene.

Aladdin's Lamp Comes to Life

 This fossil clam is named Yoldia cooperi (Gabb, 1865), is approximately 4 million years old, and is found occasionally in the Purisima Formation along Monterey Bay. The genus Yoldia is named in honor of D. A. D.'Aquirra e Gadea, Count of Yoldi, a Danish shell collector. I'm not sure who Cooper was. I enjoy discovering this beautiful clam species because of its fine sculpture, its thin shell (which makes it challenging to collect unbroken so it keeps my skill set sharp), and its whimsical similarity to an Aladdin's Lamp! Also interesting and making it completely unique from all other mollusks in the Purisima is this species' long row of many fine hinge teeth and alternating sockets found along the majority of the dorsal margin of the shell, shown in the second photo above. Today, Yoldia cooperi lives in the eastern Pacific from Humboldt County to Baja California Sur and in fine sediments from 5 to 40 meters. Its habitat has likely not changed much in the past 4 million years, as it is found entombed in fine to medium sandstones of the Purisima as well. Shown here with some of the tools needed to extract it safely from the rock, including the consolidant; a liquid hardening compound. This particular specimen at the top was extracted over a period of several days in order to allow the successive applications of consolidant to fully dry before moving the specimen from its tomb. WT730 (Below), WT765 (Above). #Paleontologist, #Santa Cruz, #Monterey, #paleontology, #beach fossils, #Purisima, #Purisima Formation, #fossil, #pacific paleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #fossil hunting, #collecting techniques, #Bivalve, #Research, #Pliocene, 

Ancient Wentletraps

 This is the Wentletrap Opalia varicostata, Stearns, in the gastropod family Epitoniidae. The word "Wentletrap" is borrowed from the Dutch "a winding staircase" so these are called staircase or ladder snails and this one shown here is an extinct Pliocene to Pleistocene species (less than 2 million years to about 5.3 million years). This is a gorgeous little snail and was not known from the Purisima Formation until recently!! Today, Wentletraps hang out around sea anemones, from whom they get their nourishment! #fossilprep, #Purisima, #fossilsnails, #gastropods, #beachfossils, #timelapse, #paleontology, #paleontologist, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, 

Once thought to be in the genus Pandora...

Once thought to be in the genus Pandora, after further discoveries and systematic analysis of its internal and external anatomy, this clam is now known to be a new species in the genus Frenamya, Pandoridae, Purisima Formation, northern Monterey Bay, 3-5 million years. Pacific Paleontology,

#pacificpaleontology, #paleomitigation, #paleoprep, #paleo, #mitigationpaleontology, #fossil, #paleontologist, #paleontology, 

Microfossil sampling benthic foraminiferans...

Microfossil sampling benthic foraminiferans from the mudstone accumulated inside this 4-5 million year old Tresus pajaroanus clam. Benthic Foraminiferans are microscopic Protists that live on or in the the bottom sediments and are usually marine. Typically Forams are not well-preserved in sandstone here in the Purisima Formation. However, the fine mud and silt sediments that accumulated inside fossil clams such as this one often have a higher percentage of Forams preserved in them. Eastern Pacific Pliocene foraminifera are not well-studied and hopefully this project will add to our understanding of local environmental conditions and allow us to place the Purisima formation here within the larger biochronological framework.