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Under Wyoming’s summer sun in August 2002, an interdisciplinary, interagency team conducted a paleontological survey of the middle Cambrian exposures on Trilobite Point in Yellowstone National Park that added to the scientific understanding of ancient life-forms and their environments. The research effort also built on the National Park Service’s growing commitment to partnerships; paleontologists from Fossil Butte National Monument (Wyoming), the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, the Yellowstone Gateway Museum, and Russia joined park professionals on the research team. The Yellowstone Park Foundation provided project funding.
The survey team identified numerous fossil-bearing locations that yielded a diverse collection of species, including three distinct genera of trilobites, early arthropods. Previous research on trilobites found on Yellowstone National Park’s Mount Holmes contributed to the development of speciation theories for these organisms. Brachiopods, hyoliths, fossil fragments of sponge spines, and crinoids were also collected. Trace fossils of worm burrows and tracks provided evidence of animal behavior that gives clues to ancient environments. The inventory clearly demonstrates that the sedimentary rocks of the Cambrian period in Yellowstone possess fossil information concerning the “Cambrian Explosion,” the relatively sudden appearance of complex multicellular organisms. The baseline information gathered by the survey gives researchers, resource managers, and resource protection rangers a better understanding of fossil resources and the threats facing them. A full report of the project will be available in May 2003; the collected specimens will be available for research and display at the new Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center, to be completed by summer 2004.
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