New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

The Cruco Springs locality (= "Gallegos Canyon" and "AMNH locality 1") is one of David Baldwin's fossil vertebrate collecting localities from the 1880' s. Many hoiotype and important early Paleocene (Torrejonian) mammals named and described by E. D. Cope are from this locality as are numerous additional specimens collected by early expeditions from the American Museum ofNaturat History (AMNH). The precise location of this important site has until recently been lost. We relocated site in 1991 by using unpublished field notes of Sinclair (1913), and collected numerous additional specimens there that represents Catopsalis fissidens, Psittacotherium multifragum, Triisodon crassicuspis, Mimotricentes subtrigonus, Promioclaenus lemuroides, Protoselene opisthacus, Tetraclaenodon puercensis, Anisonchus sectorius, Haploconus angustus, Periptychus carinidens, and Deltatherium fundaminus. Additional remains of the large taeniolabidid multituberculate Catopsalis fissidens are particularly significant, as it is an extremely rare taxon and the newly collected specimens are topotypes. Additional remains of the rare triisodontid Triisodon crassicuspis include the first identified remains ofthe upper dentition.

The lower Torrejonian fossil localities ofthe Nacimiento Formation and throughout western North America are generally poorly sampled. The Chico Springs section can be correlated using lithostratigraphy to sections in both De-na-zin Arroyo and in Kutz Canyon. This indicates that it is from near the base of strata that yield Torrejoman mammals in the Nacimiento Formation. These strata are from the lower part of the reversed polarity zone correlated with Chron 27R and probably correlate, in part, with the "Dragoman" fauna of Dragon Canyon, Utah.