New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

Rousseau H. Flower (1913-1988), formerly of the New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources (NMBMMR), was one of the most important invertebrate paleontologists in the history of New Mexico geology. His prolific collecting and publishing established four orders, approximately 100 genera and over 400 species of invertebrates, most of them cephalopods. Many of his specimens were collected from BLM-administrated lands in New Mexico and Texas. The extensive collection produced by Flower is one of the most important records of Paleozoic invertebrates in the country.

A major portion of this collection (later known as the Socorro or Flower collection) was given to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (NMMNH) by the NMBMMR in late 1993 and accessioned into the NMMNH collection in 1998. It represents one of the most extensive collections of Ordovician cephalopods in the country, if not the world. Unfortunately, the Socorro collection, with its ~10,000 specimens, was too large to tackle for many years. However, in 2004, one of us (ABH) initiated with two volunteers (JM and DT) the long process of going through the Socorro Collection in order to catalogue specimens and localities. This was accomplished by using a single ledger kept by Flower and his various publications to assign as much locality and taxonomic information to the specimens as possible. The locality information obtained from the ledger was transferred to GPS coordinates (UTMs) and entered into the NMMNH locality database, thus ensuring the data would be recorded for future research. The Socorro collection now represents a significant portion the NMMNH Geoscience Collection, over 2,000 of the 56,000 cataloged specimens, including 351 holotypes, 10 topotypes, 155 paratypes and 21 syntypes.

The process of cataloguing is still ongoing, under the direction of the senior author in conjunction with other NMMNH staff. In 2007, the NMMNH was able to purchase, with BLM supported funds, five new collections cabinets to house the now curated Socorro Collection. Finally, 15 years after the initial transfer these critically important fossils, once at risk, now have a permanent home where they will be kept for future research and display.