Greetings to all,

[Ken Carpenter <KCarpenter@dmns.org>]

Greetings to all,
I am back from the field, having spent a short 6 days prospecting in the Cedar 
Mountain Formation near Green River Utah with several volunteers. Some 
interesting discoveries include parts of a very large ankylosaur, probably a 
nodosaurid. Most of the specimen had weathered out of a channel sandstone. 
Interestingly, only the Ruby Ranch Member is present in the area, which raises 
the question as to whether part of the member is equivalent to the Yellow Cat 
Member to the east, or whether the Yellow Cat was not deposited in the area. 
There are different ramifications for either possibility.

After finishing there, we moved north to the east side of the San Rafael Swell. 
There we found lots of bone in a chert-rich conglomerate in the middle of the 
member. Ankylosaur and theropod material was found eroding on the surface. 
Unfortunately not enough of either was found for species identification, but 
this may change once preparation is finished.

The Cedar Mountain Formation is providing to be dominated by ankylosaurs, with 
sauropods coming in second. Everything else (iguanodontids, theropods, etc.) is 
a distant third. This is different than the Wealden of England (about the same 
age) where iguanodontids dominate. 
Ken

Kenneth Carpenter, Ph.D.
Curator of Lower Vertebrate Paleontology &
Chief Preparator
Dept. of Earth Sciences
Denver Museum of Natural History 
2001 Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80205

Phone: (303)370-6392
Fax: (303)331-6492
email: KCarpenter@DMNS.org

For fun: http://dino.lm.com/artists/display.php?name=Kcarpenter