Geology & Fossils
New Mexico’s geologic diversity makes it one of America’s greatest fossil crossroads. And, thanks to its arid climate, large areas of New Mexico’s diverse rocks lie exposed.
As described on page one, many of New Mexico’s most famous fossil sites are found in the Colorado Plateau, which largely harbors fossils from the Triassic Period in New Mexico. Here are some other fossils and fossil sites New Mexico is famous for.
Bat Reefs
The fabled Carlsbad Caverns are located in southeastern New Mexico. This enormous underground maze was eroded out of a prehistoric reef that flourished in a tropical sea during the Permian Period, before dinosaurs evolved. So don’t let anyone tell you that bats can’t live in coral reefs!
Shrinking Waterholes
New Mexico’s most spectacular Triassic amphibian cemetery was excavated south of Lamy in the 1930s. The fossils indicate that numerous six-foot long Metoposaurus were apparently trapped when their pond dried up.
A fossil site in north-central New Mexico illustrates a similar tragedy that occurred later, during the Age of Mammals. Apparently, a shrinking pond trapped a group of Coryphodon, a hoofed mammal with a massive body and the proportions of a small hippopotamus. Even today, hippos and crocodiles are sometimes killed when their African waterholes dry up.
Terror Birds
A time traveler could relax in New Mexico during the Eocene Epoch, long after dinosaurs had vanished. Unless he met a sharp-beaked Diatryma standing over six feet tall. Diatremes were flightless birds that have been described as dinosaurs with feathers.
Diatryma quickly disappeared after carnivorous mammals evolved. But a smaller running bird predator evolved and became New Mexico’s state bird — the roadrunner. Fossils of a roadrunner that lived during the Ice Age have been found in caves.
The Ice Age
The Ice Age also left desert mummies strewn across the Southwest. They include a ground sloth that apparently fell into a volcanic fissure near Aden Crater, southwest of Las Cruces, about 11,000 years ago. In the dry air, it simply dried up. The Ice Age mummy was found with its fur and portions of its soft anatomy preserved. Coprolites — fossil feces — were examined to indicate what its last meal consisted of. A young camel found in a gravel pit north of Albuquerque is one the best Ice Age vertebrate fossils ever found in New Mexico.
Then there’s the famous Folsom site in northeast New Mexico, where spear points were found embedded in the skeletons of giant bison! (Even older “Clovis points” were later discovered in Colorado.) The discovery of this site in 1920s shattered theories about when people first entered North America from Asia. People were here during the Ice Age!
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