This project focused on the wealth of Earth History data derived from the fossil-rich Upper Triassic Hayden Quarry and surrounding areas in northern New Mexico. Project goals were two-fold: to establish an integrated record of environmental and faunal change in Upper Triassic strata of northern New Mexico; and to utilize the extraordinary fossil assemblages to elucidate the evolutionary relationships and patterns of Upper Triassic vertebrate animals. We accomplished the first goal by integrating plant occurrences, wildfire evidence, paleoenvironmental indicators, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, and animal distribution through time. Unexpectedly, we discovered that poor and unstable environments in the low latitudes of Pangea in the Upper Triassic prevented large active warm-blooded herbivorous dinosaurs from becoming established in subtropical low latitudes until later in the Mesozoic. This will serve as a model of integrating paleoenvironmental conditions and vertebrate evolution.

Our second goal focused on the fossils themselves from the Hayden Quarry, but our results had much wider effects on our understanding of Triassic ecosystems globally. We were able to show that the geographic distribution of most Triassic vertebrate animals were heavily influenced by environmental factors in the low latitudes of Pangea. Nearly complete skeletons of early dinosaurs and their close relatives demonstrated the morphology of these forms was not what other related animals would have predicted and that dinosaurs and their close relatives grew unlike any other group of living vertebrates. We formally recognized four (4) new species from the Hayden Quarry and surrounding area and these discoveries improved our understanding of the evolutionary relationships and diversification patterns of Triassic reptiles. Most importantly, we recovered small and rare reptiles (e.g., drepanosaurs, tanystropheids) and fish that revolutionized our understanding of the geographic distribution, evolutionary relationships, and anatomy of these forms. The tens of thousands of bones extracted during the grant will provide data and further research questions for the next decade.

This large collaboration resulted in 7 published peer-reviewed papers in specialty (Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology) and broad scientific journals (PNAS), 3 other papers in review or nearly completed, 9 presentations at professional conferences, and 5 public lectures and seminars by the PI. Additionally, we were able to build infrastructure (organized the collection, created a database, expanded collection resources) at the Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology for further research in the area. Some of the publications are Open Access and thus freely available to all. Our taxonomic data was entered into the Paleobiology Database (https://paleobiodb.org/) and our phylogenetic matrices are available at MorphoBank (http://www.morphobank.org).

We were dedicated to student training at all levels. Thousands of K-12 visitors from underrepresented communities in northern New Mexico (e.g., Rio Arriba County) visited saw redesigned exhibits based on our research in the Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology and over 250 of those students directly interacted with us during excavation visits each summer. At the University of Utah, the PI mentored one PhD student that worked on research associated with the project, and one undergraduate student who worked on project-related research. At the University of Southampton, the co-PI mentored two undergraduates and one high school student who worked on project-related research. Among all of the project principal investigators, we mentored more than 30 undergraduate and graduate students and 10 volunteers in the field during data collection, three undergraduate students in collections management, and over 75 volunteers in fossil preparation.

Last Modified: 07/31/2020
Modified by: Randall B Irmis