Glossary of Terms in the Context of Reynolds Field Station (RFS)

A

Age Model: a geological age model maps time onto a sequence of rocks whose age is not known. We estimate the unknown age based on rocks above and below it whose ages we do know, and then refine the details of the age with dating methods on the minerals and fossils contained within the section we are modeling.

Angiosperm: plants that produce flowers, whose seeds are in fruits. They are the largest group of plants on earth today (about 80% of all living green plants!), but did not come into being until the Cretaceous epoch (see definition)

Archaeology: study of human history and prehistory through ancient cultural sites and artifacts (objects) left behind. Projectile points (such as arrowheads) and stone tools are archaeological artifacts that have been found at RFS.

Archaic Culture: Indigenous cultures that lived in North America from 10,000 to 3,000 years ago. Projectile points (such as arrowheads) found at RFS appear to have been made by Archaic Culture peoples.

Astronomy: the study of everything in the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere, including tiny particles, planets, stars, galaxies and the forces that act on them. The night skies at RFS provide an exceptionally clear view of the visible universe, both to the naked eye and with the aid of astronomical devices.

Astrophysicist: a person who studies the physics and chemistry of astronomical objects and the universe

Avocational pursuits: learning purely out of interest and for fun (as opposed to for pay), which we encourage and champion at RFS!

B

Biology: study of all types of living things, including plants, animals, insects and fungi and their interactions with their environment. The environment at RFS provides a rich field laboratory for biological studies and research, throughout the forests and grasslands of the property.

Biostratigraphy: the use of fossils to determine the relative ages of different rock layers, and to correlate (match up) rock layers that are not adjacent to each other. Some fossil animals and plants only existed for very short periods of time before becoming extinct, so they are used as marker fossils to match age dates for rocks that are found far apart. Some rock layers are defined by the fossils that are found in them. At RFS we have abundant fossils to match up and correlate the fossils found in chronological (in time order from oldest to youngest) layers of rock (stratigraphy) to build our biostratigraphic column. When combined with other types of data (like magnetic polarity, and mineral age and composition) we can build up a stronger understanding of the age of the rocks at RFS. Our scientific teams from the Perot Museum are sampling our biostratigraphy and working with our teams from New Mexico State University using magnetostratigraphy and detrital zircon analysis to do just that!

Botany: study of living plants, including their form, structure, genetics, ecology, and distribution. The plentiful and ancient trees, shrubs, grasses and lichens at RFS offer numerous research topics for research and learning.

C

Calcite Veins: calcite is a mineral made up of calcium, carbon and oxygen. Under certain heat and pressure conditions it can become an ingredient of a fluid solution that crystallizes in natural fractures of rock as ‘veins’. At RFS, we find calcite veins and crystals in some siderite (see definition) deposits.

Celestial Mechanics: study of the motions of the planets, celestial objects (such as stars and galaxies) and their interactions and effects. Also known as orbital mechanics. The rock formations of RFS show cyclical (regularly repeating) changes in environment that may have a relationship to changes in earth’s orbit around the sun over long periods of time. Furthermore, these celestial orbit effects brought on the Neoglacial period, 4,500-2,500 years ago when Ancient Indigenous peoples left hunting tools behind at RFS. The relationship of celestial mechanics to geology and anthropology at RFS is a subject for future study.

Cenozoic: a geologic era that started about 66 million years and extends to the present time.

Climatology: study of climates, past and present; weather and atmospheric patterns over time. The surface rocks at RFS were deposited at or just after the end of the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, a time when temperatures on earth were extremely high. Understanding the climate at that time will be a focus of research at RFS.

Coastal Plain: flat low-lying land that lies close to the sea or ocean, so they are very close to sea level. The land at RFS was a coastal plain 85 million years ago, lying next to the Western Interior Seaway (see definition). The abundance of fossil leaves, trees and wood tell us it had fertile soil. The geometry of the sandstones at RFS tell us there were streams and rivers crossing the plain. Shales and coals at RFS tell us there were lagoons, lakes and marshlands.

Cone-in-cone Limestones: an unusual and weird structure of small scale rocks found in the Crevasse Canyon Formation that resemble nests of small steep-sided cones of limestone stacked vertically and piled one above the other. Limestone is rock that contains calcium, carbon and oxygen, most often deposited in marine environments. Limestones are relatively rare in the Crevasse Canyon Formation at RFS. At RFS, the cone-in-cone limestones have been found in close proximity to siderites (see definition). There is an ongoing research program to understand the formation and relationship between the cone-in-cone limestones, the siderites, and the environments in which they formed.

Coniacian age: a stage of the Late Cretaceous (see definition) epoch that lasted from 89.8 to 86.3 millions years ago. The rocks we see on the surface at RFS were deposited during the Coniacian age.

Conservation Science: study and processes for conserving physical and biological natural environments. RFS is located in a pristine natural environment, almost untouched by man. Planning how to preserve and conserve this resource for future generations is a learning opportunity in conservation science.
Constituents: students, teachers, professional researchers, visitors, and learners of all ages at RFS

Coronal Mass Ejection Events: when our sun expels large bubbles of plasma (ionized gas) along intense magnetic field lines. Extremely large events in history emitted x-ray and ultraviolet rays that reached earth’s atmosphere, where they may leave a record in tree rings. At RFS there are trees old enough to have recorded the last extreme event in 1859, in their tree rings.
Correlation: the amount that two things being compared match (are the same/similar) or mismatch (differ). At RFS, we map the way thick sandstone layers correlate or do not correlate with each other so that we can build a history of deposition over time. We can also correlate how our rock layers correspond (or don’t) to rocks of the same age far away along other parts of the Western Interior Seaway coastline.

Cretaceous: The Cretaceous was a time period from about 146 million years ago to about 66 million years ago. Although dinosaurs existed in the Jurassic epoch that came before the Cretaceous, new forms of dinosaurs appeared in the Cretaceous. Most importantly, the first flowering plants appeared during the Cretaceous, which changed plant distributions on the planet from then on. In tandem, insects diversified as well, with pollinators evolving in response to all those flowering plants! The Cretaceous ended, literally, with a bang when an asteroid impact and its after-effects caused mass extinctions to many forms of life, including the dinosaurs. At RFS, the rocks on the surface are late Cretaceous in age (84-88 million years old), when dinosaurs and flowering plants were thriving.

Cretaceous Thermal Maximum: a global warming period that occurred during the Cretaceous epoch, which was the warmest period in earth’s history for the last 200 million years, much hotter than today. It lasted about 5 million years, from 85 to 90 million years ago. The Cretaceous rocks on the surface at RFS were laid down during the end of this super hot climate era, which had a dramatic impact on the plants that grew and the animals that roamed the land at the time. Flowering trees (angiosperms) spread rapidly into what is now North America from the tropics, overtaking cone-bearing trees (gymnosperms) in abundance. Vegetation of all kinds grew vigorously in the hot humid climate. The fossils at RFS reflect that population shift, with many fossil leaves, wood fragments and logs scattered throughout the property. Dinosaurs were also large and numerous, with so much vegetation for large herbivores (plant eaters) and plenty of carnivores (meat eaters) to eat the herbivores. Paleoclimate, paleoecology and paleoenvironment are a focus area of integrative research at RFS. We strive to shed light on that drastically different climate in earth’s history, by applying tools from a number of sciences to develop broad understanding.

Crevasse Canyon Formation: the name that describes the Cretaceous rock formations that are exposed on the surface of the Reynolds Field Station. A formation is a rock layer or a set of rock layers continuously deposited on one another that share consistent characteristics, and different from adjacent rock layers that don’t share those characteristics. A formation exposed in a geographical region occupies a consistent position relative to the older formation below it, and the younger formation above it.

Cycads: Ancient, slow-growing seed-bearing plants (gymnosperms) that have existed on Earth for more than 300 million years. They have stout, woody trunks and stiff, evergreen, feather-shaped leaves. They are related to conifers and produce cones with seeds in them. Fossil cycads have been found at RFS.

D

Delta: a flat low-lying plain of built-up river and flood deposits that forms at the mouth of a river and fans out in a seaward direction. The “distal” portion of a delta is located just below the waves at the seaward toe of the delta.

Detrital Sanidine: sanidine is a mineral that forms under high temperature, volcanic conditions and can be a mineral component of a particular form of rock called potassium feldspar. Detrital sanidine grains are weathered from older rocks and transported to become part of some sedimentary rocks. Special dating methods can be used on sanidine grains to determine a precise age when the grains crystalized in their original volcanic origin before being transported. Matching the fingerprint of grain ages helps map ancient river systems, tectonic uplifts, and sediment pathways. At RFS we are endeavoring to use detrital sanidines to improve our age dating and provenance studies.

Detrital Zircon: zircon is a rock mineral that is formed when igneous rocks (lava or magma, such as molten granite underground) cools and then breaks down into individual minerals or crystals as the rock disintegrates due to weathering. Zircon minerals often keep properties of their parent molten rocks (like age and mineral chemistry), somewhat like a DNA fingerprint. Zircon minerals are hard, heavy and very resistant to dissolving and destruction by weathering. So when zircon grains are transported by rain, rivers, gravity, wind and other sedimentary processes away from their parent they end up as the bits of debris called detrital zircon making up sandstones or shales, sometimes many hundreds of miles away. Because they can keep their original birth fingerprint, detrital zircon grains can tell us where their parent rocks cooled, and how old they are, which tells us which mountain building (orogenic) and tectonic (earth’s crust movements) events caused the start of their journey. They also tell us the maximum age a sandstone or shale can be. At RFS, detrital zircon analysis is a vital tool used to date the layers of rock so we can tell how long it took for different layers to be deposited, and we can match up (correlate) layers that are separated by distance.

Detrital Zircon U-Pb Age Determinations: Zircon crystals contain Uranium (U) and Lead (Pb) atoms. When they first cool and crystallize from their parent magma melt, they have much more Uranium than Lead atoms because Uranium atoms decay very slowly into Lead atoms from the start of the cooling process. But once the temperature of the magma melt falls below a certain temperature during cooling, the amount of lead is frozen into the crystal structure, and the Uranium to Lead proportion tells us the age of crystallization of the mineral grain. This fingerprint often stays fixed through the life of the mineral grain. At RFS, we collect samples of rocks from different layers and take them back to the laboratory to separate the zircons and apply high tech analysis techniques to read the life story of the zircons in the rocks.

Diagenesis: physical and chemical changes that occur when separate mineral grains and deposited sediments harden into sandstone. At RFS, we see deposits of siderite (see definition) that may have been formed when the Crevasse Canyon Formation sandstones were hardening into rock. Research is underway to see if the siderite was formed during a diagenetic process or whether it occurred much later.

E

Ecology: study of relationship of all organisms (living things) to each other and to their physical environment. The complex and long lasting relationships of organisms of the high altitude piñon-juniper forest at RFS offer an opportunity to learn about restoration and preservation strategies that may be applied to similar forests, which suffered damage and/or are unhealthy.

Ecophysiological Traits: the way a plant’s or animal’s physiology (it’s physical parts and the way it functions) are affected by and adapt to their environment.

Ecosystems: a biological community of living organisms, and the environment in which they lived

Electron Microprobe Analysis (EMPA): a technique that uses an electron beam and X-ray detection to determine the composition of a rock sample. At RFS we collect samples of rocks such as siderites (see definition), and examine their chemical and atomic makeup over tiny areas to help us solve the mystery of how they were formed.

Entomology: study of insects and their relationship to their environment. In addition to studying the role of insects in RFS’s modern piñon-juniper forests and grasslands, the study of ancient insects and their relationship to the environment that existed there 85 million years ago is a rich field for research and exploration.

Exposure: rocks, fossils, or other objects of study that are on the surface and readily seen, as compared to buried or hidden from view

Extant: currently in existence (“living”, as compared to “fossil”). For example, our extant trees are piñons and junipers, our fossil trees were often flowering trees that do not grow at RFS today.

F

Facies: the features and composition of a body of rock, such as a sequence of rock layers, that is different from the adjacent rock layers, perhaps in color, texture, structure, fossils, and patterns. At RFS we use facies analysis to help determine the environment in which those rocks were deposited (for example, to help us determine if they were deposited on a beach or by a river).

Fauna: all the animal life present in a particular region or time. For example, at RFS today elk, mountain lions, foxes, deer and many other modern animals roam the land. When the surface rocks at RFS were laid down 85 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the land!

Flora: all the plant life present in a particular region or time. A major area of research at RFS is reconstructing a picture of the plant life present when the rocks were laid down at RFS 85 million years ago, by studying the fossil leaves, pollen, seeds and cones in those rocks.

G

Geochemistry: study of the chemical composition of the earth, its rocks and minerals; and the processes that control chemical compounds in rocks and environments. At RFS geochemistry provides powerful tools to probe details of the chemical composition of our sands, shales, volcanic rocks, and special rocks called siderites (iron-bearing rocks). Those details can tell us things like the age, origin, and even the temperature of the sea or air millions of years ago, that allow us to reconstruct the environment when the rocks were laid down.

Geochronology: study of techniques (methods) and analyses to date rock formations and geological events. In normal earth processes, sediments (dirt and rocks) are laid down with younger formations on top of older formations. Mountain building and erosion influence where the components (parts) of a rock came from and when they were laid down. By applying chemical analysis techniques to zirconium (a metallic element), oxygen, carbon and other elements in rocks, the age, source and originating events of the components can often be determined. Geochronology techniques are being used to date the rock layers at RFS and identify their history and where they came from.

Geography: how landscapes and environments intersect with inhabitants. At RFS geography can help us understand the shape of the land when ancient cultures or prehistoric animals lived there. Reaching farther back, geography studies the shape of the coastline 85 million years ago as recorded in the rocks at various locations on RFS, and northward and southward on the North American continent.

Geology: study of earth’s structure, composition (what it is made out of) and processes that act on the earth. At RFS, geology is used to study the kinds of rocks present on the land, how those rocks formed or got there, and why their layers are arranged the way that they are. Geology is a very broad topic with a lot of sub-specialties (see all the brown-colored specialties on the Sciences of RFS diagram).

Geomorphology: study of landforms (shape and terrain) and processes that create or act on them. At RFS, we will use geomorphology to analyze why the ridges, valleys and ravines are located where they are, and how that may have changed over time. These types of studies can help us to go back in time to the end of the last Ice Age to see what the landscape looked like to the Ancient Indigenous peoples who hunted there.

Geophysics: study of the physics of the earth and its interior structure, often using measurements at the surface. At RFS, it may be possible to image through the dirt filling the valleys to see their shape when mammoths and other Ice Age creatures roamed the land.

Glacial: processes and periods of time at places in earth’s history where year-round ice accumulated in to large, thick sheets and flows. The last glacial period in New Mexico reached its peak around 21,000 years ago, after which the ice sheets declined and disappeared by around 12,000 years ago. The significance of this at RFS is that Ancient Indigenous peoples are known to have been in New Mexico during this time. The artifacts found at RFS so far may date to just after this last glacial period.

Gymnosperm: plants that have vascular systems (veins that move water and nutrients from the roots up through tree) and reproduce by seeds that are not enclosed (for example in a cone, or on the surface of fern leaves). Pines and ferns are examples of gymnosperms. Gymnosperms appeared on the earth about 250 million years ago, but have been gradually displaced by angiosperms (see definition) that reproduce by seeds enclosed in fruit, and bear flowers.

H

Heavy Minerals: minerals components of sediments like  sandstone or shale that weigh more (they are denser) than the other minerals making up the rock. They are useful because they give us information about the parent rock type of the sandstone or shale, and how the parent rock dispersed (spread out) after it was weathered and eroded into individual minerals. Certain types of heavy minerals, like zircons, also provide age information. We use heavy mineral analysis at RFS to help us build the age model for the Crevasse Canyon formation.

Heterogeneous Paleo-landscapes: the broad diversity and variety of ancient landscapes that existed at a given time, such as beaches, deserts, deltas, rivers, swamps, etc. At RFS, a variety of landscapes made up the coastal plain on which the property sits. Some were near shore, others were inland, some were forested, and others were plains. To reconstruct the environment 85 million years ago we have to study all the landscapes and how they were distributed.

Holocene Period: a post-Ice Age period (after the last Glacial period) from 10,000 to 4,500 years ago. The artifacts like arrowheads and tools found at RFS so far appear to be from this time period.

I

Igneous: rocks that are molten magma underground, and/or lava and granite on the surface

Impression / Compression Fossils: An impression fossil is a shallow imprint of a fossil plant or animal that doesn’t preserve any part of the plant or animal. A compression fossil is a plant or animal that was crushed or flattened, but preserves some of the plant or animal material, although it may be altered by the crushing.

Indigenous: Native American people from prehistoric times to the present. Ancient Indigenous people’s footprints in New Mexico’s White Sands have been dated to 21,000-23,000 years ago, and show that Indigenous peoples were already in North America during the last Ice Age. At RFS, Ancient Indigenous artifacts have been found from after the last Ice Age. RFS integrates its science and education programs with our Indigenous partners in respect for and recognition of this important cultural history.

J

Jacketing Fossils: a method used by paleontologists to encase fragile bones and their surrounding rock in a hard shell of plaster before transporting the for further restoration and study.

K

L

Lagoon: a shallow body of water (such as a small lake or large pond) separated from a larger body of water (such as a sea or ocean) by a narrow strip of land. Lagoons can be found adjacent to the rivers that feed deltas (see definition) and are often swampy, marshy and filled with vegetation. Over time, the vegetation can be buried and compressed and become a coal bed or seam.

Laramidia: the name of the island continent that stretched from Mexico in the south to Alaska in the north. It was located on the west side of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (see definition), in the western part of what is now the North American continent. RFS sits on the shoreline of southern Laramidia [see the white paper Western Interior Seaway] add link

Light Year: the distance that light travels in one earth year, which is nearly 6 trillion miles!

M

Macrofossil: any fossil large enough to be seen without the aid of a microscope or other enlarging tool. At RFS, our fossil leaves and wood are macrofossils.

Magmatism: the formation and movement of magma (molten rock) under the earth’s surface. Magma can erupt on the surface as lava or in an event like a volcanic eruption.
Mass spectrometry: an analysis technique that bombards a rock sample with an electron beam to identify what atoms and molecules make up the sample, and get measurements of the molecules. At RFS, for example, these measurements can help us distinguish siderite samples taken from different locations, and help us build models of the chemical processes that caused variations in siderite in different kinds of rock.

Magnetostratigraphy: (This is going to take a little longer explanation!). Today, and for all of recorded human history, all compasses point generally toward the Earth’s north pole in the arctic (which we call “Normal Polarity”).  But throughout Earth’s geologic history, the magnetic pole has switched quite often between the arctic in the north and the Antarctic in the south (which we call “Reverse Polarity”). The last time it switched from reverse (south) to normal (north), which we have now, was close to 800,000 years ago. The fact that the magnetic pole switches provides us with a useful ruler for measuring time, because everywhere on the planet records the same pole (whether north or south) for a given moment in geologic history. The sequence of normal and reverse can be correlated from place to place and help us work out the age of rocks in a new area we’re exploring, like RFS, where we don’t know the exact age of the rocks. When the flipping of the magnetic poles was first recognized, it was in rocks like lava, because the polarity of the magnetic minerals in the rock were set to match the Earth’s magnetic polarity at the time they cooled from molten rock to hard solid rock. But now we know that even sedimentary rocks like clays that contain magnetic minerals and settle to the bottom of a still body of water like a pond or bog, will be oriented in the direction of the Earth’s magnetic pole at the time they were deposited. That is the basis of magnetostratigraphy – we can test samples (cylinders) of ancient rock, carefully collected so as not to disturb their original depositional geometry and test their polarity. Luckily for us at RFS, there is a critical switch from normal to reverse polarity that we expect to encounter somewhere in the Crevasse Canyon. So we are taking very finely detailed samples of rocks from bottom to top of the Crevasse Canyon, to find that switch in our samples, and that will help us nail down a specific age of where we are finding fossils. New Mexico State University is building a stratigraphic (rock layer) column tied to magnetic polarity, hence the name magnetostratigraphy.

Mesa: a flat-topped ridge or mountain, often with steep sides.

Micropaleontology: study of microscopic fossil plants & animals (pollen, fungus spores, tiny marine organisms) to help establish the environments, ages and rock layer correlations (matches) in an area. At RFS, micropaleontology is an important tool we are using to determine whether certain layers of Cretaceous rock were deposited on land or underwater, and if underwater, in seawater or lake/lagoon water. Certain pollen is helping us age date our rock layers. We plan to use micropaleontology to help us reconstruct what kind of plants were present after the last Ice Age when Ancient Indigenous hunters left their tools on our land.

Milankovich Cycles: the cyclical (regularly repeating) changes in the earth’s position and rotation relative to the sun has strong effects on earth’s long term climate. The variations in earth orbital movements affect how much radiation from the sun reaches the top of earth’s atmosphere as well as where that radiation reaches, creating changes of up to 25% between 30° and 60° north and sound of the equator. These effects are strong enough to trigger the beginning and end of glacial periods. These cycles are collective effects over thousands of years. At RFS, this had an effect during Neoglacial periods when Ancient Indigenous hunters left their tools on our land. (See also Celestial Mechanics and Neoglacial Period.)

Mineralogy: study of the chemistry, structure and physical properties of the minerals that make up rocks. The kind of rock that forms is very sensitive to the conditions and minerals present when they form. At RFS, we rely upon mineralogy to identify what kinds of mineral grains make up our sandstones and shales, by slicing rock samples into very thin sections that can be examined under special microscopes. Scanning Electron and Petrographic Microscopes give us nano-scale views, and special lighting produces details that help identify minerals. Recently, we have initiated a research project to analyze some unusual rocks called siderites, heavy iron-rich lumps that formed throughout the property in shales. Mineralogy was the key to identifying the siderites, which will add to our understanding of the environments that led to their formation.

Multifaceted Approach: analyzing data or a question from multiple angles and sources of knowledge. At RFS our research is multifaceted, we use many sciences to analyze the questions were are trying to answer.

N

Neoglacial Period: although the last Ice Age ended around 12,000 years ago and North American climate warmed enough to melt the large ice sheets, the climate of the earth cooled again 4,500 – 2,500 years ago, causing North American rock glaciers that had melted to regrow, and mountain temperatures to cool, especially at high altitudes like at RFS. At RFS, this would have had an impact on the plants and animals that were present when Ancient Indigenous peoples were hunting on the land, which should have been recorded in the pollen, fungus spores, seeds and other plant fossils of that time. This will be the subject of further study at RFS.

O

Orogenic: processes related to mountain building and folding of the earth’s rocks and crust. At RFS, the Cretaceous rocks deposited on the land 85 million years ago are made up of sand grains and shales that were the end-product of erosion of the mountains that built up far (hundreds of miles) to the west and south of the property. These eroded grains of distant mountains were carried to the property by rivers and streams, and deposited on the ancient coastline where waves on the Cretaceous Seaway worked them over when they washed out to sea. Orogenic pulses are phases of mountain building separated by pauses.

Oscillations: movement back and forth at a somewhat regular speed

Outreach: RFS learning and natural science immersion opportunities accessible to the public of all ages

P

Paleo Culture: Earliest Indigenous cultures that lived in North America, which until recently was thought to extend from 14,000 to 9,000 years ago. New discoveries of footprints in White Sands, New Mexico (about 200 miles south of RFS) have pushed the earliest measured date back as far as 23,000 years ago. At RFS, Ancient Indigenous artifacts have been found that are younger than Paleo culture, but we expect more artifacts will be found on the property in the future, perhaps pushing our Indigenous habitation ages back farther as well.

Paleobotany: study of fossil plants, algae, fungi and their ancient environments. Paleobotany not only helps map the evolutionary history of plants, but also provides detailed information about global climatic changes millions of years ago. By studying the distribution of fossil plants that only grow in certain temperature conditions, paleoclimate maps can be constructed. At RFS, our abundant plant fossils are shedding a light on the spread of some of the earliest flowering trees into North America from the tropics during the Cretaceous. They are also adding detailed information about the environments the sedimentary geologists are mapping, in interdisciplinary exploration. Paleobotany is a major topic of research at the Field Station.
Paleoflora: the fossil plants that lived in a past, usually ancient, geologic time.

Paleo drainage: the pattern and paths rivers made on the landscape in ancient times. Throughout the passage of time, rivers change their courses, dry up, get flooded over by sea water,  or get buried under younger sediments. The ancient channels of the rivers are often preserved in the rock record as sand channels. We can make measurements on those sand channels that tell us which direction and how fast the water was flowing at various places along the sand channels (called paleocurrent and paleoflow measurements). By mapping them out we can gain information about the whole drainage system from the parent mountains whose erosion produced all that sand. We take many paleocurrent measurements at RFS to help reconstruct the provenance (origins) of our sandstones.

Paleontology: study of fossil plants, animals and ancient life. It is a broad field of study that includes all forms of ancient life, including dinosaurs and other large animals that are known to have existed in New Mexico at the time the rocks at RFS were deposited. Due to the dominance of dinosaurs 85 million years ago, we fully expect to find their bones in our exploration of the rocks on the property. Small mammals (smaller than rabbits) also existed at that time, but were not as widespread as dinosaurs. Pterosaurs (flying reptiles) dominated the sky. Paleontological exploration at RFS is just beginning, but offers opportunities for citizen science.

Paleoclimatology: study of ancient climates. This is a truly multidisciplinary field, because it integrates indicators of past climates from the fossil record, from geochemical analysis of ancient sediments, and from celestial dynamics of the planet in its orbit around the sun. Reconstructing the paleoclimate when the Late Cretaceous rocks were deposited of RFS is a major focus of current research. We will also be developing post Ice Age paleoclimate reconstructions as part of our study of the Ancient Indigenous peoples who hunted at RFS. For more recent climate analysis, we have the benefit of a forest of ancient trees, whose tree rings also provide climate indicators of the past 1000 years.

Paleosols: paleosol are fossil soils that used to be exposed at and just below ancient surfaces that are now preserved in the rock record. We can recognize paleosols by fossil root traces, and fossilized pollen within these ancient layers that tell us about the ancient vegetation and biology.We recognize paleosols in our canyon walls between layers of sandstone or other types of rock. Chemical markers tell us about the water table that existed at the time, and that gives us information about the paleoclimate (such as how wet, soggy or dry the ground would have been, and how many plants were growing on the ancient surface). New Mexico State University scientists are working to build the paleosol morphology (the layers, color, root penetration, etc) of the many paleosols at RFS.  Paleosols that were exposed for a long time in the past show longer weathering and suggest the ancient landscape was stable for long periods. At RFS the New Mexico State University scientists are working to construct the paleosol maturity index to document that exposure record. We can collect pollen and study the root traces and chemistry to reconstruct the conditions of the ancient land surface.

Palynology: study of living and fossil pollen grains, spores, algae and other microfossils. By examining the structure of these tiny grains and spores with a microscope, they may be categorized as originating from marine or land environments. In some cases they can be age dated because they only lived during a known time frame, and may also help identify to which fossil plant groups they belong. Palynology is a powerful tool used by our researchers in our quest to reconstruct the environment at RFS 85 million years ago, and to help age date specific layers of rock relative to each other. The types of pollen paint a picture of what kind of vegetation were present. The types of fossil plankton can tell whether the sediments are marine or fresh water, a huge aid to geologists mapping sedimentary layers.

Palynological Samples: a collected scoop of sediments such as shales, that are taken back to the laboratory and examined using microscopes to find and identify pollen grains, spores and other microfossils.

Petrology: study of the origin, history, appearance, structure and composition of rocks through microscopic analyses. Rocks are cut into very thin wafers (a thousandth of an inch thick) and viewed through a petrographic microscope, so that a beam of light shows through the tiny crystals making up the rock. The special ways that the light shines through the crystals tells us what minerals make up the rock and therefore gives us information about the origin of the rock. At RFS we take samples of rock from different layers, cut them into thin sections and perform analyses to learn about the changes in origins of rock layers as we go from older to younger rock.

Primeval Forest: old-growth forest that has developed in a pristine bio zone untouched by harvesting or alteration by man. The piñon-juniper forests blanketing the ridges and ravines at RFS are an old-growth forest that provides an excellent opportunity to study the biology and ecology of a pristine ecosystem. This will be the next subject of field research initiated at RFS.

Provenance: the study determining the original source rocks that were weathered, eroded and transported to form sediments. At RFS we are heavily engaged in figuring out where all the sands and shales deposited on our field station originally came from. We measure properties of the minerals making up the sediments, and combine that information we know about the tectonics that shaped the distant lands the minerals came from to figure out the provenance of the Crevasse Canyon formation. Provenance also tells us information about the climate at the time the rocks were eroded and later deposited.

Q 

Quaternary: a period of time from about 2.6 million years ago to the present time.

R

Ravine: a steep-walled, deep canyon

Regressions: geological processes in which the sea or ocean recedes (retreats) from its shoreline, and terrestrial (land) deposits build out over the previously submerged sediments. Some marine regressions can be a result of sea level being lowered during Ice Ages when large amounts of earth’s surface water is locked up in ice sheets. Other marine regressions can occur because geologic processes have lifted land regionally, or because shorelines have changed locally, allowing terrestrial sediments to build seaward. At RFS we see cyclical (regularly repeating) regressions and transgressions (see definition below) exposed in our rock deposits. Geological researchers, both students and faculty, are actively studying the rocks and regional mountain building events to understand the timing, ages, and potential causes of these cycles. Since the time period during which the rocks were deposited at RFS was exceptionally hot (much hotter than today, see Cretaceous Thermal Maximum). There were no ice caps or ice sheets on the planet, so geologists are doing field work to understand what else caused the RFS’s cyclical regressions.

Reproductive Structures: the parts of a plant that allow it reproduce and create new generations of itself. Plants can reproduce by flowers, pollen, fruits and seeds, and these parts are sometimes fossilized. At RFS we have found fossil seeds and collected fossil pollen which helps us reconstruct the kind of trees 85 million years ago.

Reservoir: a body of rock material like sandstone that can hold fluids in its pore spaces (the empty space between mineral grains). Those fluids might be water, petroleum or other liquids of interest. The amount (percentage) of rock that is made up of empty or liquid-filled pore spaces is called porosity. The connectedness and ease with which fluids can flow through the pores of a rock is called permeability. To be a good reservoir and hold a lot of fluids that can be harvested, good porosity and permeability is needed. At RFS, the Crevasse Canyon does not have good porosity and permeability compared to most other formations in the area because its pores have been filled with cementing materials that crystallized (= “precipitated”) out of the ancient pore filling fluids at some time in the past, and are now preventing flow. We are studying those pore blocking materials to find out when that happened to our sandstones and why they are poor reservoirs.

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Sandstone Modal Composition: a method of categorizing the population of grain types in a sandstone, and the fine clays and cements that hold the sandstone together. We construct a triangular graph that maps the all grains of a sample along quartz, feldspar and lithic (volcanic and other rock pieces) axes which is a convenient way to compare what makes up one sample against a different sample. At RFS we use these graphs to compare our sandstones to other sandstones far away to see if ours came from the same source as the others we are comparing to.

Santonian age: a stage of the Late Cretaceous (see definition) epoch that lasted from 86.3 to 83.6 millions years ago. The rocks we see on the surface at RFS were deposited during the Santonian age.

Sedimentology: study of modern and ancient sands, silts and clays (together they make up sediments and sedimentary rocks), and their origins and processes that deposit them. Those processes (such as weathering, erosion, transportation, deposition and alteration) each leave their mark on the rocks we see in the field, and allow us to understand the origin and history of the formations at RFS. Our geology students and faculty, dive deep into the details those rocks, slicing them into very thin samples that allow them to study the individual grains and minerals in the rock. Those grains are like 85 million year old fingerprints! Geologists apply geochemistry and mineralogy techniques to date when and where individual grains were formed. Palynologists (see definition) study fosiil pollen, fungus grains and other microfossils to help distinguish whether the sediments were deposited in terrestrial river deposits, offshore marine deposits, fresh water lakes, or other environments. Integrated together, the field analysis and the laboratory techniques write a detailed story of the journey the rocks took to get to RFS’s land 85 million years ago.

Siderite: an iron carbonate mineral made up of Iron, Carbon and Oxygen molecules bound together that we find commonly in the Crevasse Canyon Formation. At RFS we have an active research program to understand where, how, why and when these minerals formed. The answer to these questions may give us important clues about the environments in which the sandstone and shales that enclose the siderite deposits. [See the white paper The Mystery of the Siderites] add link.

Soil Science: study of soil formation and its physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties. Soil contains mineral grains, organic matter (such as roots, micro-organisms and decaying plant and animal matter), water and air. All those components are vital to the ecology that supports all the life that exists above and in the soil, including plants and animals. At RFS, the soil has supported an primeval forest (see definition) for a thousand years, so it is an important component of the research on the ecology of our bio zone.
Spatial distribution: the pattern of how a set of things (like fossils, plants, rocks, etc) are spread over an area or space.

Spores: a tiny one-celled package produced by a plant or fungus that allows it to reproduce. The tiny dots on the leaves of ferns are spores, for example. Sometimes spores are preserved in the fossil record. At RFS, fossil spores can help us reconstruct the plant life 85 million years ago.

Stable Isotope Analysis: a technique that measures the proportions of stable isotopes in a rock. Stable isotopes are versions of elements (like Carbon and Oxygen) that are stable, and don’t decay into other elements. For example, for an element like Oxygen, some stable isotope versions are heavier (their atoms have more neutrons in their nucleus) than lighter versions (the atoms have less neutrons in their nucleus). This difference makes the two versions of Oxygen atoms react differently in processes like evaporation and precipitation as rain. Because they are stable, the proportion of the two versions is frozen in time when rocks containing those elements are deposited, leaving clues about environmental conditions at the time rocks were deposited. At RFS, we use tools like mass spectrometry (see definition) to study stable isotopes for information about environmental conditions when our rocks were deposited or formed.

Stratigraphy: study of the chronological (time) order, relative position and timing of deposited rock layers and their relationship to the geological time scale. In normal depositional processes younger deposits are accumulate over older deposits in a sequence that tells a story of how an environment changed over time. For example, stratigraphy can show how a particular location may have changed from a streambed to a marsh or other environment over time, and tell us the order of those changes. At RFS we map stratigraphic sequences over an area to observe correlations (rocks belonging to the same deposit, origin or age), to map the extent of continuous sands or shales. This in turn gives us insights about the extents of rivers, beaches and other environments 85 million years ago. A Stratigraphic Column is a diagram that shows the vertical stack of rock layers in an area, with the oldest on the bottom and the youngest on top. The column often shows the ages and names of the different rock layers, if they are known. The diagram can also show what types of textures and fossils are found at the different layers and what types of analyses been done for various samples in the stack. This is a practice used at RFS because we have many types of data we are tracking. At RFS, we don’t have definitive dates for all the rock layers in our column of rocks, although we do know the formation names. A major effort of our field research is to establish the ages of our layers of rock.

Survival Training: essential procedures, equipment and behaviors in response to medical emergencies, wildlife encounters and practical survival techniques in remote areas. RFS offers training classes tailored to our wilderness location, which also apply broadly to survival skills needed in similar high mountain, arid terrain. Our training departs from celebrity challenges and adventure survival in that it prepares non-professional explorers for the possibility of becoming lost, suffering injuries (such as sprains, contusions, and broken bones from falls) or illness, and encountering severe weather or wild animals. It provides hands on practice and behavioral guidelines that increase the probability of rapid rescue and injury mitigation.

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Taxa: a group / classification / rank of living things, for example, species, orders, and kingdoms of animals are different classifications of taxa.

Tectonics: study of the earth’s crust, its structure and its large-scale processes and movements. At RFS this includes research leading to understanding the effects of mountain building and volcanic events in the regional context of the property. Although there were no mountains at RFS’s location 85 million years ago, very distant mountain-building events (plate tectonics) shed the sands and shales that we see on the property today. RFS is also surrounded by volcanic regions caused by plate tectonics (movements of slabs of earth’s crust) that have been active from 15 million years ago to as recent as 4000 years ago. While there are 3-4 million year old volcanic necks very nearby (Blue Mesa / Bell Mountain and D-Cross Mountain about 4-5 miles away) there are not volcanic vents on the property, an interesting gap in volcanism that will be the subject of further study.

Tectonic Plate Subduction: the process where moving plates of the earth’s surface crust are being forced downward into the molten inner parts of the earth (called the mantle), where they melt and cause volcanoes and lava flows in the crustal plates above them.

Terrestrial: land and sedimentary deposits that are above the shoreline, as opposed to deposits that are “marine” or under seawater. Deposits that are under freshwater lakes are still considered terrestrial. Terrestrial environments are characterized by rivers, streams, plains, mountains and other landforms that are exposed to the atmosphere. Terrestrial vegetation are plants that grow or grew on land as opposed to undersea. Terrestrial fauna are animals that live or lived on land as opposed to undersea. At RFS, we are very interested in distinguishing deposits that are terrestrial from those that are marine, because it helps us to map the shoreline that separated land from sea 85 million years ago.

Trace Fossils: imprints, casts or impressions left behind by the activity of ancient organisms. These can include worm burrows (where the worms  themselves are not preserved), footprints or tracks, poop (!), bite marks and other similar “traces”. The Gallup Formation that underlies the Crevasse Canyon rocks at RFS was a beach sand 90 million years ago. Today we see many vertical worm burrows in the Gallup made by marine worms.

Transgressions: geological processes in which the sea or ocean gradually advances landward from its shoreline, and marine (undersea) deposits build out over the previously exposed terrestrial (land) sediments. Some marine transgressions can be a result of sea level being raised between Ice Ages when large amounts of earth’s surface water is released into the seas and oceans when ice sheets melt. Other marine transgressions can occur because geologic processes have lowered land regionally, or because shorelines have changed locally, allowing marine waters to drown land sediments. At RFS we see cyclical (regularly repeating) regressions (see definition above) and transgressions exposed in our rock deposits. Geological researchers, both students and faculty, are actively studying the rocks and regional mountain building events to understand the timing, ages, and potential causes of these cycles. Since the time period during which the rocks were deposited at RFS was exceptionally hot (much hotter than today, see Cretaceous Thermal Maximum). There were no ice caps or ice sheets on the planet, so geologists are doing fieldwork to understand what else caused the RFS’s cyclical transgressions and regressions.

Turonian: a stage of the Late Cretaceous (see definition) epoch from 93.9 to 89.8 million years ago. Rocks this age are older than the rocks we see at the surface at RFS, but are available for study nearby, and contain important fossils to compare to those at RFS.

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Vertebrate fossils: fossils of animals that had backbones. At RFS, these would have included reptiles, dinosaurs, small mammals, amphibians, birds and pterosaurs.

Vocational pursuits: education that focuses on acquiring skills that can be applied to a certain profession or professions. Vocational pursuits are the opposite of avocational pursuits, which are learning just for the joy of learning, without a professional goal.

Volcanology: study of volcanoes, lava, and magma-related geological and chemical processes and history. At RFS, very distant volcanoes and the volcanic rock they were made of, eroded into small grains that were transported by rivers, and incorporated into the sandstones on the property. We apply geochemical analysis techniques to certain volcanic grains in the sandstones that are Zircon minerals. Those techniques can develop the fingerprint of the volcanoes that produced those grains, and telling us the age and location of the volcanoes! When we apply this analysis to different layers of sandstones and shales, we get a picture of how much time occurred between major changes in the environment.

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Ways of Knowing: knowledge that exists in Indigenous communities based on the whole of their existence and experiences; inherited wisdom that is often passed on in an oral tradition. Our Indigenous partners and students are offered the opportunity to integrate respectful, culturally relevant learning methods in western sciences with the Ways of Knowing that they inherit from their cultures. The integration provides powerful insights that come from multiple perspectives, and we strive to open pathways for vocational and professional opportunity in the process.

Western Interior Seaway: a large inland seaway that split the North American continent into two landmasses for 35 million years, from 100 million years ago to 66 million years ago, during the Cretaceous epoch. The rocks at RFS were laid down on the western shoreline of this seaway. One can stand on shoreline formations at RFS, and realize that 85 million years ago, the sea stretched eastward from that beach spot all the way to modern day Kansas. The seaway stretched south from modern day Mexico all the way to the modern day Arctic Ocean. It was about 2,500 feet (780m) deep, and populated by bony fish like X-fish, sharks, marine reptiles such as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, mollusks and other shelled sea life. Pterosaurs soared overhead. The landmass on the west side of the seaway, where RFS is located today, was called Laramidia. The Western Interior Seaway was the eastern boundary of the rock formations of RFS. For more detail, see the white paper “The Western Cretaceous Seaway” (make a clickable link).

Wholistic View: a way at looking at or characterizing an environment by looking at the whole environment with all its parts rather than its individual parts separately. At RFS, we are reconstructing the environment 85 million years ago by looking at all the vegetation across all the different parts of the landscapes such as beaches, rivers, lagoons, forests and more.

Wilderness Medicine: improvised emergency medicine in remote wilderness environments, with a goal of stabilizing a patient so that they may mitigate injuries and survive until rescue. RFS is offering a short, hands-on field training class that includes wilderness medicine skills useful in responding to medical emergencies in the field, in addition to survival skills appropriate to remote fieldwork. Our helicopter medevac provider teaches the emergency wilderness medicine portion of our wilderness survival class.

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Zoology: study of the behavior, physiology (form), distribution and populations of living animals and their interaction with the ecosystems in which they live. At RFS, the land is populated with abundant wildlife, including elk, deer, mountain lions, bears, foxes, coyotes, rabbits, wild turkeys, bobcat, and squirrels, as well as multiple species of birds, rodents, and insects. We will be developing ecology programs to study our modern environment, which will include zoology studies of the animals within it. It is our intention to create opportunities for student and citizen science participation in field research activities as part of these programs, such as population surveys, photographic documentation and illustration.