8.1. CT scan of Hoplophoneus sp., BADL 59490. Scan courtesy of the Rapid City Regional Hospital and the National Park Service. Specimen is the property of the U.S. government.
THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE (NPS) PROTECTS OUR natural and cultural heritage for future generations. At Badlands National Park, this natural heritage includes fossil vertebrates and invertebrates, fossilized plants, and trace fossils. The report accompanying the enabling legislation for Badlands National Monument in 1939, which was designated a national park in 1976, describes the future park as “a vast storehouse of the biological past.” Careful protection of fossils and their context over the years has allowed researchers in many different disciplines in the earth sciences to conduct research and improved our understanding of that biological past. This in turn has produced important data about the geology and paleontology of the park, which have been published in scientific journals and which have been included in this book.
The guidelines set up by the NPS Geological Resources Program (Santucci, 2009) serve as the core of the paleontology program at Badlands National Park. The guidelines include providing inventory and monitoring, enhancing visitor understanding and enjoyment of the fossil resource, and ensuring adequate technical capacity for the management, protection, interpretation, curation, and ultimately protection of the park’s paleontological resources so they are available to future generations for enjoyment and education. Since 1994, with the hiring of the first park paleontologist, Badlands National Park has developed a program that supports each of these components. Early on, it was recognized that these tasks could not be accomplished alone and that the park needed to develop partnerships with other federal agencies, tribes, museums, and universities. Over the past 20 years, in cooperation with these other institutions, the park has surveyed several hundred acres of land, collected several thousand fossils, and developed a database for over 300 fossiliferous localities. However, much work remains to be done.
On March 30, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Paleontological Resource Preservation Act (P.L. 111–11) into law. This legislation serves as the primary authority for the management, protection, and interpretation of paleontological resources on federal land. The combination of annual visitation levels of over 1 million people and the great abundance of fossils exposed by erosion at visitor-use areas results in both positive and negative impacts to these resources. Badlands National Park staff members face many unique challenges to meet the goals of the 1916 National Park Service Organic Act, “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” The protection of a portion of the White River Badlands as a national park has ensured that the scientific information provided by this world-class paleontological and geological resource can be made available to everyone in perpetuity.
Badlands National Park staff work in close partnership with many outside institutions. Before the development of a paleontology program in 1994, park management relied completely on the expertise of paleontologists and geologists at museums and universities to assist with emergency salvage collections and provide input on major management decisions related to fossils in the park. The park still relies on this advice and input today, but the park is now also able to pursue more in-house projects. Museums and universities still provide important expertise and laboratory and curatorial space, and they are actively engaged in many research projects in the park. In return, Badlands National Park not only provides protection of a world-renowned resource but also ensures access to qualified researchers.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe is also a close partner with Badlands National Park. In 1968, under Public Law 90–468, Congress approved a revision of the boundaries of Badlands National Park to include a portion of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, creating the South Unit of Badlands National Park. While the Oglala Sioux Tribe retained ownership of the land, the management of the South Unit is by both the NPS and the tribe. One of the main reasons for establishing the South Unit was to protect “lands of outstanding scenic and scientific character.” At the time of this writing, a new general management plan (GMP) has been drafted, with the goal of creating the first tribal national park in the United States. Among the many goals of the GMP is to promote a mentoring program between NPS employees and tribe members as part of a gradual transition from primary management by NPS employees to a staff of all fully trained tribe members. There is also a strong educational emphasis, which promotes the understanding of Oglala Sioux history, culture, and land-management principles. Now that the new GMP is fully approved, the final step to make this new park a reality will require Congress to provide the required legislation.
The park has a unique situation regarding how it manages its paleontological resources because of the combination of sheer abundance and easy access. The park provides the opportunity for even the most casual visitors to encounter fossils during their visit, either while hiking or simply making a road stop. Visitors can have the experience of being the first to witness the exposure of a fossil that has been buried for 30 million years – something that does not happen in many other national parks. On the other hand, without careful and active management, this can also pose a serious threat to the resource and can result in the loss of thousands of fossils each year that are illegally removed from the park.
To educate visitors about the significance and scientific value of the fossils themselves, as well as the equally important context in which they are found, the park has provided visitors with the opportunity to witness the discovery, excavation, and preparation of fossils in two different settings. The first was the Big Pig Dig, one of the most exciting paleontological discoveries within the White River Badlands, named for the numerous piglike entelodont Archaeotherium fossils found at the site (Plates 9, 10). Badlands National Park worked in partnership with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology to excavate, prepare, and curate over 19,000 fossils from the site. The site was active for 15 field seasons and provided an incredible opportunity for park visitors to see paleontological resources and interact with scientists. On average, between 5000 and 10,000 visitors would stop by the site each summer.
In 2012 the park opened the Saber Site, located next to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. In May 2010, a 7-year-old girl, while participating in a NPS Junior Ranger program, discovered the back of a Hoplophoneus skull just becoming exposed from the surrounding rock (Fig. 8.1). The girl’s family reported the discovery to the ranger leading the Junior Ranger program. It was this discovery that led to the development of the Saber Site quarry and fossil preparation lab at the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. Visitors were exposed to the discovery of fossils firsthand, and they were able to witness the excavation and documentation of fossils. Inside the visitor center, visitors could see the preparation of fossils for exhibit and study, along with interesting displays and discussions of important paleontological topics.
It is often tempting to pick up a bone fragment as a souvenir and take it home. We all have heard the adage that if everyone collected fossils, there would be none left. This adage is actually true; paleontological surveys within the park have found that once fossil-rich outcrops near visitor use areas often contain fewer fossils than areas further away (Benton et al., 2007). Many of these areas were once important research areas but now have little scientific value. Park visitors can play a large role in making important fossil discoveries. While both the Big Pig Dig and the Saber Site were discovered by park visitors, these are just two examples. On average, the park staff receives between 100 and 150 fossil reports from park visitors each year. In order to ensure that the visitor provides accurate information, a special form has been designed to guide the visitor through the reporting process (Fig. 8.2). These forms can be obtained at each of the major visitor centers and park entrance stations. The most crucial information involves instructions on how to help the park staff relocate the fossil found by the visitor. Park visitors are encouraged to include GPS readings and copies of park maps showing the location of the fossil discovery. Photographs of the specimen and the specimen location are also helpful. An e-mail address is also valuable for follow-up discussions and further descriptions of the site. Visitors are strongly discouraged from tampering with or collecting a fossil. Such activities could result in a citation, no matter how well intentioned. When a fossil is removed from its context without proper documentation, it loses most of its scientific significance. With 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires formed by Cenozoic sediments that contain fossils from two epochs and four land mammal ages, the many eyes provided by park visitors, along with careful reporting of their discoveries, provide an important paleontological management tool.
In 2000 and in 2003 the park received funding for 6 years of paleontological surveys within the Scenic and Poleslide members of the Brule Formation (Plate 4). The purpose of the surveys was to document fossil-rich areas within the park and to encourage further work to mitigate these areas. Other outcomes included providing important information to resource management and law enforcement divisions of the park on the location of sensitive sites for further protection, and to ensure that these areas were not negatively affected when future park development was considered. All fossil occurrences were correlated with stratigraphic position and depositional environment. During the 6-year project, the survey team documented a total of 4113 fossil occurrences. All locality information was recorded in the park Geographic Information System (GIS) database.
8.2. Visitor site report form that can be used by visitors to document their fossil discovery. Form is the property of the U.S. government.
The development of the park paleontological locality database began in 2004. Much of the data recorded during the 6 years of paleontological surveys were integrated into individual localities. A database was created that included locality descriptions (longitude and latitude, stratigraphic position, depositional environment, and associated faunal lists), and all site locations were entered into the park GIS database. At the time of this writing, over 300 localities have been documented within the park. Most recently, the park has extended the database into the Badlands Wilderness Area (Fig. P.1). Surveys are needed for the younger Sharps Formation as well (Plate 4).
The majority of paleontological occurrences in the park consist of a single bone. However, during survey work, field crews sometimes discover extensive bone accumulations that require larger-scale excavation (Plate 9). The larger excavations require a meter grid system and the use of highly accurate survey tools to document the exact location and position of individual fossils within a bone bed (Plate 10).
Although casual collecting in the park is not allowed, fossil collecting by qualified researchers as part of a scientific study is allowed with a research permit signed by the park superintendent. A research permit application requires a proposal with a valid research question.
In 2001 the NPS made a concerted effort to standardize the research permitting system. After several complaints from the research community about the inconsistency of permitting programs between individual national parks, the NPS Permit and Reporting System was consolidated into a central online database to address these issues. To apply for a permit, the researcher simply logs on to the NPS Web site (https://irma.nps.gov/RPRS/), at which point the NPS research coordinator for that particular park is notified of the permit application via automatic messaging. The park staff then can begin the permit evaluation process, and if the application is acceptable, they can issue a research permit.
The permitting process requires the drafting of a summary report of all the work done within the park, known as the Investigator’s Annual Report, or IAR. All fossils collected under the research permit remain federal property and must be curated and stored following the NPS curatorial guidelines. However, because of limited curatorial space, the park does allow fossils to be curated at nonfederal repositories. The majority of fossils collected from Badlands National Park are housed at other institutions. The park does have a collections storage facility, but it is limited in size. The park has a loan agreement with institutions that have collected and curated fossils under a valid research permit. The Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City is just one example of the many partner repositories curating fossils from the park. Many fossils were collected from the White River Badlands before the park was established, and in order to help the park staff fully understand the paleontology of the park, efforts are being made to try and document these collections as a way of achieving this goal.
Congress mandates that all NPS collections be entered into a centralized database, and NPS management guidelines stipulate that all related information be recorded for each museum specimen. The Interior Collection Management System (ICMS) is the database for museum collections used by all agencies within the Department of the Interior, including the NPS. Because of stringent NPS curatorial guidelines, an extra responsibility is added to the collection of each fossil specimen. When each fossil is collected, relevant information such as proper locality and stratigraphic information must be recorded. This is the same type of information recorded for specimens collected by professionals in all museums. Curators in the NPS make a special effort to record the correct identification and all associated information. Because the deaccession process can be lengthy, special care must be taken when deciding to collect and curate a fossil. Fossils in partner repositories are cataloged into ICMS, and this information is maintained by the park curator. This allows the curator to keep track of the location of all specimens collected in the park and to ensure that they are being maintained in proper curatorial conditions.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was passed by Congress in 1969 and took effect on January 1, 1970 (Directors Order 12, 1985). NEPA mandates that every federal agency prepare an in-depth study of the impacts of major federal actions that can have a significant effect on the environment. Each agency must propose alternatives to these actions. They also must use this information as an integral part of the decision-making process. Finally, they must involve the interested and the affected public. Part of the environment that can be affected includes paleontological resources. This includes resources in the field, museum collections, undiscovered resources, and unauthorized collections. At Badlands National Park, all proposed major actions within the park are carefully evaluated for their impact on paleontological resources.
During busy years with a strong economy, Badlands National Park can receive over a million visitors per year. A park with such a high visitation rate requires a strong infrastructure to meet visitors’ needs. Construction projects that provide this infrastructure can include roads, trails, and visitor centers. Fossils may not only be encountered during the initial construction phase but also during maintenance, and even when structures are removed or replaced.
The Badlands Loop Road (Highway 240) was mandated through the 1929 legislation that established Badlands National Monument. Peter Norbeck, a United States senator from South Dakota, drafted the legislation to ensure the prompt development of the monument with full participation from the state of South Dakota (Shuler, 1989). The legislation required that in order for the monument to be established, a road must be built by the state of South Dakota to show off the grandeur of the Big Badlands. Because the road was actually built right along the Badlands wall, it was built in the worst possible place from an engineering perspective. The soft strata that form the Badlands features erode quickly and are not stable enough to support a road. The Badlands Loop Road crosses several major passes: Cedar Pass, Norbeck Pass, Dillon Pass, and the Ancient Hunters/Pinnacles area (Fig. P.1). Each of these passes contains active landslides, along with fault activity. The Badlands Loop Road, especially near the major passes, is often under construction. Because of the high density of fossils in the park, every construction project to remove landslide debris or to repair the road can potentially result in the discovery of fossils and must be closely monitored in order to be in compliance with NEPA.
Any excavation into bedrock within the White River Badlands requires careful monitoring by a paleontologist. Large excavation equipment can easily damage delicate fossils. A paleontologist monitoring a construction site must act quickly to salvage fossils that are at risk of being damaged or lost, and at the same time document their location and stratigraphic context. Ideally the paleontologist can accomplish all of these goals without delaying the overall progress of a project.
With easy access to fossils and the many duties of the law enforcement staff, it is difficult to keep up with the illegal poaching activity within the park and surrounding federal lands. Over the past 3 years, there have been between 1 and 3 fossil poaching cases each year in the park (Osback and Griswold, pers. comm., 2014). Fossil theft extends beyond actual law enforcement cases. The commercial trade in fossils is ever growing and international in scope. A recent estimate for a complete brontothere skull sold through Sotheby’s auction house in October 2011 was between $40,000 and $50,000 (Fig. 5.53).
Fossil poaching at Badlands National Park, as on any federal land, can take on many forms. The casual park visitor may pick up a piece of fossilized bone during a hike along a park trail. This activity may seem innocuous, but multiplied by a million visitors per year, this activity can have a major impact on the resource. Many college geology field camps visit the park on their way to field-mapping projects further west. Unfortunately, some college students have returned to the park on their own, not understanding that they need a research permit to collect fossils. In 1999 four college students were caught with over 2000 fossils they had illegally collected in the span of 4 days. They all received steep fines as penalties for their actions. Professional fossil poachers also visit the park, especially the South Unit. Poachers use dirt bikes to access remote areas and collect fossils out of view of law enforcement (Fig. 8.3). In addition to the removal of the fossil, the use of the dirt bikes can result in heavy erosion of the soft strata and the destruction of geological features.
In an effort to combat fossil poaching, Badlands National Park has been working with the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in order to develop a method to chemically “fingerprint” fossil bone material. This method will not stop the act of poaching directly, but it may serve as a means to strengthen legal cases against suspected poachers. The concept of chemically fingerprinting a fossil bone is based on the process of fossilization described in chapter 6. As bone fossilizes, it incorporates a distinct suite of elements that are characteristic to particular rock units and geographic locations within the outcrops. These chemical fingerprints are composed of rare earth elements (REEs), a group of elements that, although relatively abundant, are named for their tendency to be found in low concentrations in geological materials. REEs include the lanthanide series of the periodic table, from atomic numbers 57 to 71, as well as scandium and yttrium, with atomic numbers of 21 and 39, respectively. Although REEs normally tend to occur in low concentrations, their ionic radius makes them a perfect fit for inclusion into bone that is recrystallizing during the fossilization process. The REE signature incorporated into a fossilizing bone is influenced by the type of sediment that the bone is in, the acidity and alkalinity of the environment of deposition (pH), and whether the environment is wet or dry, which influences the availability of oxygen in the system (oxidizing versus reducing). The REEs and other elements enter into the bone via groundwater that has chemically reacted with the surrounding sediments and environment. Once the REE signature is incorporated into the recrystallized bone, it is locked in and cannot be easily altered. Chemical signatures are determined by mass spectrometry and statistically analyzed to establish patterns and distinctiveness (Fig. 8.4).
8.3. Photographs of fossils that were targeted for illegal collection, and pits where fossils were stolen. (A) Fossil tortoise wrapped with electrical tape (e). (B) Fossil skull (S) wrapped with newspaper, plastic, and tape. This specimen was recovered from suspected poachers. Photo is the property of the U.S. government. (C), (D) Poach pit with only postcranial fragments (pf) of bone remaining. Photos (A), (C), and (D) are by the authors.
At the time of this writing, 100 individual fossils from the Chadron Formation and from the Scenic and Poleslide members of the Brule Formation in Badlands National Park have been analyzed for their REE signatures (Fig. 8.4). These fossil samples stretch over 50 km from Sheep Mountain Table southwest of Scenic, South Dakota, to the Door and Window Overlooks just northeast of Cedar Pass (Fig. P.1). Results to date suggest that fossils from different rock units have unique REE signatures. This is similar to the results of Metzger, Terry, and Grandstaff (2004), Grandstaff and Terry, 2009), Lukens et al. (2010), and Terry et al. (2010), who found that individual bone accumulations within various rock units of the Badlands could be statistically distinguished. As new fossil sites are discovered and chemically analyzed, a library of geochemical fingerprints will be created that can be used by law enforcement officers to establish the point of origin of fossils recovered from poachers.
The Paleontological Resources Preservation Act (PRPA) (P.L. 111–11) provides the NPS with seven important mandates to enhance paleontological stewardship. Some of the most significant mandates involve the clarification of criminal penalties, which increase fines and jail time for fossil poaching offenses. A summary of these mandates, drafted by the NPS Geologic Resources Program (Santucci, 2009), is as follows:
8.4. Graphs of representative rare earth element signatures from fossils in Badlands National Park. These two graphs are from different stratigraphic units in the White River Group.
1. PRPA Section 6302 calls for the management and protection of fossil resources using scientific principles and expertise. NPS personnel will develop inventory and monitoring programs and the scientific and educational use of fossil resources. The NPS is encouraged to partner with outside institutions and the public to achieve many of these goals.
2. PRPA Section 6303 calls for the development of educational programs to expand public awareness about the significance of paleontological resources.
3. PRPA Section 6308 provides the NPS a confidentiality provision exempting the requirement to disclose sensitive paleontological locality information.
4. PRPA Section 6305 calls for the curation of NPS paleontological resources, along with associated data or records, in approved repositories.
5. PRPA Section 6306 provides clarity regarding prohibited acts involving paleontological resources and specifies criminal penalties associated with these criminal acts.
6. PRPA Section 6307, along with other existing authorities, enables the NPS to seek civil penalties and restitution for the violation of any prohibited activities involving paleontological resources.
7. PRPA Section 6310 directs the secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to issue regulations appropriate to carry out the act.
It is with great pride that the NPS serves the people of the United States, protecting this unique, nonrenewable resource. Nearly every major natural history museum around the world houses fossils collected from the White River Badlands, demonstrating a legacy of research and education for over 150 years. Many tools are needed to protect this spectacular resource, including documentation, excavation, preparation, curation, and education. The goal is to continue this legacy for many generations to come.
