Canyons and sections
The Meade Basin is a narrow depression 48 km long, trending in a southwest to northeast direction, extending from the Oklahoma panhandle into southwestern Kansas. The study area for this report is located in southern Meade County along the north bank of the Cimarron River in sections 34 and 35, T. 34 S, R. 30 W and sections 2 and 3, T. 35 S, R. 30 W, in the Kismet SE 7 1/2 minute quadrangle (figure 1). This area includes a series of canyons, which from west to east include Keefe, Alien, East of Alien (EOA), Fractal, and Fox. Keefe and Fox Canyons appear on the USGS Kismet SE quadrangle, whereas the others are informal names we have applied to unnamed canyons. Detailed descriptions of measured sections can be found in Appendix I, and measured section locations are shown in figure 1.
Our measured sections comprise a total thickness of 34 m of Pliocene sediments north of the Cimarron River. These sediments consist of light- to pinkishgray, fine-grained sandstones and siltstones, light yellowish-gray sands and gravels, and scattered gray to white calcium carbonate layers. The fine-grained sandstones and siltstones commonly contain calcareous stringers and nodules that locally form indurated ledges. Some siltstones and fine sandstones are massive, and may in part be eolian; other silty sands, however, contain scattered medium- to coarsegrained lenses, rip-up clasts, and traces of cross-bedding or ripple lamination that together indicate a fluvial origin. Coarse-grained sand and gravel units are fluvial in origin. They vary from unconsolidated to indurated (due to calcium carbonate cementation), even within the same unit. Indurated sands and gravels may form strongly cross-bedded ledges that are traceable for several kilometers. Massive calcium carbonate layers with abundant root traces are interpreted to be pedogenic calcareous accumulations; some show evidence of having formed from the amalgamation of carbonate nodules and stringers. Other massive calcium carbonate layers locally contain charophytes and mollusks, and are thought to represent ponds. North of the Cimarron River, several calcium carbonate layers are identifiable and traceable through several canyons.
Locally along the Cimarron River the base of the Pliocene section is exposed and overlies rocks referred to the Laverne Formation (Frye and Hibbard, 1941; Byrne and McLaughlin, 1948). A major sand and gravel unit in the upper part of the Pliocene section has been called the Meade Gravels Member (Hibbard, 1949). Later, the name Angell Member (of the Ballard Formation) was introduced as a substitute for the Meade Gravels Member (Hibbard, 1958). Our preliminary stratigraphic work indicates that both the names Meade Gravels Member and Angell Member have been applied to more than one gravel unit, and therefore in this report we introduce ?Wolf gravels? as an informal name for the gravels formerly called Meade in Fox and Keefe Canyons. The name Wolf gravels is taken from Wolf Canyon in southwestern Meade County, where these gravels are well exposed. In the canyons north of the Cimarron River, the Wolf sands and gravels, which can be traced between the canyons, vary from completely unconsolidated to lithified and strongly cross-bedded.
Fossil localities and vertebrate assemblages
Fossiliferous localities have been found in Keefe, Alien, EOA, and Fox Canyons. Preliminary lists of the rodents are provided in table 1; only those taxa that aid in correlation are included. Detailed studies are currently in preparation, and it is to be expected that some of the nomenclature will change as a result. Localities discussed in the text are listed below, with the following abbreviations: S = small mammals; L = large mammals; MSU = Murray State University locality number.
Keefe Canyon:
Raptor 1A-C (MSU-10-98; three superposed levels; S, L).
Raptor 2 (MSU-11-98; L).
Raptor 3A-B (MSU-12-98; two superposed levels; S, L).
Raptor 4, 5 (MSU-15-98; two localities that probably represent the same sampling level, on either side of a ridge; S).
KC Turtle (MSU-2-99; S).
KC (KU Loc. 22; Hibbard and Riggs [1949] original quarry locality; S, L).
KCN (MSU-2-98; ca. 5.0 m north of KC; L).
Alien Canyon:
Wiens A-D (MSU 1-98; four superposed levels; S, L).
East of Alien Canyon:
Bishop (MSU-4-99; L).
Ripley A-B (MSU-7-99; two superposed levels; S, L).
Camel Pod (MSU-5-99; L).
Vasquez/Newt (MSU-19-99/MSU-6-99; two localities ca. 10.0 m apart; probably once connected; S, L).
Fox Canyon
Fox Canyon (UM-K1-47 = Rexroad Loc. 6; Hibbard [1950] original locality; S, L).
Red Fox (MSU-16-00; S).
Taylor 4b (one of D. W. Taylor [1960, 1966] mollusk localities).
Keefe Canyon, as used in Hibbard and Riggs (1949) and in this paper, runs north-south and extends through the SW1/4, sec. 34, T. 34 S., R. 30 W. and the NW1/4 sec. 3, T. 35 S., R. 30 W., Meade County, Kansas. Local residents have pointed out to us the remains of the ?dugout? in which the original Mr. Keefe resided, located south of the original Keefe Canyon quarry (KU Loc. 22; Hibbard and Riggs, 1949), near the mouth of the canyon. We mention this detail because the canyon labeled as Keefe Canyon on the USGS Kismet SE 7 1/2 minute quadrangle is actually the canyon to the west of that which contains Hibbard and Riggs' quarry (KC) and the dugout. Also, the footages relative to section corners given by Taylor (1966) for the location of the KC quarry are incorrect, and place the quarry in the canyon labeled as ?Keefe? on the 7 1/2 minute map. Mr. Spencer Wiens of Meade first took us to the KC quarry, which was immediately recognizable by comparisons with photographs in Hibbard and Riggs (1949). Some of our new fossil sites and measured sections and Hibbard and Riggs' Keefe Canyon fossil quarry are located in the canyon with the dugout (figure 2).
In their 1949 paper, Hibbard and Riggs concluded that the fossil deposit at KU Loc. 22 represented an old artesian spring basin. The fossils were recovered from a lenticular ?flour sand? horizon (maximum thickness of 1 meter) fed by a vertical sand-filled tube. The deposit may have been completely mined out by Hibbard and associates, since we found no evidence of the sand-filled tube or the flour sand horizon at the quarry. Instead, we found bone fragments in a 1.45 m interval within fine-grained silty sandstones (figure 2, section 2, KCN) in the walls of the wash 5.0 m north of KC, at what we believe to be the stratigraphic position of KC. Washing of test samples from this 1.45 m interval yielded no identifiable specimens, but two Equus molars were recovered in situ in summer 2002.
Among several new localities found in Keefe Canyon is one, Raptor 3, that has an unusual lithology. Bones of large mammals and rodent teeth are found in an area where the basal calcium carbonate layer is fractured and has collapsed, with selenite crystals and plates filling the fractures. The bones are partly covered with selenite. This locality probably represents an old spring, with mineralized waters likely derived from the solution of underlying Paleozoic evaporites. A well (Stanolind Oil and Gas Company, A.W. Adams No. 1) drilled 4.57 km southwest of Raptor 3 in the SW corner of SW 1/4 sec. 8, T. 35 S., R. 30 W., intersected gypsiferous and anhydrite-bearing rocks of the Paleozoic Nippewalla and Sumner Groups. For example, a 22 m thick gypsum bed is present in the Flowerpot Shale in this well (Lee, 1953). Raptor 3 is subdivided into two superposed levels, a lower A unit and an upper B unit. Raptor 3A produced the microfauna reported in Table 1.
In Fox Canyon (figure 3), we located a sandy horizon that appears to be the source of Hibbard's (1950) Fox Canyon l.f. Large and small mammal bones are commonly found in a two meter thick sand, the top of which is 6.5 m topographically below a massive caliche (our CC1 in figure 3) that caps the exposure. We sampled the unit at this level and recovered Pliophenacomys finneyi , an extinct arvicoline rodent that characterizes the Fox Canyon local fauna. However, Hibbard (1950) noted that most of his specimens were recovered from a pocket of sandy silts that grade laterally into channel sands 5.18 m below CC1 (Hibbard's locality UM-K1-47). The top of the sandy horizon to the north across the wash from UM-K1-47 is 5.30 m below CC1; the difference between Hibbard's and our measurements at the original quarry is due to a massive slumping of sediments at the quarry since Hibbard's measurements were taken. Our measured section in figure 3 (Fox Canyon W.) is a composite, with the lower part (CC1 and below) taken roughly 50 m west of the fossil quarry, and the upper portion (above CC1) measured directly above the fossil quarry.
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