Rough Road Quarry (RRQ) (Cretaceous of the United States)

Also known as OMNH V801; Mussentuchit; FHSM

Where: Emery County, Utah (39.0° N, 111.0° W: paleocoordinates 40.3° N, 73.1° W)

• coordinate based on political unit

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Mussentuchit Member (Cedar Mountain Formation), Early/Lower Cenomanian (99.6 - 93.5 Ma)

• A radiometric age of 98.37 ± 0.07 Ma was obtained by the OMNH from volcanic ash within the Mussentuchit Member (Cifelli and others, 1997, 1999). Additional ages by Garrison and others (2007) ranging from 96.7 ± 0.5 to 98.2 ±0.6 Ma indicate that the Mussentuchit Member was deposited over an interval of 1.5 Ma during the early Cenomanian and supports a correlation with the siliceous marine Mowry Shale to the north, which is well-constrained from 40Ar/39Ar sanidine ages obtained from bentonite beds that bracket the Mowry in Wyoming; the basal Arrow Creek Bentonite is 98.5 ± 0.5 Ma and the capping Clay Spur Bentonite is 97.2 ± 0.7 Ma (Obradovich, 1993; Ogg and Hinnov, 2012; Sprinkel and others, 2012) near the base of the Upper Cretaceous. Tucker et al. 2020 also suggested a likely depositional age of ~96-94Ma for the Musseuntuchit member.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; lithology not reported

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Collection methods: bulk, sieve,

Primary reference: M. E. Nelson and J. H. Madsen. 1985. Early Cretaceous mammals from central Utah. Geological Society of America, Rocky Mountain Section, Abstracts with Programs 17(4):258 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 14407: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 21.09.1998, edited by Matthew Carrano

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• see map of Cifelli and Madsen 1998
Actinopteri
 Teleostei -
Amphibia
 Temnospondyli - Albanerpetontidae
Albanerpetontidae indet.5 Fox and Naylor 1982 tetrapod
AMNH 27978-27980, 27972-27973
Mammalia
 Theriamorpha - Spalacotheriidae
Spalacotheridium noblei1 Cifelli and Madsen 1999 mammal
 Eutriconodonta - Triconodontidae
Astroconodon delicatus2 Cifelli and Madsen 1998 mammal
 Multituberculata -
Paracimexomys robisoni4 Eaton and Nelson 1991 multituberculate
FHSM 10352, 10354-55
cf. Paracimexomys perplexus3 Eaton and Cifelli 2001 multituberculate
FHSM 10436-48
Ptilodontoidea indet.4 multituberculate
FHSM 10349; reID as C. parvus
Cedaromys bestia3 Eaton and Nelson 1991 multituberculate
FHSM 10358
Cedaromys parvus3 Eaton and Cifelli 2001 multituberculate
FHSM 10357
Janumys erebos3 Eaton and Cifelli 2001 multituberculate
Reptilia
 Testudinata -
Testudinata indet. Oppel 1811 turtle
 Loricata -
Crocodylia indet. crocodilian
 Theropoda -
Theropoda indet. Marsh 1881 theropod
"both adult and embroynic teeth"
 Ornithischia -
 Squamata -
Lacertilia indet. Owen 1842 lizard
scutes
 Squamata - Polyglyphanodontidae
Bicuspidon numerosus6 Nydam and Cifelli 2002 squamates