Also known as LACM locality 4534; BYU locality 772

Where: Millard County, Utah (39.5° N, 114.0° W: paleocoordinates 39.5° N, 114.0° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Late/Upper Pleistocene to Late/Upper Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma)

• "Radiocarbon dates show that the fossils have been accumulating since at least 23,000 Y.B.P." and continues to the present although "many elements of the present local fauna are... poorly represented"; the stated minimum is based on one sample with no detectable C-14, but there are three dates on large mammals and the oldest is "18,820 + 1510 - 1270 years B.P"

•"fossiliferous sediments are unstratified and never more than 0.5 m (1.5 feet) thick"

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: cave; unlithified, shelly/skeletal, calcareous siltstone

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: bone collector

Collected by H. H. Gerisch, R. Patterson, M. Stokes, W. E. Miller, T. Heaton, J. Heaton in 1956, 1977, 1981, 1982; reposited in the LACM

Collection methods: bulk, surface (float), sieve,

• LACM and Brigham Young University collections

•"early [LACM] collections consisted of float only" and also included "some specimens" from "Gandy Mountain Cave" which "lies about 0.4 km... south of and 30 m... higher than Crystal Ball Cave"

•new collecting was with a combination of "digging... and collecting specimens by hand"; screening "in the lab" for microvertebrates; and screening "inside the cave" for "larger bones" and "was done mainly at sites 1 and 2, but a few specimens were taken from sites 3 and 4... No significant differences were found between fossils from the various sites"

Primary reference: T. H. Heaton. 1985. Quaternary paleontology and paleocology of Crystal Ball Cave, Millard County, Utah: with emphasis on mammals and description of a new species of fossil skunk. Great Basin Naturalist 45(3):337-390 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 93326: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 14.01.2010, edited by Richard Hulbert

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)