Preliminary Survey of a Paleocene Faunule
from the Angels Peak Area, New Mexico
BY
ROBERT W. WILSON
University of Kansas Publications
Museum of Natural History
Volume 5, No. 1, pp. 1-11, 1 figure in text
February 24, 1951
University of Kansas
LAWRENCE
1951
University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History
Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, A. Byron Leonard,
Edward H. Taylor, Robert W. Wilson
Volume 5, No. 1, pp. 1-11, 1 figure in text
February 24, 1951
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
PRINTED BY
FERD VOILAND, JR., STATE PRINTER
TOPEKA, KANSAS
1951
23-4458
Preliminary Survey of a Paleocene Faunule
from the Angels Peak Area, New Mexico
By
ROBERT W. WILSON
INTRODUCTION
Angels Peak stands on the eastern rim of a large area of badlandscarved by a tributary of the San Juan River from Paleocene strataof the Nacimiento formation, and presumably also from Wasatchianstrata of the San José (Simpson, 1948). This area of badlands liessome twelve miles south of Bloomfield, New Mexico in the KutzCanyon drainage. Angels Peak (Angel Peak of Granger, 1917) andKutz Canyon (Coots Cañon of Granger, and of Matthew, 1937) arenames that have been applied to the location (figure 1).
Figure 1. Map of a part of the San Juan Basin, New Mexico, showinglocation of University of Kansas fossil locality west of Angels Peak.
E. D. Cope's collector, David Baldwin, possibly worked in thisarea in the Eighties. The first published record, however, of mammalianfossils from the Angels Peak badlands was made by WalterGranger in 1917 as a result of his field work in the preceding summer.Granger obtained specimens, usually poorly preserved, butoccasionally rather abundant locally, from various levels up towithin 150 feet of the western rim of the badlands basin. This collectionwas obviously of Torrejonian or middle Paleocene age. Inthe 1917 report, Granger gave as a faunal list the following species:
Tetraclaenodon
Mioclaenus turgidus
Periptychus rhabdodon
Anisonchus sectorius
Protogonodon sp. nov.
Tricentes
Deltatherium
Psittacotherium
To this list should be added Triisodon antiquus, a specimen of whichis stated by Matthew to come from Kutz Canyon in his monograph(1937:80) on the Paleocene faunas of the San Juan Basin.
In the summer of 1948, a field party from the University of Kansaswas fortunate in finding a local concentration of rather well preservedmaterial at the western edge of the badlands at Angels Peak.Because it probably will be some