Paleontology in Oklahoma
[1] Oklahoma is the best source of Pennsylvanian fossils in the United States due to having an exceptionally complete geologic record of the epoch.
During the Carboniferous, an expanse of coastal deltaic swamps formed in areas of the state where early tetrapods would leave behind footprints that would later fossilize.
[17] During the Silurian, Oklahoma was home to brachiopods, bryozoans, the trilobite Calymene, echinoderms, and sponges, all of which are preserved south of Lawrence Creek.
[21][22] During the Mississippian, Oklahoma's local fauna included Archimedes, brachiopods, conodonts, echinoderms, the blastoid Pentremites, and trilobites.
[40][41] Most of these deposits are distributed across the western half of the state, including in Logan, Noble, Grant, Garfield, Kay, Pawnee, and Payne Counties.
In particular, there is extensive body fossil documentation of many groups of extinct vertebrates, including lungfish,[42][43] various 'lepospondyls' like aïstopods, nectrideans, and 'microsaurs,'[44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] temnospondyl amphibians,[52][53][54][55][56] parareptiles,[57][58][59] eureptiles,[60][61][62][63] reptiliomorphs (stem amniotes),[64][65] synapsids,[66][67][68][69][70][71] and diapsids.
[100] The Late Jurassic fossiliferous Morrison Formation is exposed in the western part of the state and has produced extensive remains of sauropod dinosaurs.
The Late Cretaceous rocks of Bryan, Choctaw, and McCurtain counties bear abundant oysters like Exogyra and Ostraea.
[73] However, there are also records of many terrestrial vertebrates, particularly from the Antlers and Cloverly Formations, including fish, amphibians, reptiles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, and mammals.
[3] The High Plains of the western part of Oklahoma preserve evidence for the presence of camels, creodonts, and horses during the Pliocene.
This mixture could be made into a sort of plaster cast if the fossils used to make the powder contained sufficient gypsum or calcium sulphate content.
The local geology consist largely of Permian-aged red beds, and Comanche County's eastern side contains Richards Spur, the best source of Permian fossils in the entire state.
More recent mammal fossils were also used by the Comanche for medicine like those of bears, giant bison, camels, glyptodonts, Columbian mammoths, and mastodons.
This usage is fairly plausible as the porous nature of fossil bone causes a capillary effect that could be used to dry infected wounds and sores.
[115] In 1931, University of Oklahoma geologist J. Willis Stovall received word that a road crew grading for the construction of U.S. Route 64 uncovered a rich deposit of fossils east of Kenton.
Stovall's team excavated the site for nearly three years, in the process digging through almost 100 metric tons of rock and sediment to extract the remains preserved there.
Other notable quarries excavated by the Stovall team include the eighth, which produced fossils of ornithopod and theropod dinosaurs as well as other reptiles like a new species of crocodilian, Cteniogenys, and turtles.
[120] Funding for Stovall's field work ended with the advent of World War II in 1942, interrupting excavations at Quarries 9 and 10.
