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Explore! New Mexico searches the state for interesting stories to tell our listeners and readers - and now our blog followers! We are currently producing a series of multi-media podcasts for the Las Cruces Convention and Visitors Bureau about interesting events and places to visit. You can view them at our YouTube channel. Be sure to visit our website where you can get even more ideas about where to travel in the Land of Enchantment.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Cretaceous Fossils: Older than Chaco


There are things in Chaco Canyon older than the stone ruins. The stone from which the pueblos were built was cut from the 400-foot-tall sandstone bluffs remaining where the wash has eroded them.


The sandstone formed from a seabed of 60 to 80 million years ago. Any examination of the sandstone quickly reveals things that look like twisted, corroded rebar. It’s not.


During the Cretaceous a shrimp-like crustacean burred into the sandy seabed, creating a network of tunnels. To keep the tunnels from collapsing from sea wave motions, these crustaceans cemented sand particles to the walls.


As the ocean receded, heavy particles of iron, mercury, and other minerals suspended in the water settled into the and filled the crustaceans’ abandoned tunnels. The particles hardened as the seabed dried. The time and the weight of sediments laying on top compressed the sand into sandstone.


So while the crustacean is long gone, its home remains ... just like the Chacoans.


Posted by Bud Russo

6 comments:

  1. There are things in Chaco Canyon older than the stone ruins. The stone from which the pueblos were built was cut from the 400-foot-tall sandstone bluffs remaining where the wash has eroded them.
    The sandstone formed from a seabed of 60 to 80 million years ago. Any examination of the sandstone quickly reveals things that look like twisted, corroded rebar. It’s not.

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  2. During the Cretaceous a shrimp-like crustacean burred into the sandy seabed, creating a network of tunnels. To keep the tunnels from collapsing from sea wave motions, these crustaceans cemented sand particles to the walls.
    As the ocean receded, heavy particles of iron, mercury, and other minerals suspended in the water settled into the and filled the crustaceans’ abandoned tunnels. The particles hardened as the seabed dried. The time and the weight of sediments laying on top compressed the sand into sandstone.
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  4. Cheryl Fallstead and Bud Russo are the creative team behind Explore! New Mexico, which is a New Mexico LLC. We provide multi-media content that shares stories about New Mexico.
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  5. Embedded in the calcareous skeleton are numerous microscopic polyps. They are connected internally by a system of canals and are concealed behind pores in the skeleton, the surface of which is smooth and lacks the corallites of true stony corals. The polyps have specialist functions, the gastrozooids processing and digesting the food caught by the dactylzooids which are grouped around them. T
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  6. Embedded in the calcareous skeleton are numerous microscopic polyps. They are connected internally by a system of canals and are concealed behind pores in the skeleton, the surface of which is smooth and lacks the corallites of true stony corals. The polyps have specialist functions, the gastrozooids processing and digesting the food caught by the dactylzooids which are grouped around them.
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