Big Bend National Park

Rising from the Big Bend is what might be the best big idea in the whole state of Texas. Yep, it’s that big!

Bigger than the rocket launches of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Bigger than the football coliseums for the Cowboys, Longhorns, and Aggies. Bigger than any tech dream launched by the hipsters at Apple, Google, or Tesla in Austin. Bigger than the towering 10,000 Year Clock being inserted into a 300-foot deep cave in the Sierra Diablo Mountains near Van Horn. Believe it or not, there is something wondrous and profound happening in the Big Bend, far grander than anything happening in our big cities or on our electronic screens.

Imagine a huge swath of the modern world better integrated into the natural world here on Earth and the cosmos above—an area in which the bright skyglow of our cities is tempered in favor of the radiant starglow of the cosmos. In that difference between skyglow and starglow lies hope for a better tomorrow. That’s why we need to turn our gaze away from our screens, at least for a while, and experience our true place in the universe. We can find it in the Big Bend, site of this profound and beautiful project.

It’s called the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve. You’ve probably never heard of it. But, I find this to be an incredibly hopeful project, not only for Texans, but for Americans and the rest of humanity Relax, this is not a political essay. It’s a story about hope for a deeper and richer understanding of our place on Earth and in the universe.

A bone bed in the middle part of the Javelina Formation (Maastrichtian) in Texas yielded parts of about 37 identifiable ceratopsid dinosaur bones, mostly appendicular and limb girdle elements belonging to one juvenile and two adult individuals of Torosaurus cf. utahensis. The bone bed is a lag assemblage comprising large immobile parts of the skeletons accumulated in an abandoned stream channel. In general form and proportions the postcranial bones are similar to those in Pentaceratops sternbergi and are not as robust as those in Torosaurus latus or Triceratops horridus. A few cranial elements are preserved, including parts of a parietal, squamosal, maxilla, and two dentaries. The form of the parietal fragment is comparable to that of a more nearly complete specimen of Torosaurus cf. utahensis collected nearby at about the same stratigraphic level. The bone bed material provides a basis for the first skeletal reconstruction of this enigmatic horned dinosaur. Most characters used in diagnoses of T. utahensis and T. latus are inadequate. Only the raised bar along the squamosal/parietal suture, present in T. latus; and the midline epiparietal, absent in T. latus, may discriminate the two species.

Field crews from The University of Texas at Austin first identified pterosaur remains from the Upper Cretaceous Javelina Formation of Big Bend National Park in 1971 and continued excavation of these animals for decades. The announcement of the giant Quetzalcoatlus northropi in 1975 by graduate student Douglas Lawson drew worldwide attention, and fossil preparators William Amaral and Robert Rainey discovered several key localities in a region informally called Pterodactyl Ridge that have been thoroughly collected and documented. The Pterodactyl Ridge sites produced hundreds of bones from surface collection and quarries through 1986, but later surface collection yielded poorer results. The majority of these elements represent an animal substantially smaller than Q. northropi, Quetzalcoatlus lawsoni Andres and Langston, 2021-historically referred to as Quetzalcoatlus sp. These and subsequent field expeditions from several institutions have reported occurrences of pterosaurs from both the Aguja and Javelina formations, but this study limits only the Javelina Formation material to pterosaurs. Quetzalcoatlus northropi is known within Big Bend National Park only from stream channel facies, and the smaller Q. lawsoni from the upper abandoned channel-lake facies at Pterodactyl Ridge. The lower abandoned channel-lake facies strata of Pterodactyl Ridge produce a third genus and species, Wellnhopterus brevirostris Andres and Langston, 2021. In addition, a smaller azhdarchid is found in the overbank floodplain facies.

Despite its legal protection, the jaguarundi’s (Puma yagouaroundi) status in the United
States is currently unknown. Historical accounts indicate jaguarundis previously occupied habitats in extreme southern Texas. Although sightings continue to occur in the
United States, none have been confirmed, and it is unclear if jaguarundis are still resident.
Since the mid-1970s, however, evidence in the form of first-hand observations is
suggestive of the presence of jaguarundis in Big Bend National Park. We assessed the
credibility of 79 alleged jaguarundi records spanning three decades using a combination
of diagnostic criteria and witness credibility. Based on this discriminatory process,
we found “strong support” for 40 of these records, and believe a resident, low-density
population of jaguarundis may exist in Big Bend. While not as irrefutable as physical
evidence, objective reviews of species records may have merit as a tool to help evaluate
whether the investment of more rigorous survey techniques is warranted.

The Upper Cretaceous succession in the Big Bend Region of West Texas is plagued by the continued use of provincial lithostratigraphic terms not used elsewhere in the state of Texas. These provincial terms greatly limit: (1) correlating these strata to coeval units in outcrops, as well as the subsurface, elsewhere in Texas; and (2) utilizing these outcrops as windows to examine strata coeval to economically important unconventional reservoirs within the Eagle Ford Group in the subsurface of South Texas. However, with the use of petrophysical and geochemical techniques (handheld spectrometer, X–ray fluorescence [XRF], and stable isotopes), it is possible to identify and define the Eagle Ford and Austin groups, as well as potentially a remnant of the older Woodbine Group, within Big Bend National Park, Brewster County, Texas. Because the Hot Springs section is west of the classic Eagle Ford and Austin outcrops in the Lozier Canyon region of Terrell County (West Texas), the Big Bend outcrops also provide insights into lateral facies changes within these units. As historically defined, within the Big Bend region, the Boquillas Formation overlies the Buda Formation and is overlain by the Pen Formation. Futhermore, the Boquillas Formation is divided into a lower Ernst Member and an upper San Vincente Member, while the Ernst Member is divided into four informal sub-members referred to as units 1 to 4 from the base upwards. Correlations from Lozier Canyon revealed that the Boquillas Formation at Hot Springs is equivalent to both the Eagle Ford and Austin groups in the Lozier Canyon region of West Texas. The Eagle Ford Group defined in Lozier Canyon is equivalent to units 1 to 3 of the Ernst Member at Hot Springs. Our work also suggests that unit 1 of the Ernst Member at Hot Springs is equivalent to the Lower Eagle Ford in Lozier Canyon, while units 2 and 3 of the Ernst Member at Hot Springs is equivalent to the Upper Eagle Ford at Lozier Canyon. 161

A locality in the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) Aguja Formation near Gano Spring in Big Bend National Park preserves scattered remains of hadrosaurian dinosaurs in close association with woody scrambling vines. The vines are referable to Baileyan wood types I and II and platanoid/icacanoid wood types I and II. The close association between the vines and herbivorous dinosaurs suggests a possible foraging relationship. The fossiliferous interval is comprised of olive-gray to dark gray mudstone, lenticular
discontinuous channel sandstone, sideritic ironstone nodules, and lignite, all of which indicate a stratigraphic position low in the upper shale member of the Aguja Formation. Detailed stratigraphy of the vine-bearing interval, and the internal ring structure of the
vines, indicate gentle, regular pulses of sediment input consistent with low-velocity flood events, insufficient to cause mechanical damage to the vines preserved at the site. The external branch stumps observed on the vines are consistent with shear removal as
determined by experimental branch removal results using extant tree and vine branches. The stumps indicate that the branches of the vines were dominantly removed by shearing consistent with herbivory. The internal anatomy of the vines shows tracheid-filled false rings that are generally caused by mechanical removal of a portion of the plant during life. These lines of evidence taken together indicate that the vines were foraged upon by herbivorous dinosaurs, most likely hadrosaurs and ceratopsians preserved in the same deposits.