PaleoBios, Volume 17, Numbers 2-4, September 13,1996
i
CONTENTS
Preface. Christopher f. Bell and Stuart S. Sumida................................................................................. i-ii
Biostratigraphic correlations between the Lower Permian of North America and Central
Europe using the first record of an assemblage of terrestrial tetrapods from Germany.
Stuart S. Sumida, David S Berman and Thomas Martens.....................................................................     1
Fossil mammals as a tool in Andean stratigraphy: dwindling evidence of Late Cretaceous
volcanism in the South Central Main Range.
Andre R. Wyss, Reynaldo Charrier and John J. Flynn............................................................................ 13
A review of the biostratigraphy of Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments in the Elsinore
Fault Zone, Riverside County, California.
Alois F. Pajak III, Eric Scott and Christopher J. Bell...............................................................................  28
The Fairmead Landfill Locality (Pleistocene, Irvingtonian), Madera County, California:
preliminary report and significance.
Robert G. Dundas, Randall B. Smith and Kenneth L. Verosub.............................................................. 50
The importance of fine-scaled biostratigraphic data in addressing questions of vertebrate
paleoecology and evolution.
JuddA. Case............................................................................................................................................. 59
PREFACE
The study of marine invertebrate fossils provided the basis from which most of the principles of
stratigraphic paleontology were derived, but the powers of vertebrate fossils as tools in biostratigraphic
correlations were dramatically revealed in the latter part of the 19th century during early attempts to
understand the Mesozoic and Cenozoic history of western North America (Tedford, 1970). The close
relationship between studies of vertebrate fossils and stratigraphy provided a means for fruitful discovery
of mutually beneficial information that continued well into the present century (e.g.: Marsh, 1877; Matthew,
1899; Osborn 1909; Wood et al., 1941)
Paleontology straddles the boundary between geology and biology and finds its greatest strengths in
an interdisciplinary approach. The increasing specialization within geological and biological disciplines in
the last three deacades, and the concomitant increase in the number of similarly specialized journals,
allowed and encouraged a departure from the more integrative approach that characterized the first two
thirds of the 20th century.
More recently, a number of large scale studies began to reverse the trend towards increased special-
ization. Excellent examples of the extremely powerful results obtainable with careful integration of paleon-
tologic and stratigraphic data were provided by Milner and Panchen (1973), Lillegraven and McKenna
(1986), Woodburne (1987), Bown and Rose (1990), Long (1993) and Gordon and Olson (1995). Interdiscipli-
nary approaches to questions in stratigraphic paleontology today remain as important as ever. In recogni-
tion of this fact, Drs. Joan Frixell and Lou Fernandez of the Department of Geology at California State
University San Bernardino invited the junior author to organize a symposium for the 1994 regional meeting
of the Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America. The symposium was organized in the spirit
11
Preface
PaleoBios, 17(2-4)
of interdisciplinary inquiry and the initial goal was to focus on the uses of vertebrate fossils in biostrati-
graphic studies in the western United States. Although the perspective was never abandoned, the geo-
graphic component grew quickly in scope. The papers published here are representative of the eclectic
collection presented at the symposium. They address a diversity of geological time periods (from the Late
Paleozoic to the Pleistocene) and encompass a broad geographic sweep that includes four continents
(Antarctica, Europe, South America and North America). Most importantly, they demonstrate the broad
applicability of vertebrate paleontology in attacking problems in stratigraphy and stratigraphic correlation.
The authors provide examples of the roles that vertebrate fossils can play in a variety of situations; from
their importance in determining the age of individual localities to their utility in correlating strata on
continental and global scales.
The very foundation of evolutionary studies was dependent upon the integration of biologial and
geological concepts provided by Lyell and Darwin. It is our hope that this volume will be a small but
significant component of the trend toward the continuing integration of the biological and geological
sciences.
Christopher J. Bell
Stuart S. Sumida
Acknowledgments
No individual paper or edited volume can be produced without the help of many individuals and
institutions. The production of this volume was supported in part by grants from the National Geographic
Society (grant 5182-94 to SSS), NATO (grant DRG.940779 to SSS), the University of California Berkeley
Department of Integrative Biology (to CJB), a California State University San Bernardino minigrant (to SSS)
and the Annie M. Alexander Museum of Paleontology Fellowship (to CJB). In addition to Drs. Fryxell and
Fernandez (noted above), the editors would like to extend their sincere thanks to the following individuals
for their support, advice and encouragement: Anthony Barnosky, David Berman, Harry Greene, Elizabeth
Rega, Charles Repenning, Charles Solomon, and Geraldine Swartz. High praise and thanks are due to the
editorial staff of PaleoBios, who were remarkably patient and gently impatient as the need arose.
Literature Cited
Bown, T. M. and K. D. Rose, eds. 1990. Dawn of the Age of Mammals in the northern part of the Rocky
Mountain interior, North America. Geological Society of America Special Paper 243:241pp.
Gordon, M. S. and E. C. Olson. 1995. Invasions of the Land: the Transitions of Organisms from Aquatic to
Terrestrial Life. Columbia University Press, New york. 312 pp.
Lillegraven, J. A. and M. C. McKenna. 1986. Fossil mammals from the "Mesaverde" Formation (Late
Cretaceous, Judithian) of the Bighorn and Wind River basins, Wyoming, with definitions of Late
Cretaceous North American land-mammal "ages". American Museum Novitates 2840:1-68.
Long, J. A. 1993. Palaeozoic Vertebrate Biostratigraphy and Biogeography. Johns Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore. 369 pp.
Marsh, O. C. 1877. Introduction and succession of vertebrate life in America. The American Journal of
Science and Arts 114:337-378.
Matthew, W. D. 1899(1900). A provisional classification of the fresh-water Tertiary of the west. Bulletin of
the American Museum of Natural History 12:19-75.
Milner, A. R. and A. L. Panchen. 1973. Geographical variation in the tetrapod faunas of the Upper
Carboniferous and Lower Permian. Pages 353-368 in Implications of Continental Drift to the Earth
Sciences, Volume 1 (D. H. Tarling and S. K. Runcorn, eds.). Academic Press, London.
Osborn, H. F. 1909. Cenozoic mammal horizons of western North America (with faunal lists of the Tertiary
Mammalia of the west by W. D. Matthew). U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 361:1-138.
Tedford, R. H. 1970. Principles and practices of mammalian geochronology in North America. Proceed-
ings of the North American Paleontological Convention, Part F, Correlation by Fossils:666-703.
Wood, H. E., 2nd, R. W. Chaney, J. Clark, E. H. Colbert, G. L. Jepsen, J. B. Reeside and C. Stock. 1941.
Nomenclature and correlation of the North American continental Tertiary. Bulletin of the Geological
Society of America 52:1-48.
Woodburne, M. O., ed. 1987. Cenozoic mammals of North America: geochronology and biostratigraphy.
University of California Press, Berkeley. 336 pp.