‘Rare’ fossil discovered in Utah park may be new species dating back 290 million years

A new species of reptile may have been found deep in the back country of southeast Utah’s Canyonlands National Park.

The fossil is “a rare ~290 million year old Permian-aged skeleton” and likely belonged to a “type of early reptile relative,” experts say. The Permian Period ended with “the most devastating incidents of mass extinction in Earth’s history,” the National Park Service says.

“It’s roughly the size of an iguana and (the fossil) preserves at least the vertebrae, top of the skull, and some of the shoulder girdle and forelimb,” according to Adam Marsh, lead paleontologist at Petrified Forest National Park in neighboring Arizona.

“We’re preparing the fossil at Petrified Forest and it will eventually get CT scanned in the next year.”

The fossil was discovered sticking out of Cedar Mesa Sandstone at the bottom of a rock gully — or “slickrock wash” — in Utah’s high desert, officials said. It was not near any roads, officials said.

Canyonlands National Park includes “337,598 acres of colorful canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches, and spires” that were sculpted by “water and gravity,” the park service says. Paleontologists feared the same fast-flowing water would erase the fossil, so Marsh and a team applied for a permit from Canyonlands to remove it.

“The specimen ... was threatened by erosion with every monsoon rainstorm that flashed the canyon,” Petrified Forest officials said in a Facebook post.

It was collected at the end of October by a team that made a 13-mile round trip into the background, officials said. The stone that encased the fossil was extracted in two large chunks “using a concrete saw, hammer, and chisels,” Marsh said.

The team included representatives of Petrified Forest National Park, the Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Southern California, and Canyonlands National Park, officials said.

Once experts have determined the fossil’s identity, “geologic age and context,” it will be made available to museums for exhibit, officials said.

“This is an incredibly rare specimen from of the Pennsylvanian/Permian of Utah, where any kind of fossil is important, much less an articulated skeleton,” Marsh said.

“It really goes to show what kind of fossil resources are hidden in our National Parks waiting to be discovered and shared with the public.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 9:13 AM with the headline "‘Rare’ fossil discovered in Utah park may be new species dating back 290 million years."