Lamar University geology professor Roger Cooper and his wife and fellow geologist, Dee Ann ’97, recently made the first find of a Cretaceous Era fossil squid with preserved soft body parts in the United States.
Shortly after his first remarkable discovery, Roger found a second, larger fossil squid in the same Boquillas Formation in Big Bend National Park. The fossils are estimated to be 89 million years old.
“I remember the four of us standing there in the shade of the truck and someone saying ‘We’re about to become famous,’” Dee Ann said of the moment they and their research team members, retired Lamar University geology professors J.B. and Margaret S. Stevens, realized they had an exceptional fossil in their hands.
“The importance of soft body parts is that it helps us understand how the animal behaved and lived,” Roger said. Preserved soft body parts are also extremely rare. For soft tissues to become fossilized, the animal must be covered rapidly by material that shields it from bacteria and scavengers.
Dee Ann, who fulfilled her master’s thesis with guidance from J. B. Stevens, has made numerous research and teaching visits to the area since the mid-1990s. Her work included several mini-session field tripsfor Lamar students while she was an adjunct instructor.
It seems a little unfair that it would be her husband who made the spectacular finds, Dee Ann laughs. He too, is a little incredulous. After 25 years specializing in economic geology and igneous rocks, he has received considerable ribbing from his “hard-rock” colleagues over his “soft-rock” finds. He credits his good fortune to bringing a new set of experienced eyes to the research project.
Renowned paleontologist W. A. Cobban of the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the significance of his find.
The couple visited Cobban in Colorado for five days in September. With more than 56 years of experience at the USGS, Cobban curates an extensive collection of invertebrate fossils that fills several acres of storage in Colorado.
“Bill was extremely helpful to both of us and incredibly patient in answering my many questions,” Roger said. “Both of us learned a tremendous amount.” The significance of the squid finds were also confirmed by Kirk Johnson, chief curator and chair of the Department of Earth Sciences of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and Neil Landman of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Roger made another exciting fossil find in the same area: the second known discovery of the vertebrae of a elopid fish. The fossil was identified by Ken Carpenter, chief preparer and curator of vertebrate paleontology of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The only other known specimens of this fossil fish were discovered in 1939 and 1941 in upper cretaceous rocks northeast of Dallas, some 500 miles away from the Coopers’ find in the Trans-Pecos region.
Dee Ann, along with J.B. and Margaret Stevens, has been studying the Boquillas Formation since the early 1990s, researching the strata for evidence of climatic changes. During these studies, she became interested in the fauna evident in the top of the lower portion of the formation. It is there that Roger made his recent discoveries. “I was encouraged to go out and look at this area in 1979,” Roger said, “but it wasn’t until about three years ago that I made my first survey of the area and saw the potential to map the fossilbearing strata over great distances.”
During the fall semester of 2004 and last summer, he worked to update the geologic maps of Big Bend National Park, a project last undertaken in the 1960s. New surveys made with modern tools such as Global Positioning Satellite technology will provide the National Park Service and geological survey with an improved geologic history and understanding of the park.
Together with the Stevenses, Roger Cooper has pursued the work in 2004 on development leave from the university. He received a Research Enhancement Grant from Lamar for 2005-2006 to help fund the research with other support from the park service and geological survey.
The fossils remain in the couple’s hands while they work on scientific papers for submission to the Journal of Paleontology and other scholarly publications. These papers will include descriptive articles on the two squid finds and the fish, as well as a paper on the faunal assemblage – or animal community – which now numbers more than a dozen identified species. The detail evident in the fossil is remarkable. “If you look closely, you can even see the squid’s eye,” Dee Ann said.
And you can bet that when the couple returns to Big Bend inthe future, they will keep a sharp eye out for more remarkable stones with stories to tell.
