[Nhcoll-l] Fwd: SVP will take legal action to block cuts to Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears

Tue Dec 5 08:41:40 EST 2017

Hello all,

I'm sharing the statement from SVP regarding National Monument reductions.

Best,
Mariana Di Giacomo

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "SVP" <membership at vertpaleo.org>
Date: Dec 4, 2017 15:33
Subject: SVP will take legal action to block cuts to Grand
Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears
To: <marudigi at udel.edu>
Cc:

------------------------------

Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments

04 December, 2017

   Earlier today President Trump announced that he will make large cuts to
Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments in Utah.
Scientifically important paleontological resources motivated the creation
of both monuments.  High priority is therefore given to inventorying and
protecting their paleontological resources and special funding is available
for researchers who work on monument property.

   SVP, in collaboration with several partner groups, will be taking legal
action to block Trump’s cuts.  Not only do we believe that key paleo
resources will be endangered when they are removed from the monuments’
boundaries, but we believe that the President lacks the legal authority to
reduce those boundaries.  Loss of monument status endangers funding streams
for paleontological research and exposes sites to damage or destruction
from multiple-use activities, which could feasibly include ranching,
mining, or shale gas extraction.

   SVP’s concern for the integrity of these monuments grows out of our
mission to “support and encourage the discovery, conservation, and
protection of vertebrate fossils and fossil sites”.  Our Society has
advocated for protection of vertebrate fossils on US federal land since the
1980s, culminating in the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act of
2009.  Regulations under this act have still not been published by the
Department of Interior.

   Maintaining the scientific integrity of the monuments is high priority
for SVP.  Society members were active proponents for the establishment of
both monuments because of the unique paleontology that is now protected
within their boundaries.  Approximately 10% of SVP members have either
actively engaged in long-term research at the Monument or have made
short-term research visits for field trips or site visits.  Of the 56
authors in the 2013 volume about Kaiparowits paleontology at Grand
Staircase, 28 were SVP members. Similarly, 27 out of the 35 scientific
papers published in the last year about the paleontology of Grand Staircase
were authored by SVP members.
Cuts at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

   Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSE NM) was established in
1996 in large part to preserve the unique fossils that had been discovered
there over the preceding decade.  Twenty additional years of research have
pinpointed more than 3,000 scientifically important fossil localities at
GSE NM.  The monument is perhaps best known for its exquisite preservation
of Late Cretaceous ecosystems.  The Kaiparowits, Wahweap, Straight Cliffs,
and Tropic Shale formations include one of the most diverse large
herbivorous dinosaur faunas in the world, some of the only Cenomanian and
Santonian aged mammals anywhere, and the earliest mosasaurs.  GSE NM also
preserves the type section of the Permian-aged Kaibab Limestone, key
Triassic faunas from the Moenkopi and Chinle formations, as well as the
largest petrified forest outside Arizona, and extensive trackways from the
thick sandstone formations of the Jurassic.

Surveying the Kaiparowits Plateau with monument paleontologist Alan Titus
(photo by David Polly).

   If the maps leaked last week accurately describe Trump’s revised
boundaries, the cuts will have a severe impact on paleontology at GSE NM.
Those cuts will excise the following resources from the monument, thus
removing them important research funding streams and many forms of
protection:

   - more than 400 scientifically important paleontological sites

   - the type area of the Permian Kaibab Limestone

   - all of the Permian and most of the Triassic units

   - large expanses of the Triassic petrified forest in the Circle Cliffs
   region that was named in the 1996 proclamation as one of the reasons for
   establishing the Monument

   - virtually all of the Tropic Shale, including all of its most
   fossiliferous exposures, which record the anoxic-driven Cenomanian-Turonian
   extinction, the geologically oldest mosasaur, missing links in the
   origin of polycotylid plesiosaurs, and the turnover between pliosaur and
   ichthyosaur dominated oceans to the polycotylid and mosasaur dominated seas
   of the late Cretaceous

   - one third of all fossil mammal sites have been excluded, including the
   unique mammal sites from the Santonian and Cenomanian that were one of the
   primary reasons the monument was created in 1996

   - some of the most important sites in the Wahweap Formation, which was
   also highlighted in the 1996 proclamation, will be excluded, including the
   type locality of the ceratopsian *Machairoceratops* and a new species
   nodosaur

Cuts at Bears Ears National Monument

   Bears Ears National Monument was established only last December, 2016,
following a long history of advocating by Native American tribes,
conservationists, and scientists.  Bears Ears is in the southwestern part
of Utah near the Four Corners area.  While paleontological research has
been carried out there for more than 90 years, the short time that Bears
Ears has enjoyed monument status means that it has not yet been as
extensively studied as GSE NM. Nevertheless, Bears Ears has the potential
to be as paleontologically spectacular as Grand Staircase.  Bears Ears is
stratigraphically older.  Extensive exposures of the Pennsylvanian- and
Permian-aged Cutler Group preserve some of the oldest terrestrial
vertebrates, as well as highly fossiliferous sites that document vertebrate
ecosystems before the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.  The
Triassic-Jurassic transition is especially well preserved in the Red Canyon
and Indian Creek parts of the Monument, and the Jurassic sections near
Monticello and Blanding, Utah have produced many important finds, including
the prosauropod *Seitaad*.

   If the leaked maps are accurate, the cuts to Bears Ears will reduce the
monument to a fraction of its current size.  Those cuts will exclude most
of the scientifically important paleontological resources from
monument-status:

   - all of the Pennsylvanian marine units will be excluded

   - the Pennsylvanian-Permian transition in the lower Cutler Group, which
   is notably exposed in Valley of the Gods, will be completely excluded

   - a site in the Cedar Mesa Sandstone that preserves an ancient Permian
   log jam which trapped an amphibian (*Euryops*) and asynapsid (
   *Sphenacodon*), a site that has already suffered from extensive looting,
   will lose its monument protections

   - a massive new Triassic bone bed at Fry Canyon, which has also suffered
   from looting, will be excluded

   - unusual Triassic vertebrate burrows will be cut

   - the youngest part of the Monument’s section will be excluded,
   including all of the Cretaceous outcrops of the Naturita Formation that
   have produced important angiosperm floras

   - widespread Quaternary sites, including cave faunas, pack rat middens,
   and floras will be excluded

If you conduct research at GSE NM or Bears Ears please let us know

   If you conduct research in areas of either monument that are slated to
be cut, please let David Polly know at svp_president at vertpaleo.org
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__online.vertpaleo.org_svpssa_ecmssamsganalytics.click-5Fthrough-3Fp-5Fmail-5Fid-3DE412852A3322611B1C1169131&d=DwIFaQ&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=LpYc_Z_iN1KRw0hheb3x6-8MJUMu482qfHowpGYJqwc&m=ZdseIQX8DS-FKE3OEAoL6L_ka8PIAjrN2ZHRBsdobQE&s=qCQ13-4VmEAaTF5Q6azwU3oOaUwZyJZ8fwWDKjYaKA0&e=>.
This information is useful for documenting how reductions to the monuments
impact SVP and its members.
What’s to come

   SVP will be monitoring the status of the Monuments over the coming days
and weeks.  If the cuts above are made, we will join with our partners in
filing law suits aimed at blocking the administration’s actions.
First-class legal support is being provided to SVP on a *pro bono *basis by
two of the nation’s top environmental law firms.  The cases we have
assembled rest on the arguments that the President does not have the legal
authority to reduce the boundaries and that such reductions will negatively
impact the scientific mission of both monuments and thus the research
carried out by SVP members.

   As new developments emerge, we will keep you informed.  Information and
links will be posted on the SVP website at https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__vertpaleo.org_What-2Dis-2DV&d=DwIFaQ&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=LpYc_Z_iN1KRw0hheb3x6-8MJUMu482qfHowpGYJqwc&m=ZdseIQX8DS-FKE3OEAoL6L_ka8PIAjrN2ZHRBsdobQE&s=i7rFmBMnmcL6NTI5b-9e1pgA2QuWmhT1im2WD_ySqH0&e=
ertebrate-Paleontology/Fossil-Preservation-Law-in-the-US.aspx
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__online.vertpaleo.org_svpssa_ecmssamsganalytics.click-5Fthrough-3Fp-5Fmail-5Fid-3DE412852A3322611B1C1169132&d=DwIFaQ&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=LpYc_Z_iN1KRw0hheb3x6-8MJUMu482qfHowpGYJqwc&m=ZdseIQX8DS-FKE3OEAoL6L_ka8PIAjrN2ZHRBsdobQE&s=JkUF8ke7Aur72hVRaHDl55L5gokl3GD1yPyeD_wNOE0&e=>.

   Thank you to all the SVP members who have come together to assemble the
information needed to develop our legal case and to produce the maps and
other documents that support it.  Even though the review of the monuments
has threatened our science, the collaborative spirt of SVP’s members is
tremendously heartening and our collective knowledge is truly world class.

Sincerely yours,

P. David Polly
President, SVP

Emily J. Rayfield
Vice President, SVP
John A. Long
Past President, SVP

Contact Information About SVP
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