Imagine a Volkswagen-sized armadillo. Such an animal roamed Arizona during the last glacial epoch and into the beginning of our current interglacial period. Its South American cousin sported a tail with a spiked mace which helped it fend off predators such as saber-toothed cats.

The Arizona Geological Survey has a special report on Glyptodonts by David Gillette.

Gillette writes, “Glyptodonts were 4-legged tanks, pseudo-tortoises with fur, protected by a rigid shell composed of tightly interlocking plates an inch thick and more. The largest glyptodonts weighed a ton, ate plants, and probably spent a lot of time in water, along shores of lakes and streams. They resembled their distant relatives, the armadillos, but the fossil record of these two groups spans tens of millions of years indicating they diverged early in the history of their branch of placental mammals.”

“Glyptodonts and ground sloths should be in the vocabulary of every native Arizonan, because these strange animals were among the Arizonans that lived beside mastodons, mammoths, saber-tooth cats, lions, extinct horses, camels, llamas and more in the North American Ice Age, right here in the desert Southwest. It’s desert here now, but 2 million years ago, these animals lived in well-watered savannas and riparian forests that later dwindled …and left little but these fossils as testament to wet times gone by. This was the ‘glyptodont fauna,’ so named because these armored tanks were at times the most abundant large animal in this bizarre landscape.”

“The story of these pilgrims from South America involves two supercontinents, three continents, two oceans, an island chain, an isthmus, glaciers, and sea level. It begins 200 million years ago, early in the Mesozoic Era, during the time of dinosaurs. Earth’s midsection was mostly ocean, and two huge landmasses occupied the northern hemisphere (Laurasia) and the southern hemisphere (Gondwana). The breakup of Gondwana began then, a process that produced the Gondwana continents: Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, South America, India, and Madagascar. South America, the homeland of our armored immigrants, separated from Africa, Australia separated from one side of Antarctica and South America from the other side, and eventually Antarctica took its present, familiar polar position. The other land masses slipped away, in the process creating new ocean landscapes: the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and with the final isolation of Antarctica, the Antarctic Sea.”

Eventually, North and South America were connected by the Isthmus of Panama which allowed the fauna of each continent to mix. Glyptodonts eventually reached Arizona. “The earliest population, known mainly from southeastern Arizona, became dominant members of the ecosystem. They were small as glyptodonts go, weighing perhaps a quarter to half a ton. These were the progenitors of at least two more species in the United States, and two other species known from single specimens in Mexico. But they all belong in the genus Glyptotherium (groove-toothed beast).” The descendant species, Glyptotherium arizonae, had adults nearly twice as large with weights exceeding a ton. They extended from Arizona to Florida.

One remarkable skull from southeastern Arizona has two elliptical puncture holes, interpreted as the consequence of a fatal attack by a large predatory cat. This skull is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Arrows point to the two puncture holes.

Fossil hunters, be on the lookout for scutes, the interlocking pieces of the bony shell. The arrows point to follicles that housed bristles which helped the animal sense its surroundings.

Read the full story: http://www.azgs.state.az.us/arizona_geology/spring10/article_feature.html

Arizona warms from ice age, becomes tropical again, gets flooded by the ocean, suffers another ice age, warms up, makes coal, and suffers a major extinction of life.

In this chapter we will complete the Paleozoic Era with four periods: Devonian (416- to 359 million years ago), Mississippian (359-318 mya), Pennsylvanian (318- 299 mya), and the Permian (299-251 mya). In the European classification, the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian are, together, called the Carboniferous period because it was during this time that most coal deposits were formed.

After recovery from the Ordovician ice age (about 440 mya), Arizona was apparently a highland on the southwest edge of a continental mass, about 30 degrees south of the equator. I say apparently, because there is no record from the Silurian period (444- to 416 mya ), so Arizona may have been dry land that was subject to erosion.

During the last four periods of the Paleozoic, Arizona was mainly under water. The rocks deposited during this time represent deposition on a continental shelf environment. There were several episodes of transgression (encroaching) and regression of the sea from the west. Only what is now the northeastern corner of the state remained above sea level for most of the time. The rise and fall of the sea was due to both tectonic shifting of land and changes in water volume from the glacial epochs.

Limestone was the principal rock deposited during this time along with relatively minor shale and sandstones. All the formations contain fossils. These limestones currently make up most of the mountain ranges south of Tucson.

Mississippian rocks rest unconformably (not at the same angle or with evidence of erosion) on Devonian and older rocks. This means that there was some tectonic adjustment and erosion between the two Periods. (And by the way, the geologic Periods are usually defined by their distinct fossil assemblages). The principal formation of the Devonian is called the Martin Formation with type area in Bisbee. The principal Mississippian limestone is called the Redwall Limestone near the Grand Canyon and the Escabrosa Limestone in southern Arizona. Kartchner caverns are in the Escabrosa Limestone, but the caves formed recently.

Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks represent complex cycles of transgression/regression by the sea, caused by changes in water volume due to glacial epochs, and by tectonic uplift and sinking of the continent. This tectonic shifting was the result of the collision of Gondwana on the south with Pangea on the north. Carbonate rocks dominate in the northwest and southeast, while sandstones and conglomerates dominate in central and northeast Arizona.

 Most coal deposits developed during the Carboniferous period. Arizona caught some of this in the northeastern part of the state. Coal is mostly carbon accumulations from fossil plant material deposited in swamps so devoid of oxygen that bacteria and other critters couldn’t survive to feed on their remains. This implies that climate was warm and wet, and that the cyclic transgressions/regressions of the sea were relatively quick enough to bury the swamps before the luxuriant plant life could be destroyed.

Arizona coal was formed about 300 million years ago. It is mined in Navajo county, and, according to the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources, ranks second only to copper in economic importance.

Worldwide coal formation stripped the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Beginning in mid- Devonian time, about 380 mya, through early Mississippian time, atmospheric carbon dioxide dropped from around 4,000 ppm to near current levels of 400 ppm by 340 million years ago. Temperature, however, remained high (about 68 F world average vs 57 F today). But near the Pennsylvania-Permian boundary time, about 270 million years ago, the planet was plunged into another ice age. Note the 70-million-year gap between lowered carbon dioxide and decreased temperature. By the end of the Permian, temperatures rose again to an average of about 63 F, soon followed by a rise in carbon dioxide to just under 3,000 ppm. (Rising temperature causes more carbon dioxide to be exsolved from the oceans.) Volcanism contributed to the rising carbon dioxide.

The first known land vertebrates, amphibians, appeared in late Paleozoic time. Devonian rocks contain fossils of amphibians called stegocephalians (roofed head) because of flat, broad heads. Most were one- to two inches long, but later forms became as large as a crocodile and most were probably carnivorous judging by the teeth.

Reptile fossils appear in Pennsylvanian rocks. The first were small like amphibians, but later Permian reptiles got up to eight feet long. One group, the Therapsids, had teeth differentiated into incisors, canines, and molars similar to present-day mammals.

The Permian ended with a mass extinction in which about 90% of species disappeared, including marine fauna, plants, and terrestrial animals. The reason for this extinction is unknown although there are many speculative theories. This extinction happened over a period of several million years and is coincident with the coalescing of continents and extensive volcanism.

When Pangea and Gondwana collided is reduced marine habitats and brought deep, oxygen-poor ocean water to near surface environments. Major volcanism, in what is now Siberia, lasted for about one million years and annually spewed billions of tons of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These two events are probably contributory to the extinctions.

But, with the dawning of the new Mesozoic era, life rebounded and became more diverse and more robust.

PHOTO: Omphalotrochus (snail) from the Permian Colina formation, collected about 2 miles southeast of the Tombstone airport. Notice also the pits made by rain drops differentially eroding the limestone.

See Chapter 1: the Precambrian, and Chapter 2, the Cambrian and Ordovician periods.

Chapter 4: the Triassic Period