CO: Park County
General Description.—A three-tiered chamber at 2900-m elevation, southwest rim of South Park, Park County, Colorado. 38° 43' 45" N, 105° 51' 41" W.
Age.—Levels 1-13 in the Pit Sequence may span between 600,000 and 1,000,000 years. Level 4 at least 780,00 years old and most likely between 800,000 and 900,000 years old. Level 1 >600,000 and probably near 800,000.
Environment.—
Paleoenvironment.—
Comments.—The paper by Barnosky et al. (2004) can be downloaded from the PNAS as a PDF file at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/25/9297.
Barnosky et al. (2004) concentrate on 2 of 26 localities known in the cave: Pit Sequence and Badger Room.
The Pit Sequence has 13 fossiliferous stratigraphic levels inferred to represent two glacial-interglacial transistions. Results include 7,724 identified fossils (at least 1,402 individual mammals).
Badger Room: nonstratified but representing some part of the interval represented by levels 4-8 in the Pit Sequence. Over 13,000 identified specimens.
Fauna from Sequence Pit level 4 combined with the Badger Room fauna (the combination known as Badger Room Time). Badger Room Time assigned to a glacial time and Sequence Pit to an interglacial.
Publications.—Barnosky, 2004; *Barnosky et al., 2004; Bell, C. J., and A. D. Barnosky, 2000; Goodwin, H. T. 2002; Polly, P. D., 2003.
Last Update: 23 Aug 2006