The First Winter Precipitation

With a good summer monsoon season, the Painted Pony Resort received 7.5" of rain, the winter precipitation started early.  The San Simon Valley and the surrounding mountain ranges received rain and snow this weekend before Thanksgiving.  PPR gained 0.9" of precipitation from the storm and the mountains received much more.  Sunday morning provided a nice view of the Peloncillo Mountains to the east covered in clouds and snow.  Below is a desaturated image of the Peloncillo mountains taken this morning from the Painted Pony Resort.  Gray mountain is just left of center and reaches a height of over 6000', about 2000' above the valley floor.

Sunday morning view from the Painted Pony Resort.

The Fluorescent Desert

The New Mexican desert under visible light appears in browns and greens (depending upon the time of year), but after dark and under long wave ultraviolet light the desert lights up like Christmas.  The recent purchase of a long wave UV black light flashlight for use in cleaning at the Painted Pony Resort was co-opted to explore the desert at night.  The LSU Arthropod Museum has always set up a black light trap on the property during their yearly visits and this idea was expanded with a hand held black light.  Wandering about in the desert in the dark with a UV light might seem odd but the abundance of fluorescing material makes it a worthwhile effort.  A frequent use of a black lights is scorpion hunting and a number Arizona bark scorpions were found in the desert.  They glow brightly under UV light and are easily visible from 10' away.  Other biological materials also fluoresce, especially lichens.  Some lichen species glow a bright orange and are easily picked out on rocks in the desert.  Teeth will also fluoresce, especially when using whiteners, and a check of the fossil horse teeth recovered recently confirmed that very old teeth also fluoresce to some extent appearing a bluish white under UV light.

While still learning how to photograph fluorescing materials using ultraviolet light, a few examples that are somewhat presentable are shown below.

An Arizona bark scorpion under long wave black light.

Green fluorescent chalcedony

Fossil horse teeth under black light

Sweeping in the Desert

It had to be the saddest sight for anyone driving by, a lone guy standing in the middle of the desert with a broom sweeping, the desert will never be clean.  But that was the approach to find more of the fossil horse.  It began with sweeping the arroyo then on to the banks looking for more teeth, followed by an examination of the road surface.  All of which produced nothing but a few small teeth fragments.  Since the working hypothesis was the teeth were initially uncovered when the road to the Painted Pony Resort was created and the formation of the arroyo uncovered them a second time, it seemed reasonable that the skeleton might be found deeper along the edge of the road, hence the lone man standing in the desert carefully sweeping with a broom.  While removing soil then sifting the dirt through 1/4" mesh to recover any small fragments some anomalous material next to the road began to surface.  Poorly preserved and crumbling the structure appears to be part of a pelvis, see here and here and here for comparison images.  Though conformation of the pelvis will have to await further cleaning and isolation of additional skeletal fragments.

A clean arroyo with possible horse pelvis.

Close up of uncovered pelvis?  The round structure may be the crushed acetabulum.

A Story of Life in New Mexico: Leftovers

The ongoing battle with the local Javelina population came to an end for one old male this spring who now is a permanent part of the property.  While cleaning the Painted Pony Resort after a set of guests left one of the cleaning crew pointed out a javelina on the property over by the hot tub.  Wandering toward him while yelling to encourage him to move along, he surprisingly did not respond.  Walking right up to him and he just stood there.  No threat display, no raised hackles, no aggressive behavior, he just stood there gazing back at me.  An old male, completely gray, he had seen better days.  Javelina have approached before while out in the field, but normally they run at the sight or smell of a human.  Approaching within 5 feet he looked up at me and fell over, his little feet moving like some weird cartoon character trying to run on air, followed by a cessation of motion.  I realize I may not be the handsomest man on the planet but this was the first time I had scared the wildlife, isn't supposed to be the other way around?  Walking back to get the tractor, the Javelina carcass was loaded and carried to the south end of the property where it was buried.  The plan was to bury the carcass then retrieve the skeleton at a later date and reassemble the complete Javelina skeleton for placement on the landscape as something unexpected for guests to find while out walking (something perhaps only a Biologist would think of doing).  Unfortunately the carcass was not buried deep enough and the local coyote population found the site, dug it up, and made a meal of him.  In the process most of the skeleton was scattered and missing, and only the skull was recovered.  So now the skull will become part of a large landscape art piece planned for an arroyo at the southeast corner of the property about the origin of barbwire fences.  Nothing is wasted here in the bubble.

A Possible Source for the Fossil Horse Teeth

Mental images of the fresh breaks on one of the reconstructed fossil horse teeth kept reoccurring, why fresh breaks?  It was postulated that the locations of the fossil horse teeth were the result of secondary deposition and were no longer in their original depositional environment when recovered, based on soil compaction and tooth orientation.  After revisiting the site and removing the loose unconsolidated soil from a much larger area several additional tooth fragments were located on the other side of the small drainage (to the south and at a slightly higher elevation) and at the base of spoil from the construction of the road.  Painted Pony Road must predate the construction of the original estate in the mid 2000's and must be at least 8 years old.  A quick check of Google Earth's historical satellite imagery shows no road in 1997 but a road in 2003, yielding a minimum age of 10 years.  The road is cut down to the hard pan subsoil and is regularly maintained, once a year grading by the home owners association and the rest of the time by the Painted Pony Resort.  It is likely that the original road work cut into the horse skull and in the process broke the tops of several teeth.  The material including the teeth was then bladed off to the side going unnoticed.  During the intervening decade the 2 yearly rainy seasons recovered the teeth until a small arroyo began developing uncovering the fossilized teeth for a second time.  A walk of the road revealed no recognizable bone or teeth but a large concentration of small fragments of a whitish material.  If this is additional fossilized bone the rest of the skeleton is probably lost due to road traffic and maintenance.  Unfortunate, but at least some fragments were recovered and will make a nice addition to the historical context of the resort moving the timeline of activity on the landscape back at least 12,000 years.

Fresh breaks on the surface of fossil horse teeth (left) and 2 intact teeth (right).
 

Addendum: Additional material on fossil horses in the southwest may be found here.