Florissant - Fossil Ecosystems of North America: A Guide to the Sites and their Extraordinary Biotas - page 194

Florissant

B ACKGROUND
In the last chapter, we looked at the fauna
(mainly fishes) from the lacustrine
deposits dating between the Paleocene
and the late Eocene from a vast
intermontane basin within the Rocky
Mountain system. In this chapter, we look
at another Rocky Mountain intermontane
basin, slightly younger in age, which is
famed for its abundance (>1700 described
species) of fossil plants and animals,
mainly insects. The fauna and flora living
in the two regions at slightly different
times in the Paleogene, are likely to have
been rather similar (see comparison

later), but the circumstances of their
preservation at the two sites are different.

H ISTORY OF DISCOVERY OF
F LORISSANT
The fictitious South Park may be better
known today, but its real-life counterpart
( 215 ) has been a destination for curious
tourists for more than a century. Within
the spectacular Front Ranges that rise
like a wall behind Denver and Colorado
Springs, Colorado, lie a series of lush,
broad-bottomed valleys known as parks.
A valley running off one of these pleasant
parks was settled in the mid-nineteenth

215

215 View north-west from
Pikes Peak note granite in
foreground, over Florissant
Fossil Beds National
Monument, to South Park
and distant Sawatch range.