Fossil Cycad National Monument was a national monument in the U.S. state of South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 beginning in 1922. The site contained hundreds of fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 cycad

Cycad

Cycads are seed plants typically characterized by a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female . Cycads vary in size from having a trunk that is only a few centimeters...

s, one of the world's greatest concentrations. Because vandals

Vandalism

Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

 stole or destroyed all of the visible fossils, it was withdrawn as a national monument in 1957. It is located in northwestern Fall River County

Fall River County, South Dakota

As of the census of 2000, there were 7,453 people, 3,127 households, and 1,976 families residing in the county. The population density was 4 people per square mile . There were 3,812 housing units at an average density of 2 per square mile...

, on U.S. Route 18

U.S. Route 18

U.S. Route 18 is an east–west U.S. highway in the Midwestern United States. The western terminus is in Orin, Wyoming at an interchange with Interstate 25. Its eastern terminus of US 18 is in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. However, US 18 runs concurrent with other U.S...

, northeast of the city of Edgemont

Edgemont, South Dakota

Edgemont is a city in Fall River County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 774 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Edgemont is located at ....

.

Discovery

The fossilized cycad beds were discovered in 1892 by F. H. Cole of Hot Springs, South Dakota

Hot Springs, South Dakota

Hot Springs is a city in Fall River County, South Dakota, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,711. It is the county seat of Fall River County...

, in the 120-million-year-old Dakota Sandstone Formation, near Minnekahta. Cole sent photographs of the fossils to Professor Henry Newton, a geologist

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 at the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

. Professor Thomas MacBride of the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 published the first description of the site in 1893. There were believed to be large deposits of Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

 cycad fossils. (Cycads are plants resembling ferns, although not related to them. The ones at this site were tree-sized.)

In 1920, Yale

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 paleobotanist

Paleobotany

Paleobotany, also spelled as palaeobotany , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments , and both the evolutionary history of plants, with a...

 George Reber Wieland obtained the fossil cycad-rich land under the Homestead Act

Homestead Act

A homestead act is one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "homestead" – typically 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River....

 "in order that the cycads might not fall into unworthy hands". Two years later he offered to return the land to the federal government if a national monument could be established to protect the fossils.

Establishment of the national monument

The original monument was established on October 21, 1922 by proclamation of President Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding

Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...

. It encompassed 1.3 km² (320 acres) at the south entrance to the Black Hills

Black Hills

The Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, USA. Set off from the main body of the Rocky Mountains, the region is something of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of...

 of South Dakota. It was said to be "probably one of the most interesting fossil-plant beds yet discovered, with the most perfectly preserved specimens, and is known to scientific people throughout the world."

The superintendent at Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park is a United States national park north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the seventh U.S. National Park and the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. The cave is...

 was given jurisdiction over the new national monument, but day-to-day supervision was left to local ranchers.

Deauthorization of the monument

Even before formal approval of the new national monument, all of the visible fossils had been removed. Excavations in 1935 uncovered many new fossils. The site was retained for some years in the expectation that erosion would uncover new fossils. This did not happen, however, and on September 1, 1957 Fossil Cycad National Monument was transferred to the Bureau of Land Management

Bureau of Land Management

The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...

. In 1980, construction of a highway through the site uncovered more fossil cycads.

External links

• A 1930 description from the U.S. Interior Department
• "Fossil Cycad National Monument: A Case of Paleontological Resource Mismanagement", by Vincent L. Santucci and Marikka Hughes