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Gary Morgan
Curator of Paleontology
Email: gary.morgan1@state.nm.us
Gary's primary area of interest is fossil mammals from the younger half of the Cenozoic Era, about the last 35 million years of geologic time. His field and research program in New Mexico concentrates on faunal and biostratigraphic studies of Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene vertebrate sites throughout the state. Ongoing projects in New Mexico include studies on Pliocene (2-5 million years old) vertebrates from the Rio Grande Valley south of Las Cruces in Dona Ana County and in the Gila River Valley north of Lordsburg in Hidalgo County; extinct free-tailed bats from medial Pleistocene (200,000 years old) cave deposits in Slaughter Canyon Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and fossil vertebrates associated with Paleoindian artifacts from late Pleistocene deposits (11-12,000 years old) in Sandia Cave in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque. Other current projects outside of New Mexico include work on: complete late Quaternary (5-10,000 years old) skeletons of giant land tortoises, crocodiles, and extinct birds from submerged sinkholes on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas; early Miocene (15 million years old) rhinos, horses, oredonts, turtles and crocodiles from recent excavations along the Panama Canal in Panama; Pleistocene mammals (500,000 years old) from Sonora in northwestern Mexico; and Oligocene and Miocene (20-30 million years old) bats from Florida and Nebraska.
Selected Publications
Morgan, G.S. 2005, The Great American Biotic Interchange in Florida: Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History, vol.45, no.4, pp.271-311.
Morgan, G.S. and S.G. Lucas. 2005, Pleistocene vertebrate faunas in New Mexico from alluvial, fluvial, and lacustrine deposits: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, vol.28, pp.185-248.
Morgan, G.S. and R.S. White. 2005, Miocene and Pliocene vertebrates from Arizona: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, vol.29, pp.115-136.
Morgan, G.S. and N.J. Czaplewski. 2003, A new bat (Chiroptera: Natalidae) from the early Miocene of Florida, with comments on natalid phylogeny: Journal of Mammalogy, vol.84, pp.729-752.
Morgan, G.S., and S.G. Lucas. 2003, Mammalian biochronology of Blancan and Irvingtonian (Pliocene and early Pleistocene) faunas from New Mexico: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol.279, pp.269-320.