SOLOMONS, Md. – A comprehensive new scientific volume examining fossil elephants, land mammals, and seals from Calvert Cliffs has been published by Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press and is now available online at no cost.
Titled Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, No. 109: The Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, USA – Volume 3: Elephants, Land Mammals, and Seals, the publication was co-edited by Dr. Stephen J. Godfrey, Curator of Paleontology at the Calvert Marine Museum, and CMM Research Associate Gary Grimsley.
The volume presents a detailed survey of rare fossil discoveries from Calvert Cliffs, a geologically significant site in Calvert County, Maryland. While the cliffs are best known for marine fossils such as seashells and shark teeth, researchers have also uncovered exceptionally rare remains of terrestrial mammals that lived between approximately 18 and 8 million years ago.
These land-based fossils include extinct herbivores such as elephants, rhinos, tapirs, horses, camels, peccaries, antelope, and fanged deer, as well as rare carnivores like bear-dogs. Fossil evidence of seals—animals that inhabited both marine and terrestrial environments—has also been documented.
The diversity of these large mammals provides insight into the region’s prehistoric environments, which ranged from prairie landscapes and patchy forests to more humid, densely forested habitats over a span of roughly 12 million years. Notably, fossils of small mammals have not yet been discovered in these deposits.
The publication includes contributions from Ralph E. Eshelman, W. David Lambert, Gary S. Morgan, Stephen J. Godfrey, David J. Bohaska, Richard C. Hulbert Jr., Jon A. Baskin, Brian L. Beatty, Robert E. Weems, and Leonard Dewaele.
The volume is accessible online via DOI: https://doi.org/10.5479/si.32085168, where readers can view or download the full searchable publication.
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