Oxon Run Parkway: Paleontological resource inventory; supplement to the National Capital Parks-East paleontological resource inventory

Oxon Run Parkway (OXRN) is a 51-hectare (126-acre) natural area within Washington, D.C. administered by the National Park Service under National Capital Parks East (NACE). The original plan called for a road, slated to follow Oxon Run stream, but this never came to fruition; despite this, the moniker stuck. The majority of the original Oxon Run Parkway is managed by the District of Columbia. The section of Oxon Run Parkway under NPS jurisdiction contains wetlands and forests, as well as the only McAteean magnolia bogs still remaining in the District. The lower Cretaceous Potomac Group, known as one of the few dinosaur-bearing rock units on the east coast of North America, crops out within Oxon Run. One of the most prevalent fossil-bearing resources are the siderite, or “bog iron” sandstone slabs that sometimes preserve the footprints or trackways of various vertebrates, including dinosaurs. Such trackways have been reported from Potomac Group outcrops throughout the Atlantic Coastal Plain of Maryland and Virginia. In 2019, National Capital Parks-East took possession of such a track, referred to a dinosaur, collected by paleontologist Dr. Peter Kranz. This report was compiled after a paleontological survey of Oxon Run Parkway and is intended as a supplement to the National Capital Parks East Paleontological Resource Inventory (Nelson et al. 2019). This report contains information on the history of Oxon Run Parkway and its geology, as well as discussion of the fossil track.