The Great Fossil Enigma
Page 44
35. W. M. Furnish, “Conodonts from the Prairie du Chien (Lower Ordovician) beds of the upper Mississippi Valley,” J. Paleont.12 (1938): 318–40, 323; W. M. Furnish, E. J. Barragy, and A. K. Miller, “Ordovician fossils from upper part of type section of Deadwood Formation, South Dakota,” Bull. AAPG 20 (1936): 1329–41; William Madison Furnish (b. 1912); Arthur K. Miller (b. 1902).
36. S. P. Ellison Jr., “Revision of the Pennsylvanian conodonts,” J. Paleont. 15 (1941): 107–43.
37. E. B. Branson and M. G. Mehl, “Conodonts,” in H. W. Shimer and R. R. Shrock (eds.), Index of Fossils of North America (New York: Wiley, 1944), 235–46.
38. S. P. Ellison Jr., “Conodonts as Paleozoic guide fossils,” Bull. AAPG 30 (1946): 93–110.
39. W. H. Hass, “Conodont zones in Upper Devonian and Lower Mississippian formations of Ohio,” J. Paleont. 21 (1947): 131–41.
40. Gil Klapper, pers. comm.. 16 October 2005; W. H. Hass, “Conodonts of the Barnett Formation of Texas,” U.S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap. 243–F (1953): 69–94; Hass, “Chattanooga”; W. H. Hass, “Conodonts from the Chappel Limestone of Texas,” U.S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap. 294–J (1959): 365–99. The latter paper included a new utilitarian classification of the conodonts that he said he first proposed in 1941.
41. Branson, “Ellison.”
42. Croneis, “Micropaleontology,” 1233.
43. A. N. Dusenbury, “Brooks Fleming Ellis (1897–1976),” Micropaleontology 22 (1976): 4, 377–78. Also “The Micropale ontology Press,” http://micropress.org/history.html/.
44. Taken from the Boy Scout Geology Merit Badge Cooper helped develop. Houston Geology Society, “Petroleum Geology and the Development of the Boy Scout Geology Merit Badge,” 2004, http://www.hgs.org/en/articles/printview.asp?48/.
45. N. D. Newell, “Towards a more ample invertebrate paleontology,” in B. Kummel (ed.), “Status of Invertebrate Paleontology,” Bull. Mus. of Comparative Zool. 112 (1954): 93–97; T. J. M. Schopf, Models in Paleobiology (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper, 1972), 10.
46. G. A. Cooper, “The science of paleontology,” J. Paleont. 32 (1958): 1010–18; Sweet recalls Cooper as a gloomy pessimist. Sweet, pers. comm., 16 July 2010.
3. THE ANIMAL WITH THREE HEADS
1. Carl Branson to James Steele Williams, 6 November 1948, SIA, Record Unit 7328, Box 1, Folder 3, Carl Branson Folder, James Steele Williams Papers (hereafter cited as Williams Papers); Croneis, “Micro paleontology,” 1242 (see ch. 2, n. 3); H. G. Schenck, “The biostratigraphy aspect of micropaleontology,” J. Paleont. 2 (1928): 158–65.
2. Stauffer and Plummer, “Texas Pennsylvanian,” 16 (see ch. 2, n. 19); a view also given by Bryant, “Genesee” (see ch. 2, n. 14); R. S. Bassler, “Bibliographic Index of American Ordovician and Silurian Fossils, Bull. U.S. National Mus. 92 (1915): 1426.
3. Bryant, “Genesee,” 3, 6, 12, 24.
4. J. M. Macfarlane, The Quantity and Sources of Our Petroleum Supplies: A Review and a Criticism (Philadelphia: Noel Printing, 1931), 227 admits to copying Hinde.
5. J. M. Macfarlane, Evolution and Distribution of Fishes (Burlington, N. J.: Enterprise, 1923); J. M. Macfarlane, Fishes the Source of Petroleum (New York: Macmillan, 1923). For more recent review, R. Jenner, “Foiling vertebrate inversion with the humble nemertean,” Paleont. Assoc. Newsletter 58 (2005): 32–39; R. Jenner, “Meeting a nemertean nemesis,” Paleont. Assoc. Newsletter 59 (2005): 37–43.
6. Anonymous review of Macfarlane, Quantity and Sources, in Nature 130 (1932): 832.
7. Roundy to Cooper, 11 September 1929, Girty Papers.
8. Branson to James Steele Williams, 26 October 1933, handwritten addendum, Box 1, Folder 4, Edwin Branson Folder, Williams Papers.
9. C. L. Cooper, “Actinopterygian jaws from the Mississippian black shales of the Mississippi Valley,” J. Paleont. 10 (1936): 92–94.
10. S. R Kirk, “Conodonts associated with the Ordovician fish fauna of Colorado – A preliminary note,” Am. J. Sci. 18 (1929): 493–96; C. D. Walcott, “Preliminary notes on the discovery of a vertebrate fauna in Silurian (Ordovician) strata,” Bull. Geol. Soc. Am. 3 (1892): 153–72.
11. Branson and Mehl, Conodont Studies, 5 (see ch. 2, n. 24).
12. Gunnell, “Cherokee,” 263 (see ch. 2, n. 21); F. H. Gunnell, “Conodonts in relation to petroleum,” American Midland Naturalist 13 (1932): 324–25.
13. Macfarlane, Evolution and Distribution, 260; Stauffer and Plummer, “Texas Pennsylvanian,” 22; Stauffer, “Conodonts from the Decorah shale,” 258.
14. W. Eichenberg, “Conodonten aus dem Culm des Harzes,” Palaeont. Z. 12 (1930): 177–82.
15. H. Schmidt, “Condonten-Funde in ursprunglichen Zusammenhang,” Palaeont. Z. 16 (1934): 76–85.
16. Harold William Scott (1906–1998), PhD completed in 1935.
17. “The life of Harold W. and Joann Scott, Urbana, Ill.,” University of Illinois Archives, Box 6, Harold Scott Papers (hereafter cited as Scott Papers).
18. H. W. Scott, “The zoological relationships of the conodonts,” J. Paleont. 8 (1934): 448–55, 450.
19. Croneis and Scott published three abstracts in Bull. Geol. Soc. Am. 44 (1933): 207–208. Stauffer was also expert in this field and is recorded in the same volume.
20. D. J. Jones, “Conodont assemblages from the Nowata shale,” master's thesis, (University of Oklahoma, 1935) and reported under the same title in J. Paleont. 9 (1935): 364; R. L. Denham, “Conodonts,” J. Paleont. 18 (1944): 216–18.
21. F. B. Loomis, “Are conodonts gastropods?” J. Paleont. 10 (1936): 663–64; H. A. Pilsbry, “Are conodonts molluscan teeth?” Nautilus 50 (1937): 101.
22. On anti-German sentiments in the early 1930s, G. C. Cadée, “The history of taphonomy,” in S. K. Donovan (ed.), The Processes of Fossilization (London: Belhaven, 1991), 3–21; Stauffer, “Conodont fauna of the Decorah,” 599; E. B. Branson and M. G. Mehl, “Conodont assemblages (abstract),” Geol. Soc. Am. Proc. for 1937 (1938): 270; E. B. Branson and M. G. Mehl, “Geological affinities and taxonomy of conodonts,” Geol. Soc. Am. Proc. for 1935 (1936): 436.
23. F. Demanet, “Filtering appendices on the branchial arches of Coelacanthus lepturus Agassiz,” Geol. Mag. 76 (1939) : 215–19.
24. E. D. Currie, C. Duncan, and H. M. Muirwood, “The fauna of Skipsey's Marine Band,” Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow 19 (1937): 413–51.
25. J. S. Cullison, “Dutchtown fauna of southeastern Missouri,” J. Paleont.12 (1938): 219–28. The fossil was named Archeognathus. It was confirmed as a fish by A. K. Miller, J. S. Cullison, and W. Youngquist, “Lower Ordovician fish-remains from Missouri,” Am. J. Sci. 245 (1947): 31–34, and denied by Lindström in 1964. An attempt to reestablish significance in G. Klapper and S. M. Bergström, “The enigmatic Middle Cambrian fossil Archeognathus and its relations to conodonts and vertebrates,” J. Paleont. 58 (1984): 949–76. Bergström (pers. comm., 2011) notes: “I do not think any informed conodont worker would now regard the conodont nature of Archeognathus as controversial.”
26. Jones to Scott, 11 May 1937, General Correspondence, 1937, Scott Papers; D. J. Jones, The Conodont Fauna of the Seminole Formation of Oklahoma (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941), announced in an abstract in Oil and Gas Journal 37 (1939): 74; Gertrude I. Burnley, “The conodonts of the shale overlying the Lexington Coal Bed of Lafayette County and Jackson County,” master's thesis (University of Missouri–Columbia, 1938).
4. ANOTHER FINE MESS
1. Stauffer, “Olentangy,” 414 (see ch. 2, n. 33); Furnish, “Prairie du Chien,” 324 (see ch. 2, n. 35); Frank H. T. Rhodes, “The zoological affinities of conodonts,” Biol. Rev. Cambridge. Philos. Soc. 29 (1954): 419–52, 428, noted that “cancellated denticles in reflected light appear peglike” and probably dropped out due to preferential attack by acid.
2. Hass, “Morphology of conodonts.”
3. See chapter 2. See also W. H. Hass and Marie L. Lindberg, “Orientation of crystal units of conodonts,” J. Paleont. 20 (1946): 501–504.
4. S. P. Ellis
on Jr., “The composition of conodonts,” J. Paleont. 18 (1944): 133–40.
5. H. W. Scott, “Conodont assemblages from the Heath Formation, Montana,” J. Paleont. 16 (1942): 293–300.
6. E. P. Du Bois, “Evidence on the nature of conodonts,” J. Paleont. 17 (1943): 155–59.
7. F. W. Clarke, “The data of geochemistry,” Bull. Geol. Soc. Am. 770 (1924): 527–32.
8. Branson and Mehl, “Conodonts,” 236 (see ch. 2, n .37); S. P. Ellison Jr., “Ecology of conodonts,” NRC Div. Geol. Geogr. Ann. Rep. App. K, Report of the Committee on Marine Ecology as related to Paleontology, 1943–44 (1944): 1–4.
9. J. W. Huddle, “Historical introduction to the problem of conodont taxonomy,” Geol. et Palaeont. SB 1 (1972): 3–16.
10. R. Brinkmann, Abriβ der historischen Geologie (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1948); H. Schmidt, “Nachträge zur Deutung der Conodonten,” Decheniana 104 (1950): 11–19, 11.
11. H. Beckmann, “Conodonten aus dem Iberger Kalk (Ober-Devon) des Bergischen Landes und ihr Feinbau,” Senckenbergiana 30 (1949): 153–68, 163.
12. Schmidt, “Nachträge.”
13. Rhodes's doctorate, “British Lower Palaeozoic conodont faunas,” 1950. On his skepticism, F. H. T. Rhodes, “Recognition, interpretation, and taxonomic position of conodont assemblages,” in Raymond C. Moore (ed.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part W Miscellanea (Lawrence: GSA/University of Kansas Press, 1962), W70–W83, W76; Gould, Wonderful Life, 83 (see ch. 1, n. 7); F. H. T. Rhodes, “Some British Lower Palaeozoic conodont faunas,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B 237 (1953): 261–334.
14. F. H. T. Rhodes, “A classification of Pennsylvanian conodont assemblages,” J. Paleont. 26 (1952): 886–901. The terms “form species” and “form genera” refer to an anatomical component treated as a species. However, H. W. Shimer and R. R. Shrock, Index Fossils of North America (New York: Wiley, 1944), I, raised the issue conflicting meanings muddying the water. Picked up by K. J. Müller, “Taxonomy, nomenclature, orientation, and stratigraphic evaluation of conodonts,” J. Paleont. 30 (1956): 1324–40, who suggests an alternative.
15. R. J. Aldridge, “Conodont palaeobiology: A historical review,” in R. J. Aldridge (ed.), Palaeobiology of Conodonts (Chichester, UK: Horwood, British Micropalaeontological Society, 1987), 11–34.
16. Rhodes, “Classification,” 890.
17. Fay, Catalogue of Conodonts, 5; Teichert, “From Karpinsky,” 10 (see ch. 2, n. 8); Houston Chronicle, 23 January 1972; Houston Post, 23 January 1972; Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Texas, 1972; Who's Who in the South and Southwest, vol. 11.
5. OUTLAWS
1. Scott, “Conodont assemblages,” 294 (see ch. 4, n. 5).
2. C. Croneis and J. McCormack, “Fossil Holothuroidea,” J. Paleont. 6 (1932): 136.
3. C. Croneis, “Utilitarian classification for fragmentary fossils,” J. Geol. 46 (1938): 975–84; C. Croneis, “A military classification for fossil fragments,” Science 89 (1939): 314–15, and echoed by Scott (above) referring particularly to conodonts.
4. Croneis, “Micropaleontology,” 1245. On the commission's decline and recovery, see Dunbar, “Symposium on fifty years,” 913–14; G. Deflandre and M. Deflandre Regaud, “Proposed new system of nomenclature for fragments of fossil invertebrates found in sedimentary rocks: Rejection of proposal,” Bull. Zool. Nomen. 4 (1948): 274, 294; R. C. Moore and P. C. Sylvester-Bradley, “Proposed insertion in the ‘Règles’ of provisions recognizing ‘Parataxa’ as a special category for the classification and nomenclature of discrete fragments or of life-stages of animals which are inadequate for identification of whole-animal taxa, with proposals of procedure for the nomenclature of ‘Parataxa,’” Bull. Zool. Nomen. 15 (1957): 5–13, 6.
5. Sinclair to Scott, 9 February 1952, Box 2, General Correspondence 1952, Scott Papers; H. W. Scott, “Siliceous sponge spicules from the Lower Pennsyl vanian of Montana,” American Midland Naturalist 29 (1943): 732–60.
6. G. W. Sinclair, “The naming of conodont assemblages,” J. Paleont. 27 (1953): 489–90.
7. The ICZN warned against such practices and in 1943 remarked that “the tendency to enter into public polemics over matters which educated and refined professional gentlemen might so easily settle in refined and diplomatic correspondence is distinctly unfavorable to a settlement.” Extract at http://www.mbl.edu/BiologicalBulletin/KEYS/INVERTS/opinions.html/.
8. F. H. T. Rhodes, “Nomenclature of conodont assemblages,” J. Paleont. 27 (1953): 610–12.
9. F. W. Lange, “Polychaete annelids from the Devonian of Parana, Brazil,” Bull. Am. Paleont. 33 (1949): 1–102.
10. Hinde (1880) quoted in ibid., 49.
11. Rhodes, “Nomenclature,” 611.
12. P. C. Sylvester-Bradley, “Formgenera in paleontology,” J. Paleont. 28 (1954): 333–36.
13. Müller, “Taxonomy, nomenclature,” 1328 (see ch. 4, n. 14); M. Lindström, “Conodonts from the lowermost Ordovician strata of south-central Sweden,” Geol. Foren. Stockholm Forhandl. 76 (1954): 517–603, 541.
14. Moore to Bassler, 27 January 1956, Ray S. Bassler Papers.
15. R. C. Buchanan, “To bring together, correlate, and preserve”: A History of the Kansas Geological Survey, 1864–1989, Kansas Geological Survey Bulletin 227:7.
16. D. F. Merriam, “Raymond Cecil Moore: A great 20th century geological synthesizer,” GSA Today 13, no. 8 (2003): 13–18.
17. Moore to Bassler, 8 April 1926, Ray S. Bassler Papers; R. C. Moore, “The use of fragmentary crinoidal remains in stratigraphic paleontology,” J. Sci. Lab. Denison Univ. 33 (1939): 165–250; R. S. Bassler and M. W. Moodey, Bibliographic and Faunal Index of Paleozoic Pelmatozoan Echinoderms, GSA Special Paper 45 (1943).
18. Moore and Sylvester-Bradley, “Proposed insertion,” 10–11. Subsequent debate takes place in the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, often in sequential correspondence, and is not referenced in full. The University of Leicester Library's volumes of this journal formerly belonged to Sylvester-Bradley and contain his annotations. Moore was not a commissioner. Sylvester-Bradley was probably the most active member of the commission.
19. Moore to Scott, Rhodes, and “Carl Mueller,” 1 June 1956, Box 2, General Correspondence 1956, Scott Papers; R. C. Moore and P. C. Sylvester-Bradley, “First supplemental application: Application for a ruling of the International Commission directing that the classification and nomenclature of discrete conodonts be in terms of ‘Parataxa,’” Bull. Zool. Nomen. 15 (1957): 15–34.
20. W. J. Arkell, “Proposed Declaration that a generic or specific name based solely upon the ‘aptychus’ of an ammonite (Class Cephalopoda, Order Ammonoidea) be excluded from availability under the Règles,” Bull. Zool. Nomen. 9 (1954): 266–69; R. C. Moore and P. C. Sylvester-Bradley, “Second supplemental application: Application for a ruling of the International Commission directing that the classification and nomenclature of ammonoid aptychi (Class Cephalopoda) be in terms of’Parataxa,’” Bull. Zool. Nomen. 15 (1957): 35–69.
21. Documents 1/72 and 1/73, Colloquium on Zoological Nomenclature, London, 1958 (ZN [L] 18), ICZN Archive, London.
22. Report of proceedings of the colloquium on zoological nomenclature, London, 14 July 1958 (ZN [L] 44), ICZN Archive, London.
23. F. H. T. Rhodes and K. J. Müller, “The conodont genus Prioniodus and related forms,” J. Paleont. 30 (1956): 695–99.
24. Hass, “Conodonts,” in Moore, Treatise, W3–W69; R. C. Moore, “Conodont classification and nomenclature,” in Raymond C. Moore (ed.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part W Miscellanea (Lawrence: GSA/University of Kansas Press, 1962), W92–W98.
25. Rhodes to Scott, 6 June 1961, which includes Rhodes's “Comments on R.C. Moore's article on ‘Conodont Classification and Nomenclature,” Scott Papers.
26. R. C. Moore, C. G. Lalicker, and A. G. Fischer, Invertebrate Fossils (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952).
6. SPRING
1. Klapper, pers. comm., 16 October 2005; Sweet interview, 23 May 2007.
2. Harry Kreisler interview with Frank Rhodes, 1999, Conversations with History, Institute of International Studies, University of California-Berkeley; Rhodes, “Zoological affinities,” 419 (see ch. 4, n. 1); F. H. T. Rhodes and P. Wingard, “Chemical composition, microstructure and affinities of the Neurodontiformes,” J. Paleont. 31 (1957): 448–54; Hass, “Conodonts,” in Moore, Treatise, W25; M. Lindström, Conodonts (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1964), 23.
3. Austin interview, 8 May 2006.
4. Müller interview, 23 April 2007; his translation.
5. SIA, Record Unit 7318, G, introduction, Arthur Cooper Papers, http://siarchives.si.edu/findingaids/FARU7318.htm/.
6. Sweet, pers. comm., 16 July 2010; Hibbard to Bassler, 29 September 1939, Ray S. Bassler Papers. On Furnish, Strothmann, and the Missouri workers, Gil Klapper, pers. comm., 15 September 2005; Branson and Mehl, “Conodonts,” 236 (see ch. 2, n. 37); S. P. Ellison Jr. and R. W. Graves Jr., “Lower Pennsylvanian (Dimple Limestone) conodonts of the Marathon region, Texas,” Univ. Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy Bull., Teach., ser. 14, no. 3 (1941): 1—21; Rhodes, “Some British,” 268 (see ch. 4, n. 13). Moore, Lalicker, and Fischer, Invertebrate Fossils (see ch. 5, n. 26) list this as a standard conodont technique in 1952.
7. A lack of awareness of the potential richness of limestones is implicit in Moore, Lalicker, and Fischer, Invertebrate Fossils, 733.
8. Walter C. Sweet, The Conodonta (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). The residues of acid preparation – mineral fragments and fossils – were separated using the heavy liquid bromoform. Differing densities cause conodonts to sink and common minerals like quartz and calcite to float. It was another mass processing technique. Bromoform was soon discovered to be carcinogenic and other techniques would be deployed.
9. G. Bischoff and W. Ziegler, “Die Conodontenchronologie des Mitteldevons und des tiefsten Oberdevons,” Abh. Hess. Landesamtes Borden-forsch. 22 (1957): 11; H. Beckmann, “Zur Anwendugvon Essigsäure in der Mikropaläontologie,” Palaeont. Z. 26 (1952): 138–39.