Current Activities

46 Authors

Jose Javier Álvaro jjalvaro@posta.unizar.es

Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

My recent work is focused in the biostratigraphy of the sub-trilobite

Lower Cambrian successions in the Montagne Noire (southern France), and in the relationships between trace fossils and the stratigraphic sequence framework.

 

Jacob S. Benner jsbenner@mines.utah.edu

University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

I am currently working on my Master's thesis, which involves the ichnology of the Lower Ordovician Fillmore Formation in western Utah, USA. Among other things, I am interested in the influence of changes in sea level on the expression of invertebrate behavior. The field site contains shallow marine carbonates of varying degrees of induration as evidenced by trace fossils (softgrounds to hardgrounds). Recently, the use of CT scans to look at ichnofabrics was employed with good success, and the results are currently being analyzed. I am also collaborating with Jordi de Gibert (a postdoctoral fellow at the U of U) on a paper concerning the trace fossil Gyrochorte, Ordovician specimens of which were found in the Fillmore Formation.

 

Markus Bertling bertlin@uni-muenster.de

Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut und Museum, Münster, Germany

 

From February 1998 onwards I have changed my positions at the Geological Institute in Münster from assistant professor to curator. Finally enjoying tenure, I had to concentrate on the modernisation of the exhibition which had remained essentially identical during the last four decades. With the new contract, research has mainly become a leisure subject unfortunately. My ichnological interests continue to be wood-boring and reef bioerosion, however. Current projects involve a study of recent isopod borings in mangroves (together with Martin Thiel) and an overview of reef macroboring through time (together with Chris Perry). A multi-approach paper on wood borers from the Upper Cretaceous of Utah has been submitted.

Most of my recent ichnological efforts have gone into the Workshop on Ichnotaxonomy (WIT) which was held in early August 1998 on Bornholm, Denmark (see review by Andy Rindsberg in this volume). Its participants are currently working on a joint comprehensive paper for a major journal.

 

Leonardo Borghi Lborghi@igeo.ufrj.br

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Website http://www.ufrj.br/geologia/professo/borghi.htm

 

My present research emphasizes the study of the Ordovician-Devonian strata of Paraná Basin (see http://www.ufrj.br/geologia/proj_leo.htm). Contributions are particularly made in the study of:

Simon J. Braddy S.J.Braddy@bris.ac.uk
University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Manchester web page (including image of Palmichnium pottsae):
http://info.mcc.ac.uk/Geology/research/palaeo/SJB.html
Bristol web page (including post-doc project outline and Ph.D. abstract):
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/personnel/Braddy.html 

My research into Palaeozoic terrestrial arthropod trackways continues. The first year of the project has been concerned with the accumulation of data, development of computer modeling approaches and ichnotaxonomic concepts. Fieldwork and museum visits were undertaken in India, New Mexico and South Africa.

Future work will study the arthropod trackways and resting traces from the Rotliegend Supergroup of Germany (with Dr. B. Weber) and Lower Devonian ichnoassemblages from the Midland Valley of Scotland. Developments will continue to be made to the computer models, including procedures concerned with preservational variations (undertracking, etc.).

 

Leonard R. Brand lbrand@ccmail.llu.edu
Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California, USA
Website http://www.llu.edu/llu/grad/natsci/brand/leo.htm 

I am continuing study of the fossil trackways of the Coconino Sandstone [Permian of Arizona], and also study of modern reptile trackways on desert dunes.

Richard G. Bromley rullard@geol.ku.dk
Geological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
Website http://www.geol.ku.dk/staff/bromley/bromley.html 

I continue to be interested in all aspects of trace fossils and ichnofabrics. Tony Ekdale, Ulla Asgaard and I have submitted a paper to the E. Herrig Festschrift at Greifswald, Germany on the strange Zoophycos of the chalk of northwest Europe. I still have a great deal of unpublished material on ichnology of the Plio-Pleistocene sediments of Rhodes, Greece; in preparation, Nils-Martin Hanken, Elsebeth Thomsen and I have a paper on the equilibrichnia produced by the giant bivalve Panopea (Pliocene). At last the etching traces produced so commonly by cheilostome bryozoan colonies are receiving an ichnogenus, in press by Paul Taylor, Mark Wilson and myself. A brief paper has been submitted to the Bert Boeschoten Festschrift illustrating Pliocene Anomia epiphippium actually in situ over their trace fossils Centrichnus eccentricus, from Rhodes of course.

Publication of the papers resulting from the First International Bioerosion Workshop in 1996 has taken a very unexpectedly long time. Originally submitted to Historical Biology, this journal ran into difficulties and, after a year, rejected all the shorter contributions. The full-length papers have now been published by Historical Biology: these are Boerboom, Smith and Risk (1998), Freiwald (1998), Freiwald and Wilson (1998), Hallock, Talge, Williams and Harney (1998), Jacobsen (1998) and Walker, Parsons-Hubbard, Powell and Brett (1998). The remaining 13 short papers are now with the editor of the Bulletin of the Geological Society of Denmark and will appear in 1999.

 

Luis A. Buatois Email in care of F. G. Aceñolaza: insugeo@unt.edu.ar
Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina 

I am now back in Argentina after a fruitful postdoctoral stay at the Kansas Geological Survey. Gabriela Mángano and I really enjoyed doing research on the late Paleozoic of the American Midcontinent at the survey and teaching our ichnology course at the University of Kansas. Current activities focus on finishing manuscripts on the ichnology of Pennsylvanian estuarine facies of Kansas and starting new projects in Argentina. Within the first group of activities, a couple of papers on the application of trace fossils in cores from Pennsylvanian reservoirs of the Morrow Sandstone are nearly finished. Regarding new projects, Gabriela and I are working on Carboniferous continental to marginal-marine trace fossils from western Argentina and Cambrian trace fossils from tide-dominated successions of northwest Argentina. I have just embarked in a new project with Renata Netto (UNISINOS, Brazil) comparing the ichnology of glacial to postglacial Gondwana sequences in Argentina and Brazil. I continue to be actively working on the problem of continental ichnofacies, doing research with my colleagues from the Laboratory of Ichnology in Buenos Aires (Jorge Genise and José Laza) and Uruguay (Mariano Verde). I am also involved in several projects dealing with the application of ichnology to solve problems in the petroleum industry, essentially working with Cenozoic cores from eastern Venezuela.

 

Hanna Calner Hanna.Calner@geol.lu.se
University of Lund, Sweden
Website http://www.geol.lu.se/personal/HAC/ehome.xtm 

Silurian shallow marine trace fossils from siliciclastic levels of southern Sweden (Gotland and Scania).

 

Ismar de Souza Carvalho
Email in care of: posgeo@igeo.ufrj.br
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Website http://www.ufrj.br/geologia/professo/ismar.htm 

Research interests: Ichnology (vertebrates and invertebrates); biostratigraphy (conchostracans). Research projects: Brazilian Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems; fossil footprints from the Triassic of Brazil.

 

C. Kent Chamberlain KentC@kcsenergy.com
KCS Energy Mountain Resources, Inc., Worland, Wyoming, USA 

No current publications. Researching slowly on Gros Ventre (Cambrian) trilobite traces in Wyoming, USA.

 

H. Allen Curran ACurran@Science.Smith.edu
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063, USA

I continue to work actively on trace fossils and ichnofabrics in carbonate rocks, particularly in tropical carbonates of Quaternary age (Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Dominican Republic and elsewhere). I am particularly interested in trace fossils associated with reefal facies, burrowing activity of modern callianassid and upogebiid shrimp, and burrows occurring in carbonate eolianites. In addition, Brian White, my colleague at Smith College, and I are working on Quaternary trace fossils produced by plants in tropical carbonate environments.

 

Assunta D'Alessandro tina@geo.uniba.it
Università degli Studi di Bari, Italy

 

Huriye Demircan demircan@science.ankara.edu.tr
Ankara University, Department of Geological Engineering, Faculty of
Sciences, 06100 Tandogan, Ankara, Turkey

I am a Ph.D. student doing ichnological research on Miocene flysch trace fossils in the Adana Basin of southern Turkey. In 1998, I spent 3 months in Kraków, Poland, where I learnt more about flysch trace fossils from the famous Ksio_kiewicz collection. Some aspects of the Miocene flysch trace fossils are in collaboration with Alfred Uchman of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

 

Mary L. Droser Mary.Droser@ucr.edu
University of California, Riverside, California, USA 

I am currently working with Jim Gehling and Sören Jensen examining the nature of bioturbation across the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary and the relationship of this ichnological record with the distribution of Ediacaran fossils and suspected mat structures. I am working with Bob Gaines and Nigel Hughes looking at the Ordovician ichnological record and how it reflects the Ordovician radiation. Additionally, Dave Bottjer and I are examining the relationship between porosity and permeability and ichnofabric in the Books Cliffs, Utah.

 

A. A. Ekdale ekdale@mines.utah.edu
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Website http://www.mines.utah.edu/~wmgg/DeptPeople/Faculty/FacultyBio/-EkdaleBio.html 

I continue to be involved in ongoing projects regarding the early origin of the bioerosion habit by marine macroinvertebrates, focusing on Lower Ordovician strata in southern Scandinavia with Richard Bromley and western Utah with Jake Benner. I also am involved in several other ichnologic research projects in Utah with Jordi María de Gibert.

At the present time, I am assisting several graduate students in a variety of research activities.

 

Shaoping Fu shaoping.fu@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany 

I am still working on the bioturbation in sediment cores from the North Atlantic. Another interest is trace fossils of the Lower Cretaceous from northwest Germany.

 

Jorge F. Genise genise@muanbe.gov.ar
Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Buenos Aires, Argentina 

Most of our studies are focused on insect fossil nests. We continued our research on trace fossils from the Late Cretaceous-Early Tertiary localities of Uruguay, where we returned last year to collect more traces and to study the paleosols where they occur (Genise et al., 1998a and b; Gonzalez et al., 1998; Pazos et al., 1998). From the same material, two papers were published in this year in Ichnos (Genise and Laza, 1998; Genise and Hazeldine, 1998), and recently I corrected the galley proofs of a third (Genise and Hazeldine, in press).

José Laza published two papers on fossil ant and termite nests from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Buenos Aires province (Laza, 1995; Laza, 1997) and he is preparing a third one. Also, he presented two contributions at Mar del Plata from Pleistocene dung-beetle nests and Cretaceous Trichoptera cocoons respectively (Laza, 1998; Laza and Rivarola, 1998). José is also working on a complete revision of the ichnogenus Coprinisphaera, based on his own material (probably more than 1000 specimens!) collected during more than 25 years of paleontological work in Patagonia.

I am also working with Daniel Poiré on Mesozoic (Triassic and Cretaceous) continental traces, with Luis Buatois and Gabriela Mángano on some theoretical concepts on continental ichnology, and, together with Steve Hasiotis, we plan to review several ichnogenera of insect trace fossils. I participated by electronic mail in the Workshop on Ichnotaxonomy at Bornholm and submitted a paper to the First Paleoentomological Conference at Moscow, Russia. Mirta González and Marcela Cosarinsky are continuing with their doctoral theses on micromorphology of fossil and modern termite nests respectively. Pablo Pazos is finishing his doctoral thesis dealing with sedimentology and trace fossils from the glacial-postglacial Carboniferous interval in the Paganzo Basin in western Argentina. The Collection of Trace Fossils of this Laboratory is growing. In a year, we incorporated more than 600 lots with more than 1500 specimens! mostly of insect trace fossils.

Jordi M. de Gibert gibert@mines.utah.edu (before June 1999)
gibert@natura.geo.ub.es (after June 1999)
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA (before June 1999)
Universitat de Barcelona, Spain (after June 1999) 

I am currently working at the University of Utah where I will be staying until May or June of 1999. After that... who knows. I will most probably go back to my hometown university in Barcelona. I am interested in anything related with trace fossils, but particularly in the use of trace-fossil assemblages and ichnofabrics in paleoenvironmental interpretations. My current research includes several ongoing projects. I am still working in the marine Jurassic of Utah; my previous work in the Carmel Formation in central Utah is extending to other nearly contemporaneous formations in central and northern Utah. I am also working on the ichnology of lacustrine konservat fossil-lagerstätten in the Cretaceous of Spain. Of course, I have not forgotten my roots, so I am still much involved with the research on the Neogene of Spain and Portugal (part of which was the object of my Ph.D. thesis). In addition to my own research, my ichnological "wisdom" is being continuously enriched from the research carried out by the group of people working on several aspects of ichnology at the University of Utah.

 

Gong Yiming ymgong@dns.cug.edu.cn
Faculty of Earth Science, China University of Geoscience, Wuhan, Hubei, China 

My current work: Topologic characteristics and evolution of 2000 Ma to 0 Ma trace fossils, especially at Cambrian/Precambrian, Paleozoic/Mesozoic; marine and continental ichnofabrics.

 

Murray Gregory m.gregory@auckland.ac.nz
University of Auckland, New Zealand 

For some time I have been interested in trackways and footprints made by New Zealand's extinct bird, the flightless Moa. A catalogue of specimens held in museums and other repositories is in preparation. I am aware that in the late 1800's individual specimens, or plaster casts of them were widely circulated either through exchange or by sale. Some material was available through Wards, the scientific supplier.

I seek information from Newsletter readers who may be aware of either original material or duplicating casts that are held in museum or university repositories outside New Zealand. I also have anecdotal evidence that some of these items passed into the hands of private collectors and I would also be interested in information about these.

In the American Naturalist (14:682-684; 1880), C. D. Voy published a paper on "the occurrence of footprints of Dinornis at Poverty Bay, New Zealand." At this paper's conclusion it is stated that "the original is now in the museum of the University of California at Berkeley." This paper apparently pre-dates the opening of the museum! If anyone can comment on Voy and where this material could have disappeared to, it would be appreciated.

 

Stephen T. Hasiotis
Stephen.T.Hasiotis@EXXON.sprint.com
Exxon, Texas, USA

As you know, I have been at Exxon on a post-doc now for nearly 9 months [as of January, 1999] and it has been one wild ride! I am working with John Van Wagoner and a host of other "converted" sequence stratigraphers. I have learned much and hope to learn a lot more about sequence stratigraphy and the petroleum industry. My work here deals with applying continental ichnology to sequence stratigraphic framework of marginal marine and continental rocks. Many things I am doing come from my dissertation work, while other projects I am working on contribute to "proprietary" research that may or may not see the light of day in the next 5 to 20 years. Nevertheless, the application of paleopedology and continental ichnology to the petroleum industry and their ties to sequence stratigraphy will produce exciting new concepts of the interplay between organisms and environments.

I continue to examine the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic continental deposits in the Rocky Mountain region for their ichnologic content to describe new ichnofossil communities, and their interpretative value to the geologic history of a unit. For example, my research in Triassic continental deposits in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, made several discoveries, including the earliest evidence of termites, bees, wasps, and crayfish. The traces of these organisms extends their fossil records by more than 100 million years, demonstrating that biodiversity was higher much earlier than the diversification of angiosperm plants -- which probably took place in the Early Cretaceous. Discoveries in Jurassic continental rocks of ant nests and dermestid beetle borings in dinosaur bones allude to the major role of nutrient cycling in soil ecosystems played by these organisms in conjunction with other insects. The interactions of organisms and ecosystems through time are studied and compared to modern settings to better understand short- and long-term autochthonous and allochthonous factors on biodiversity. Research is still in progress, specifically in documenting trace fossils in geologically older and younger continental rocks, and will have impact on how we perceive the tempo and mode of evolution in biological systems.

I am also redefining the evolution and taxonomy of freshwater and terrestrial crayfish (Decapoda: Astacoidea). By describing crayfish fossils from Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks of North America, I have identified their burrows in late Paleozoic deposits. The degree of diversification and ecologic distribution of crayfish in Permian and Triassic continental deposits implies a much earlier monophyletic origin of freshwater crayfish that occurred as early as the Carboniferous (320 million years ago). Crayfish anatomy, burrow architecture, and burrow depth reflect ecological adaptations to habitat and oxygen saturation, as well as to seasonal and annual fluctuations of the water table. Thus, ancient crayfish burrows also indirectly indicate the annual precipitation and temperatures and the degree of seasonality of paleoclimates controlling groundwater profiles in their environments. Crayfish, the largest continental invertebrate, play an important ecologic role by regulating biotic components in their habitat. They are active herbivores, carnivores, and saprivores, interacting in multiple trophic level food webs; a role well established since the Permian.

Most recently, J. Richard Beerbower and I are reinterpreting the early evolution of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems through ichnofossils. Since most of our knowledge of ancient ecosystems comes predominantly from body fossils and plant remains, reconstructions of these systems have overlooked the infaunal components and soil ecosystem settings. Preliminary work by us has turned up a surprising diversity of organisms based on ichnofossils of animals and plants that suggest more evolved and complex ecosystem structure. In fact, traces in Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian continental deposits in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado show a steady increase in the diversity of behavior and foodweb levels that point to potentially earlier development and robustness of terrestrial ecosystems.

 

Kyungwan Jeong Kjeong@mines.utah.edu
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Web page http://www.cc.utah/~kj8807

At this moment, I am trying to finish up my Ph.D. dissertation on mathematical approaches to trace fossils which will include fractal analysis of trace-fossil morphologies, its application to ontogeny and mathematical modeling of branching patterns.

None of the subjects that I'm working on have ever been done by anybody but should be done, as far as I think, by somebody. I feel very happy because I picked myself as "SOMEBODY" to carry out those subjects.

 

Dirk Knaust dirk@zsgeo.no
Z & S GeoScience, Stavanger, Norway 

My recent ichnological research includes the description and interpretation of trace fossil associations and ichnofabrics of oilfields of the North Sea and the Mid-Norwegian Shelf. In this connection I am busy with problematic Siphonites burrows as well as Phoebichnus. The use of ichnofabrics for sequence stratigraphic interpretations is a major part of this work.

I also continue with my PhD results on trace fossils in the epicontinental German Triassic, especially the Middle Triassic Muschelkalk carbonates. My favourite ichnogenus here is Pholeus. In addition I study a lot of mudstone specimens with complex traces on their surfaces (e.g., Treptichnus), which are the result of different soft-body animals. For reasons of their good preservation, as well as the records of their producers, these trace fossils provide a lot of information about ichnotaxonomy, environmental conditions and early diagenetic history.

Ludvig Loewemark llgpi.uni-kiel.de
Insitut für Geowissenschaften, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel, Germany 

I am working on lebensspuren in gravity cores from the North Atlantic off

Portugal and from the Mediterranean Ridge in the Mediterranean Sea. The sediment ranges in age from recent to Pleistocene. The traces are investigated through X-ray radiographs of thin vertical slabs of sediment taken from the cores. The project has two major objectives. First, to correlate changes in the lebensspuren in the sediment with changes in climate and ocean circulation. There appears to be a correlation to changes in ocean circulation at least during Heinrich-events 1-4. The second is to develop a method where traces in digitalized radiographs can be identified and quantified with computer.

My main field of interest is the study of Tertiary vertebrate footprints, especially mammals and birds, from Spain.

 

Robert B. MacNaughton
macnaugh@geol.queensu.ca
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada 

I recently completed my Ph.D. under the supervision of Guy Narbonne and Bob Dalrymple at Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario). This dealt with the Precambrian-Cambrian transition in the Mackenzie Mountains, northwestern Canada. As part of this project, I was able to combine data from sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, and ichnology to evaluate the relative influence of evolution and ecology on the order of trace-fossil first appearances in the succession. A paper based on this work, co-authored with Guy Narbonne, has been accepted for publication in 1999.

My postdoctoral work in the Neoproterozoic Windermere Supergroup of northwestern Canada focuses mainly on sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy. However, documentation of trace-fossil occurrences is an important part of establishing the stratigraphic context of the formations I am studying.

At present, my principal ichnological involvement is a study I have undertaken with a colleague, Terry Lukie (Imperial Oil). We are studying occurrences of arthropod-produced trackways in eolian dune deposits in the Potsdam Group (Cambro-Ordovician), near Kingston, Ontario.

 

María Gabriela Mángano Email in care of F. G. Aceñolaza: insugeo@unt.edu.ar
Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina 

Most of my activities and geographic migrations in the last years were shared with Luis (Buatois). Right now, I am particularly interested in the paleoecology of marginal marine environments, and how this complex picture of interactions is reflected by the preserved ichnofauna. Also, I'm working in cooperation with Luis Buatois and Jorge Genise on several projects related to continental ichnology and studying some interesting insect trace fossil associations with Conrad Labandeira. I hope to be able to finish some experiments with insects that we carefully planned and attempted to perform (quite unsuccessfully) with Barbara Hayford (University of Kansas) (lots of fun!). I'm working on revising some forms, in particular Olivellites with Andy Rindsberg and Luis Buatois, is causing us enough worry. I'm also re-starting ichnologic studies in the lower Paleozoic of northwest Argentina, and some wider spectrum comparisons with the upper Paleozoic of Brazil, with Renata Netto.

 

Anthony J. Martin
geoam@learnlink.emory.edu
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Websites:

Biography

http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/ENVS/

Introduction to Ichnology
Dinosaur Trace Fossils
Ichnology Newsletter no. 20


http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/ENVS/research/ichnology/

 

In my quest to become a consummate ichnologist, I have many projects in the works dealing with the following subjects, in the order that they come to mind:

There you have it: work on trace fossils that involve burrows, borings, tracks, and coprolites involving plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates, that come from sedimentary (clastic and carbonate) and metamorphic rocks from the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. I have a few more projects going on in Georgia (including my revived work on the Introduction to Ichnology Web page) but thought that the preceding might fill you in for now. Oh yes, in my spare time I'm also writing a textbook for undergraduate non-science majors on dinosaurs (through Blackwell Science) that will finally give "equal time" to ichnology and taphonomy in correspondence with skeletal data of dinosaurs.

Ronald L. Martino martinor@MARSHALL.EDU
Marshall University, West Virginia, USA 

Large arthropod trackways have been recovered from the Glenshaw Formation (Late Pennsylvanian) of eastern Kentucky. The trails are about 30 cm wide and may have been made by Arthropleura. They occur as casts on the underside of sandstones interpreted as floodplain (splay or levee) deposit. Detailed morphologic analysis and interpretation have not yet been conducted. Any relevant references or suggestions would be appreciated.

A fieldtrip run co-led by myself, Mitch Blake, Bill Grady and Cortland Eble highlighted trace fossil assemblages shallow marine and estuarine facies of the Middle Pennyslvanian Kanawha Formation of southern West Virginia. Some terrific samples were bagged!

 

Radek Mikuláö MIKULAS@gli.cas.cz
Institute of Geology, Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, Rozvojová, Praha, Czech Republic

I continue in various ichnological topics, especially the following ones:

 

Paolo Monaco pmonaco@unipg.it
Università degli Studi, Perugia, Italy

I am focusing an interactive, self-running computer shortcourse on Trace

Fossils (completely made with Director for Macintosh) for researchers, graduates and industrious advanced students (currently of Italy); it includes introduction to ichnology, methods, history of ichnologic studies, diversity and characters, burrow-boring activities, substrate relationships, ichnofacies, and so on. My self-running shortcourse constitutes about 80 frames (currently no movies), each one represented by photographs of major traces, drawings and text. At present, the text is Italian, but I hope that shortly it will be translated to English. If you are interested, please contact me at my e-mail (I can invoice you a demonstrative by means of an e-mail attachment if you know Italian).

My current researches concern:

 

Jan Kresten Nielsen jankn@savik.geomus.ku.dk
Geological Museum, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Web site http://www.nathimnus.ku.dk/geol/geomus.htm

I have just begun a PhD on palaeoecology and palaeooceanography of marine molluscs from the Eemian interglaciation (Quaternary), based on localities in southern Denmark and northern Russia. The project will include a detailed taphonomic analysis of shells; combining it with studies of shell microstructures.

My short spare time is dedicated to ichnotaxonomy of microborings in foraminifera, working together with Kurt Nielsen (Copenhagen).

Kurt Søren Svensson Nielsen NK061259@geo.geol.ku.dk
Geological Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark 

Research interest in Ichnology:

Modern and fossil bioerosional marks on foraminiferal tests. My previous work has mainly been focus on the ecological aspect of these traces (see elsewhere in this volume). At present work is being done concerning the taxonomic description and classification of these traces. These preliminary investigations have only "scratched the surface" of the problem and in my opinion, the combined study of foraminifera and trace-fossils seems to offer new possibilities in interpreting the life-mode and ecology of modern and fossil foraminiferal communities. After a talk presented at Forams 98 in Mexico, several scientists responded that in their work with modern or fossil foraminifera similar structures were frequently observed but were disregarded due to the "irregular " appearances of the foraminiferal test. It is my hope that any of you reading this would contact me, if you have seen traces on the surface of the foraminiferal test or know people working with foraminifera at your institute who might have.

Ron K. Pickerill rpickeri@unb.ca
University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Ichnos Website http://www.gbhap-us.com/journals/375/375-top.htm

Editing chores continue to beleaguer me though I am currently working on two projects with Stephen K. Donovan, one involving borings in Miocene Crassostrea from southern Jamaica and the other on sponge and additional borings from the Pliocene Bowden shell bed of southeast coastal Jamaica. I am also in the process of completing a manuscript on Early Devonian shallow marine ichnofaunas from eastern Maine, and, despite Steve Donovan's move to the British Museum, intend to continue with several additional projects in Jamaica in liaison with Steve and Simon Mitchell. I also suspect once Steve has settled in at the Museum several additional projects will be forthcoming!

Zbigniew Przewlocki przewloc@geo.uw.edu.pl and bigzbig@hotmail.com
University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

 

My current work:

Kazimierz Rdzanek
Warszawa, Poland

I have just finished preparation of a monograph under the provisional title, "Invertebrate ichnofossils from the Buntsandstein of the Swislina valley at the northern margin of the Swietokrzyskie (Holy Cross) Mountains". It deals with trace fossils from continental and marginal-marine (deltaic) Lower Triassic deposits. The monograph contains descriptions of about 70 ichnospecies, including new taxa, and is based on long-term field researches in which about 100,000 specimens were collected. I hope that it will be possible to publish the monograph somewhere. Advice on potential publishers would be appreciated.

I am also continuing investigations of vertebrate footprints from the same deposits.

Andrew K. Rindsberg arindsberg@ogb.gsa.tuscaloosa.al.us
Geological Survey of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA 

This is rather a Phanerozoic year for me. So many trace fossils, so little time!

Francisco J. Rodríguez-Tovar fjrtovar@goliat.ugr.es
Universidad de Granada, Spain

Concerning trace-fossil analyses, my research focuses on the use of ichnologic studies for interpretation of eco-sedimentary conditions in the substrate and their application to cyclostratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy and ecostratigraphy. At present, I am working on Upper Jurassic sediments from the Betic Cordillera (southern Spain) and I have just begun to research on Holocene sediments in cores from the western Mediterranean Sea.

William A. S. Sarjeant
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Website http://www.usask.ca/geology/staff/sarjeant/index.html

My graduate student, Richard McCrea, is undertaking a study of vertebrate footprints from the late Lower Cretaceous (Albian) strata of Alberta. These include long sequences of quadrupedal tracks, considered to be those of nodosaurid ankylosaurs, together with trifid tracks of theropods and ornithopods and some bird footprints. A joint paper with Philip Currie, "A preliminary report on dinosaur tracksites in the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) Gates Formation near Grande Cache, Alberta" was published in S. G. Lucas et al., eds., 1998, Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems. Bulletin of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, no. 14, pp. 155-161. This includes a report of some of the longest quadrupedal dinosaur tracks yet discovered. At the recent annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Richard gained the 1998 Bryan Patterson award for student field work.

My own researches, over a number of years, on British vertebrate footprints (in part personal, in part collaborative) have resulted in three recent publications, each of them long in preparation or press:

More recent work, resulting in particular from a six month sabbatical in which I was able to concern myself almost wholly with vertebrate palaeoichnology, has produced a series of collaborative papers on Tertiary mammal and bird footprints:

These researches are continuing and at least three further projects are in hand on footprints from Alberta, Utah and New Mexico.

I was able to participate in the reporting of a significant historical discovery:

A further project, in collaboration with George Pemberton, is a biography of the Reverend Henry Duncan, the first person to give a scientific report of the discovery of fossil vertebrate footprints.

A review article has been published, following its presentation at a meeting in Santa Rosa, Argentina:

Researches concerning the invertebrate ichnofaunas associated with several localities at which dinosaurs or their footprints have been discovered, are also in progress. One of these is in press:

I have also written further in opposition to the concept of the cataclysmic extinction of the dinosaurs, works which may be of interest to readers of this journal:

 

Charles E. (Chuck) Savrda savrdce@mail.auburn.edu
Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA 

My recent ichnological investigations fall into three areas. The first involves the analysis of ichnofabrics within "piped zones" at transitions between chalks and marls in Cretaceous rhythmite sequences--the Bridge Creek Limestone (Greenhorn Formation) and Niobrara Formation, U.S. Western Interior, and the Demopolis Chalk, eastern Gulf coastal plain. Studies of the Western Interior sequences, which accumulated beneath variably oxygen-deficient waters, allowed the reconstruction of temporal paleo-oxygenation histories, but also helped recognize spatial gradients in redox conditions within the Western Interior seaway. Investigations of the Demopolis Chalk, carried out mainly by Master's student Rob Locklair, have provided insights on (and raised new questions about) the origin of carbonate rhythms (dilution cycles!), nature of infaunal tiering, and tracemaker behavior.

The second area of study relates to my participation on Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 174A on the shelf and slope offshore New Jersey in the summer of 1997. Along with Hanneolore Krawinkel (Stuttgart) and other members of the Shipboard Scientific Party, I am focusing on sedimentary facies and ichnofabrics in a thick Pleistocene upper-slope sequence (ODP Site 1073). Thus far, it looks like ichnofabrics track Quaternary climate and sea-level change very well. We also are looking at the ichnology of condensed Eocene-Pliocene sequences at the same site. A more detailed summary of findings will have to wait until my next activity report.

Finally, I am now initiating a project designed to assess Ophiomorpha-bearing ichnofabrics and facies relationships in Cretaceous nearshore and marginal marine siliciclastic strata exposed in Alabama and Georgia. I am currently busy training a number of undergraduate students to participate in this local endeavor. Hopefully, this project will be in full swing by Spring 1999.

Aside from these projects, I have been busy co-editing SEPM's journal PALAIOS (with Robert A. Gastaldo) and trying to complete a few manuscripts of my own (including papers on Taenidium-dominated ichnofabrics in Cretaceous floodplain deposits, eastern Alabama, and ichno-sedimentology of K-T boundary intervals, western Alabama).

I regret having missed the last two Ichnofabric Workshops. With any luck, I will be able to attend IIW-5 in the UK this summer and see many of you there!

 

Michael Schlirf michael.schlirf@mail.uni-wuerzburg.de
Institut für Paläontologie der Universität, Würzburg, Germany
Website http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/palaeontologie/Stuff/micha.htm 

My diploma-dissertation [M. Schlirf 1997. Upper Jurassic trace fossils from the Boulonnais (northern France)], the results of which were submitted for print in Geologica et Palaeontologica; Marburg, dealt with a great variety of well preserved trace fossils from Upper Jurassic rocks from the Boulonnais. The material is derived from a 120-m thick series of marine storm-influenced, near-shore clastic deposits of Kimmeridgian-Tithonian age. Preservational aspects, ecological observations, the nature of the trace fossil producers, and their behaviour are discussed. Thirty-six ichnospecies (29 named) assigned to 24 ichnogenera are described. Three ichnospecies are newly introduced: Asterosoma ludwigae (a branching variety of Asterosoma, fig. 1), Teichichnus patens (a branching and upward bending variety of Teichichnus, fig. 2), and Treptichnus aequalternus (a variety of Treptichnus with projections situated regularly on sides of the trace, fig. 3). The ichnogenera Ophiomorpha Lundgren 1891, Thalassinoides Ehrenberg 1944, and Spongeliomorpha Saporta 1887 are revised and synonymized with Spongeliomorpha Saporta 1887. Among others, the ichnogenera Asterosoma-Asterophycus-Asterichnus, Treptichus-Trichophycus-Phycodes, and Skolithos-Monocraterion are discussed and their currently accepted nomenclature is questioned once again.

My current interests in ichnology focus on general ichnotaxonomy and a reintroduction of Bolonia lata Meunier 1886. Together with Alfred Uchman, a description of a well preserved lacustrine ichnofauna from Upper Triassic rocks (Coburger Sandstein and Blasensandstein, Keuper) of southern Germany is in preparation.

 

Serkan Sevim demircan@science.ankara.edu.tr
Ankara University, Turkey 

I am a student of geology in the Ankara University. I would like to prepare my Master's thesis on trace fossils somewhere in Turkey. I studied Miocene flysch trace fossils in the field together with Huriye Demircan. The last 3 months of 1998 I spent in Kraków, Poland, where I learnt more about trace fossils.

Alfred Uchman FRED@geos.inj.uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland 

In 1998, I spent 7 months in Würzburg, Germany as a Humboldt Fellow, doing research on flysch trace fossils from the northern Alps in Germany and Austria and in the Hecho Basin in the Pyrenees of Spain. I benefited very much from the advice of Prof. Dr. Franz Fürsich, who was my host professor.

In the meantime, I also worked on Ordovician flysch trace fossils in central Norway in cooperation with Dr. Nils Martin Hantken and Dr. Richard Binns. Long-term researches in the Carpathian Flysch of Poland have been continued.

Dr. Jose Javier Álvaro and I found a nice trace-fossil assemblage with Celliforma in the Miocene red beds of the Iberian Mountains in Spain. Michael Schlirf (Würzburg) and I collected numerous trace fossils from Upper Triassic Keuper red beds of Franken (Franconia) in Germany.

Most recently, I have been invited to act as deputy coordinating author of a new revision of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology on trace fossils.

Plenty of collected material is waiting in my drawers for elaboration, but the day is only 24 hours long.

Ronald R. West rrwest@ksu.edu
Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA
Website http://www.ksu.edu/geology/west.html 

Reviewing a monographic treatment of the Waverly trace fossil locality titled "Ichnology of an Upper Carboniferous Equatorial Tidal Flat: The Stull Shale Member at Waverly, Eastern Kansas", a joint effort with Mángano, Buatois, and Maples. To be published by the Kansas Geological Survey.

Andreas Wetzel wetzel@ubaclu.unibas.ch
Universität Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Website http://www.unibas.ch/earth/GPI/sedi/wetzel/wetzel.html 

Currently I am working on the following aspects of ichnology:

In cooperation with Alfred Uchman (Kraków):

Anna Żylińska
zylinska@geo.uw.edu.pl
Institute of Geology, University of Warsaw, Warszawa, Poland

Nothing really has changed since last year, as at the moment my work is devoted to the preparation of a Ph.D. thesis in Upper Cambrian trilobites. Nevertheless, trace fossils always will have a special place in my investigations. Work on Lower Cambrian trace fossils from the Holy Cross Mountains with Prof. Stanisław Orłowski is proceeding very slowly. In connection with my Ph.D. research, I am also looking carefully at the problem of Maladioidella-type trilobites being makers of Cruziana semiplicata (see Fortey and Seilacher, 1997).

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