The Great Fossil Enigma (59 page)

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. Ellison 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.

10.
This limestone was something of an enigma: It occurred in the relatively young glacial drift of northern Germany; its true source remained unknown.

11.
H.-P. Schultze, “Walter R. Gross, a palaeontologist in the turmoil of 20th century Europe,”
Modern Geology
20 (1996): 209–33.

12.
W. R. Gross, “Zur Conodonten-Frage,”
Senckenbergiana Lethaea
35 (1954): 73–85.

13.
W. R. Gross, “Uber die Basis der Conodonten,”
Palaeont.
Z. 31 (1957): 78–91; Lindström, “Lowermost Ordovician,” 537 (see ch. 5, n. 13); M. Lindström, “Om conodonter,”
Svensk Faunistisk Revy
3 (1955): 1–4; G. A. Stewart and W. C. Sweet, “Conodonts from the Middle Devonian bone beds of central and west-central Ohio,”
J. Paleont.
30 (1956): 261–73, 262.

14.
W. R. Gross, “Uber die Basis bei den Gattungen Palmatolepis und Polygnatthus (Conodontida),”
Palaeont.
Z. 34 (1960): 40–58.

15.
Müller, “Taxonomy, nomenclature,” (see ch. 4, n. 14).

16.
Lindström, “Lowermost,” 539; Müller, “Taxonomy, nomenclature,” 1330.

17.
Beckmann, “Conodonten,” 167 (see ch. 4, n. 11); Bischoff and Ziegler, “Conodontenchronologie,” 7; Hass, “Conodonts,” in Moore,
Treatise
, W 40.

18.
K. Weddige, “Willi Ziegler,”
Pander Society Newsletter
35 (2003): 1; Bischoff and Ziegler, “Conodontenchronologie,” 11; D. Sannemann, “Oberdevonische Conodonten (to II a),”
Senckenbergiana Lethaea
36 (1955): 123–56.