tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55002471090107340752024-03-16T14:53:11.186-04:00Fossils and Other Living ThingsRuminations on paleontology and life
by an amateur at bothTony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.comBlogger351125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-78773942951426965432024-02-27T12:36:00.000-05:002024-02-27T12:36:18.198-05:00From the Chronicles of the Demise of My Fossil Collection: Revelations of Some Pufferfish Fossils<p><i>I began writing this blog in December, 2008, a year or two after I started seriously collecting fossils. Over the years I wrote about a wide range of topics related to paleontology and natural history, but I focused frequently (though much less so recently) on my adventures in collecting. This post signals that I am into a new phase in my fossil collecting: its endgame.</i></p><p>As part of a general downsizing of home and possessions, I am dismantling the bulk of my fossil collection. My sense of regret over the process is prompted not so much by the dispersal of the fossils, but rather by the choices I made over the years for the collection, particularly how I stored and identified what I collected. In the course of breaking things down, I came upon three fossils collected over 15 years ago (just prior to beginning this blog and early in my collecting); what they say about my collection is the focus of this post.</p><p>Here is the first of those fossils, a spindle-shaped piece of fossilized bone.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIoFv5Q9EywkwfmtDHQX5R5leoCyIqcRYb-L5FdL1EjvKHXfw_fmkSrXmHe_CtwVeTx2DMvipcNrahDnTw1-iE7v43f4osPW3dZhaRDQzNTLSe7C9U2PlsioJgSBAxyZv30Pwj_gILckHH66TGet8egD7BH8AepSOp01DnVnieOPRUjhwGstJvlwOrajr5/s600/pufferfish%20ventral%20postcleithrum%20Lee%20Creek%2010%2012%202008.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="325" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIoFv5Q9EywkwfmtDHQX5R5leoCyIqcRYb-L5FdL1EjvKHXfw_fmkSrXmHe_CtwVeTx2DMvipcNrahDnTw1-iE7v43f4osPW3dZhaRDQzNTLSe7C9U2PlsioJgSBAxyZv30Pwj_gILckHH66TGet8egD7BH8AepSOp01DnVnieOPRUjhwGstJvlwOrajr5/w216-h400/pufferfish%20ventral%20postcleithrum%20Lee%20Creek%2010%2012%202008.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><p>It came out of a drawer in one of the many small organizer cabinets (designed originally for workbench items like nails and screws) that housed much of the collection. Overall, these drawers held more than a thousand baggies, often with more than a single fossil inside. This specific bag shares one specific feature with nearly all of the others: a label that identifies location and date of collection. Where it differs from most of the bags is that the specimen inside is clearly <i>not</i> a shark tooth.</p><p>I did much of my collecting in a very few locations: the western shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland (fossils date from a swath of the Miocene Epoch, say roughly 18 to 8 million years ago); the shoreline of the Potomac River at Purse State Park, Maryland (fossils here are from the late Paleocene Epoch, about 59 to 56 million years ago); and a creek bed at Science Drive, Maryland (the hard-won fossils here date from perhaps 74 to 66 million years ago in the late Cretaceous Period).</p><p>According to the label on the bag shown above, I collected the fossil at the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, which, when we could collect there, yielded beautiful fossils from the Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene Epochs, from perhaps about 14 to 1.5 million years ago. I entered the mine (not quite what it sounds like given that the mine is a working <i>surface</i> phosphate mine) on Sunday, October 12, 2008, a truly remarkable occasion because I had gained access to this place considered quite holy by fossil collectors. A picture I took that day shows the scene with a scattering of collectors in pursuit of treasures.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCpELa0192fx4n9maXnymimgw3ortkgWXOUti782pp8RGhZc4WN8GGOc3QeXPKO8P6cYcmZcTbVPgz3fgFUs_9qqwmmdkGVZueZyTKJC-PmNUs6v2SbCmAKTXzsCTdCvf4NfQ9AVJby389gwt_HrEnoop6wldDU3WjP_MEKpI_lrORvO7kObCWabuXmWok/s800/Lee%20Creek%20Mine%2010%2012%202008.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCpELa0192fx4n9maXnymimgw3ortkgWXOUti782pp8RGhZc4WN8GGOc3QeXPKO8P6cYcmZcTbVPgz3fgFUs_9qqwmmdkGVZueZyTKJC-PmNUs6v2SbCmAKTXzsCTdCvf4NfQ9AVJby389gwt_HrEnoop6wldDU3WjP_MEKpI_lrORvO7kObCWabuXmWok/w400-h300/Lee%20Creek%20Mine%2010%2012%202008.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>From this landscape of hills of grey sand punctuated by wide pools of dark water could come an amazing array of fossils, none more sought after than the teeth from the shark <i>Carcharocles megalodo</i>n (the roots of its species name are Greek and, appropriately, mean “giant tooth”). I didn’t find any meg teeth that day, but did find an array of wonderful fossils. The bone in this bag was one of them but, over the years, I’d forgotten all about it. It fell victim, in part, to the lapses of an aging memory and to how I curated my collection. </p><p>The reason for all of the baggies among which this particular fossil bone lay hidden is a choice I made early on: obsessively record <i>when</i> I collected a fossil. The drawers were organized primarily by the location where fossils were found and secondarily by the kind of fossil (e.g., tooth or shell). As a result, if I had many fossils from a particular location (certainly true for those I visited repeatedly over the years) and, even if many of the fossils were largely indistinguishable (to wit, any one sand tiger tooth is much like any other – identifying genus and species is often a chore), the specimens ended up in a multitude of bags distinguished only by collecting date, a piece of information that, in retrospect and despite the pleasant memories stirred up by what took place on the date on this bag, is largely meaningless.</p><p>When this piece of bone reemerged, after being long lost in the collection and in the mists of my memory, I took what had been the usual first step in identifying a fossil from the Lee Creek Mine: page through <i><a href="https://ncfossilclub.org/publications/">Neogene and Quaternary Fossils of North Carolina: A Field Guide</a></i>, prepared by Richard Chandler (text) and John Timmerman (illustrations), published by The North Carolina Fossil Club. Although the copy I currently have at hand is the 2011 revised edition, I once owned the 1994 edition of this guide and must have used it in 2008 when I got home from the mine. This is an excellent and very handy publication; each of the fossils covered is nicely illustrated and identified. There, on page 31 of the current edition, under the title Common Bony Fish Fossils, is a drawing of the very fossil in my bag along with several others. (The image below of this portion of page 31 is included here with the kind permission of the guide’s authors.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7S-S3Xm3QM8Swy1CAHYOSjRif0leFgjHcWVo3stYc41QGBCKZMZ0EkgcTj9asULUNzeEsFgWZIMZAX3g2L2MXbKBX4b6v-5J-HrMaFxlmV09hXkG6hPNHWcwUx07HwzU7BIh_lJR9JlZ1NWZ5UhtY0QKFcrxY_XZpWcLRjR7yfX9gVlGBboSmPzkUIGSd/s600/NC%20Fossil%20Guide%20page%2031.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="600" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7S-S3Xm3QM8Swy1CAHYOSjRif0leFgjHcWVo3stYc41QGBCKZMZ0EkgcTj9asULUNzeEsFgWZIMZAX3g2L2MXbKBX4b6v-5J-HrMaFxlmV09hXkG6hPNHWcwUx07HwzU7BIh_lJR9JlZ1NWZ5UhtY0QKFcrxY_XZpWcLRjR7yfX9gVlGBboSmPzkUIGSd/w400-h244/NC%20Fossil%20Guide%20page%2031.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>The spindle-shaped fish specimen in question is identified as a ventral postcleithrum. The other fossils depicted are cited as suboperculum, preoperculum, and operculum. The placement of the label “<i>Sphoeroides hyperostosu</i>s (Pufferfish) Gill Plates” is a bit misleading because only the latter three bones, not the postcleithrum, are gill plates. What is true is that all four of these fossils are abundant in the Lee Creek Mine and all come from <i>S. hyperostotu</i>s (more on that below). (In a private communication, one of the authors noted that a future edition would address the issue of that label placement.)</p><p>The effort to identify this once lost Lee Creek fossil exploded into a host of related (and semi-related) questions and issues. Among the most immediate: Pufferfish? What is a ventral postcleithrum? What are gill plates? Doesn’t the fossil illustrated in the upper left of this display, identified as a suboperculum, look familiar?</p><p>Zoologist Katherine Ellott Bemis writes that “pufferfishes and their relatives are some of the most diverse fishes in terms of anatomy and natural history.” (Pufferfishes and Their Relatives, Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, <a href="https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/pufferfishes-and-their-relatives">Ocean Life</a>, January 2023.) Their diversity extends to size, color, and defense mechanisms. They are well known for their ability to defend themselves by inflating their body and extending spines, and for the lethal toxicity of some species.</p><p>In bony fish (which include pufferfish, extinct and extant), a gill plate is a bony flap, called the operculum, that covers the gills on either side of the fish, affording protection for the gills and aiding in respiration. Generally, the operculum is a mosaic of several bony pieces (the opercular series) consisting of the preoperculum, suboperculum, interoperculum, and operculum. I assume this last bone carries the same name as the full array of bones because it’s the one in the series that actually covers the gill chamber.</p><p>I should note that, after plowing through many detailed and tedious research articles about fish gill plates, I found the most cogent summary to be a piece by a former librarian and “pet enthusiast” Kathryn Copeland titled What is the Function of the Operculum on a Fish? It appears on the website: <a href="https://zoonerdy.com/what-is-the-function-of-the-operculum-on-a-fish/"><i>ZooNerd</i>y</a> and was updated October 21, 2023. I regret that she did not cite the underlying sources for the information she conveys. That said, her piece squares with what I managed to understand from the research literature I plowed through.</p><p>I am puzzled about the postcleithrum which is not part of the opercular series and so is not a gill plate. I believe it to be part of another series of bones running from the area of the pectoral fin to the cranial area. My effort to find an accessible discussion of this bone and its function has so far been fruitless. </p><p><i>Sphoeroides hyperostosus</i>, the species cited by the North Carolina fossil guide, was named in 1992 by J.C. Tyler et al. based on a partial skull found at the Lee Creek Mine in the Yorktown Formation (Pliocene Epoch). (A New Species of Sphoeroides Pufferfish (Teleostei: Tetraodontidae) with Extensive Hyperostosis from the Pliocene of North Carolina, <i><a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/part/49369">Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington</a></i>, Volume 105, Number 3, 1992.) This was a particularly important find because several of the bones in the skull were hyperostotic (i.e., swollen), a condition that prompted the authors to give the fossil its species name. Tyler et al. assigned all of the kinds of bones depicted in the illustration from the North Carolina fossil guide to <i>S. hyperostosus</i>, distinguishing ventral postcleithrum bones from opercular bones.</p><p></p><blockquote>The disarticulated hyperostotic opercular bones that are so common at Lee Creek Mine can reasonably assumed to be from <i>S. hyperostosu</i>s because of their similarity to those from the Lee Creek skull. We presume that the disarticulated ventral postcleithra from Lee Creek Mine are also from <i>S. hyperostosu</i>s because it is the only species of <i>Sphoeroides</i> (and tetraodontid) known from Lee Creek and the disarticulated ventral postcleithra in general are similar to those of most species of <i>Sphoeroide</i>s. (p. 463)</blockquote><p></p><p>Until the work by Tyler and his colleagues, identification of source of these fossils had been problematic. Now it was shown that all of these swollen bones were from an extinct species of pufferfish and that the condition of these bones was, as the authors concluded, “normal.”</p><p>As for my sense that I somehow already knew the suboperculum, it was a relief when, after some searching, I found a small plastic case (shown below) in the back of a drawer in the wooden cabinet that houses some of my better small fossils.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd69Yb6OIPrmUuJabGHvg2VHpCrPFkbS7TouyIiQmt9iwr0vStUV8jxArYWp4v6IrOyOGYW3e_wYGwcq5IBtQu38W2wMIY3M11a5QQO3G1PmvF-OCPjBFCsp-CFry8-2F_nxqqy5wJS4CaNPg_Mf1DeLhPDh-qHDqlGs-Nbhj2U7RBq93gmDXwKO5SoO_d/s600/Pufferfish%20suboperculum%20fossils%2010%202008.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="600" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd69Yb6OIPrmUuJabGHvg2VHpCrPFkbS7TouyIiQmt9iwr0vStUV8jxArYWp4v6IrOyOGYW3e_wYGwcq5IBtQu38W2wMIY3M11a5QQO3G1PmvF-OCPjBFCsp-CFry8-2F_nxqqy5wJS4CaNPg_Mf1DeLhPDh-qHDqlGs-Nbhj2U7RBq93gmDXwKO5SoO_d/w400-h304/Pufferfish%20suboperculum%20fossils%2010%202008.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Of course, would it not have been logical and appropriate that, when these suboperculum bones graduated to the wooden cabinet housing my nicer pieces, they would have carried labels delineating not just collecting location and date, but also genus and species (given that I presumably knew them)? But, no. As the picture clearly shows, these two fossils were labelled simply “NS10-11.” No other information, not even the bits I was most consistent in assigning to my specimens. Tyler et al. had stated that <i>S. hyperostosus</i> was “known only from the Lee Creek locality” (p. 463), so that was most likely the source of these fossils. Still, the differences in color and greater density that the black specimen exhibited raised real questions about its origin that only a deciphering of the alphanumeric data on the case could answer. That process, described below, borders on being a separate shaggy dog story.</p><p>It took awhile but I finally recalled that at some stage, when I attempted to organize my collection digitally, I fed data into the <i><a href="https://www.trilobase.com/">Trilobase</a></i> application (versions 6 and 7) using “NS” for “non-shark” (as these fossils certainly were). Since nothing comes easily, that foray into the digital world was at least one, if not more, computers ago, forcing me to find backup disk drives for those earlier PCs. Eventually I did come upon a file identified as “non-shark,” but at this point I couldn’t open it because I had no functioning version of <i>Trilobase</i> application. After a bit more screwing around, I downloaded a copy of the program and opened the file. There they were, entries for NS10 and NS11:</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_j8EDd2Ey-uUwm21J2YZoH1sNejTN0E4kHQwt3j8Jxbb7zhwJyrBRYgAgVhZHx9efujlKorJlBIhEsG8-e-uAudHrevnpqqzWoK3vwZYZUwSbS27E3WJlhmCG9UsRVyhOXKqEqLr6wmACmA4geen0vptcugn3Qix7ORX0JVR7LK4HrL8v3JIraP1RPoZV/s800/Trilobase%20screen%20shot%20of%20NS0010%20Pufferfish%20Suboperculum.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="800" height="405" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_j8EDd2Ey-uUwm21J2YZoH1sNejTN0E4kHQwt3j8Jxbb7zhwJyrBRYgAgVhZHx9efujlKorJlBIhEsG8-e-uAudHrevnpqqzWoK3vwZYZUwSbS27E3WJlhmCG9UsRVyhOXKqEqLr6wmACmA4geen0vptcugn3Qix7ORX0JVR7LK4HrL8v3JIraP1RPoZV/w640-h405/Trilobase%20screen%20shot%20of%20NS0010%20Pufferfish%20Suboperculum.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzjRKkiRB1JP3IuhWwHtzYUVYyLne_uU1Bgay9OoEix9LNjNU0T_W6SubRtSjqjv_Kzp0aItpkBGAfgxzM6WeQFSNThhf96-Ni4C36bs7TuEfWSSIwdsqt7K0-4DDC-VRbyL0AFdoqyLXCr_HOW6abMoSR0AQU64vcfHprrY3iyo8eIV-bpjHul3oLORf/s800/Trilobase%20screen%20shot%20of%20NS0011%20Pufferfish%20Suboperculum.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="800" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzjRKkiRB1JP3IuhWwHtzYUVYyLne_uU1Bgay9OoEix9LNjNU0T_W6SubRtSjqjv_Kzp0aItpkBGAfgxzM6WeQFSNThhf96-Ni4C36bs7TuEfWSSIwdsqt7K0-4DDC-VRbyL0AFdoqyLXCr_HOW6abMoSR0AQU64vcfHprrY3iyo8eIV-bpjHul3oLORf/w640-h404/Trilobase%20screen%20shot%20of%20NS0011%20Pufferfish%20Suboperculum.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Don't bother trying to read the text of these entries (though they are quite legible inside the program), I will transcribe the relevant information from each of these pages.</p><p>For NS10, I wrote the following description:</p><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Height Dim: 5/8"<br />Pufferfish suboperculum: part of opercular series of bones that make up what are called gill plates<br />tan and very light weight, repaired</blockquote></div><p>For its location, I wrote:</p><p></p><blockquote>this was on the surface at Lee Creek and just seemed familiar -- I had already found a ventral postcleithrum (had no idea what it was) but recognized the shape -- it's also one of the gill plate bones</blockquote><p>I entered a personal note for this fossil:</p><p></p><blockquote>first fossil repair attempted</blockquote><p></p><p>The date of collection was 10/12/2008. </p><p></p><p>For NS11, I entered this description:</p><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Height Dim: 3/4"<br />Pufferfish suboperculum (see description for NS0010)<br />this is black, passes clink test -- feels like rock -- NS10 doesn't which still has a porous bony feel to it</blockquote></div><p>I noted its location as:</p><blockquote><p>Green Mill Run - screening in the stream</p></blockquote><p>I also entered a note on this specimen:</p><blockquote><p>this struck a chord -- so similar to what I found the day before at Lee Creek </p></blockquote><p>The date of the collection was 10/13/2008</p><p>How could I have forgotten how incredibly useful the <i>Trilobase </i>program was? Too bad I didn’t use it religiously.</p><p>The dates on which these two subopercula were found are telling. It’s not really surprising that my collection contained specimens found on October 12, 2008, at the Lee Creek Mine, and specimens collected the next day at the Green Mill Run site at Greenville, NC, some 50 miles from the mine. (The stream actually appears to be named Greens Mill Run, but I never heard it called that.) Once collectors had made the trek to Lee Creek, nearby fossil sites were fair game. Doing Lee Creek and Green Mill Run back to back was par for the course. The latter offered a very different collecting experience. That Monday, I walked the streambed, shoveling and sifting gravel in pursuit of teeth, and I was alone. Here’s a picture from that day.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbySJq3EnNtSeP72pfzU5EjNUBBbeYQATY-IHHFnTaiPGxQl-DrEfoWEl0Rz658i3hD-Wox_LKkH-nMexjnLW1lgHrdwbUeuWPZ_RwxyxTtq1y95WsBxkF5a_eBCNfmiUfWAiRnq77a3_XMaSl-05K9137yO4CtQz-EQMehnckQm8O6IAr-MlyeTkeJH0P/s800/Green%20Mill%20Run%2010%2013%202008.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbySJq3EnNtSeP72pfzU5EjNUBBbeYQATY-IHHFnTaiPGxQl-DrEfoWEl0Rz658i3hD-Wox_LKkH-nMexjnLW1lgHrdwbUeuWPZ_RwxyxTtq1y95WsBxkF5a_eBCNfmiUfWAiRnq77a3_XMaSl-05K9137yO4CtQz-EQMehnckQm8O6IAr-MlyeTkeJH0P/w400-h300/Green%20Mill%20Run%2010%2013%202008.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>What<i> is </i>surprising to me is that the same kind of fossil I found at the mine, turned up at a site 50 miles to the northwest. I’m inclined to say: So much for the notion that <i>S. hyperostosus</i> is unique to Lee Creek. That said, where exactly any Green Mill Run fossil actually originated is uncertain. Fossils found here are a mixture of ones from the Cretaceous Period forward to the Pliocene Era because the stream cuts through various geological strata. One of these is the Yorktown Formation, the same one yielding all those <i>S. hyperostosu</i>s fossils at the Lee Creek Mine.</p><p>The <i>Trilobase</i> entries that I unearthed offer more evidence that the clerks in charge of my memory had misfiled other pieces of information related to these fossils. When I created the entry for the Lee Creek suboperculum, NS10, I already knew that it was associated with a fossil I had found the same day, a ventral postcleithrum. Clearly, I had done some research on both, beginning with the earlier edition of the North Carolina fossil guide. And even more disillusioning, I separately uncovered evidence that, shortly after the Lee Creek foray, I engaged in a long, detailed exchange of messages on a fossil listserv, a discussion that covered these very fossils, their origin and identification.</p><p>When I lay out all that I learned recently about what happened and didn’t happen to these three fossils in my collection, my reaction is: WTF? I should be subject to a bill of particulars over failures in my stewardship of fossils.</p><p>Here are the most salient parts of that charge: The majority of my fossils ended up in a seemingly limitless multitude of plastic baggies labelled with only the barest of information associated with any one of them. Yes, I identified the postcleithrum bone collected at Lee Creek, but I never labelled it with that information, noting only location and date collected. I also did not create a <i>Trilobase</i> entry for it. Further, the baggie with that bone “disappeared” into one of a number of plastic drawers full of Lee Creek material in myriad bags. As a result, it was separated from the two suboperculum fossils that might have given it some context. In addition, at one point, I obviously felt that the two suboperculum bones were important because I created entries for them in <i>Trilobase</i> and engaged in an extended give and take on a fossil listserv about them. Nevertheless, as further evidence of my malfeasance, when it came time to put them in the cabinet with the “good” stuff, I simply slapped an “NS10-11” on their case, as if that would make sense to someone who might come upon them later, <i>including me</i>. This action was taken despite the fact that the Green Mill Run specimen may actually have some broader scientific interest because it belies the notion that <i>S. hyperostosus</i> is unique to Lee Creek. (On this issue, see the note below.)</p><p>All of this is so bittersweet. Among the sweetness are some good memories of fossil collecting trips and, I’ll admit, some pleasure from the research I pursued for this post (though it was often over ground I’d trodden years ago). The bitterness comes from regret over those decisions made back when and the slapdash way I took care of my specimens. That my recollection of the specifics associated with this trio of pufferfish fossils has proven difficult for my mental clerks to recover is quite disheartening.</p><p>I guess these are among the usual emotions stirred up by downsizing. </p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Note<br /></b>The online <a href="https://paleobiodb.org/classic/basicTaxonInfo?taxon_no=83300"><i>Paleobiology Databas</i>e</a> indicates two locations at which the extinct species <i>S. hyperostosus</i> has been found: Lee Creek Mine in North Carolina and the Austin Sand Pit in South Carolina. The only evidence for the latter is the mention of this species in a list of the fossil vertebrates purportedly found in the Pit. The <i>Paleobiology Database</i>’s source citation for this list is a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/40157164/Youngest_record_of_the_extinct_walrus_Ontocetus_emmonsi_from_the_Early_Pleistocene_of_South_Carolina_and_a_review_of_North_Atlantic_walrus_biochronology">2018 research paper</a> in which I found with no description of either the origin or the process for compiling the list.</div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-22889131437314159182024-01-31T17:27:00.000-05:002024-01-31T17:27:08.234-05:00The Fish Are Dead, Long Live the Fish<p>It’s been a long time since I found a book as fascinating and as frustrating as <i>Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science</i> by biologist and science writer Carol Kaesuk Yoon. Though it came out in 2009, I only recently tumbled to its existence (how it came to my attention is described later in this post). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCRUbIIAromr76gUH5v724U_n_RoGEkIypbp_1JukrOQjWZQhunYjMGkUUhIjL4Z0-lUwEQK-3zjysw0GWufdRkoTVCe7C5H6bOWcQ9c3mSr7aHkXbfX0Yn0n_clIY8ONWGuO95rgnxVG47ETlK6_PxzyBxe3e3214EckIjwGgePPqJUUYwVfkDziP187B/s600/Naming%20Nature%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="392" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCRUbIIAromr76gUH5v724U_n_RoGEkIypbp_1JukrOQjWZQhunYjMGkUUhIjL4Z0-lUwEQK-3zjysw0GWufdRkoTVCe7C5H6bOWcQ9c3mSr7aHkXbfX0Yn0n_clIY8ONWGuO95rgnxVG47ETlK6_PxzyBxe3e3214EckIjwGgePPqJUUYwVfkDziP187B/w418-h640/Naming%20Nature%20cover.jpg" width="418" /></a></div><p>This account of the history of scientific taxonomy from Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) to the present had me engrossed from the outset even as I began muttering objections, not to the story per se that she tells it, but to the dire impact she ascribes to it.</p><p>In Yoon’s telling, taxonomy, the systemic categorizing of entities in the natural world, had its formal, scientific birth in the early 1700s with the publication of Linnaeus’ <i>Systema Naturae</i>, which, through its multiple editions, displayed his effort to identify and label all known plants and animals. It is to Linnaeus that we owe the two-part nomenclature in use today which gives each species a unique name identifying genus and species. His taxonomic system was based on the appearance of organisms, an understanding that species were immutable, and on his intuition about which were related to others. Yoon writes, “He had, by his own example, validated the ancient notion that life should be ordered based entirely upon one’s individual perceptions.” (p. 49)</p><p>In time, the original underpinnings of this system would be challenged and largely overthrown, a movement fueled initially by Darwin’s theory of evolution which revealed how much the natural world was in flux and that species are not fixed. The goal of taxonomy changed, the order it depicted would come to be based on evolutionary relationships, a shift which, as related in Yoon's book, challenged most people's view of the world. In essence, after Darwin (1809-1882), “what evolutionary history tells us must be grouped together and what a person perceives should be grouped together in the natural order need not correspond at all.” (p. 76.) Yoon describes the various phases that taxonomy went through following Darwin, from evolutionary taxonomy to numerical taxonomy to molecular taxonomy and to cladistics. (More on the last shortly.)</p><p>A critical part of her thesis is that humans have a natural (evolution- and brain-based) drive to categorize and label what is found in the living world. This innate impulse evolved in our earliest ancestors who, in order to survive, needed to use their senses to quickly identify and distinguish between what was benign and what was toxic in the world around them – which plants were edible or poisonous, which animals were prey or predator, and which fellow humans might be friendly or hostile. Yoon posits, because our brains developed to provide us with this view of the world, we continue to want to make distinctions based on how we experience the world, using our particular constellation of senses. This sensory perception of the world is called our <i>umwelt</i>, a concept at the heart of Yoon’s treatise. (I <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2023/02/an-infinity-of-wonder-and-beauty-review.html">wrote previously</a> about the markedly distinctive umwelts of many different species of animals when I reviewed Ed Yong’s brilliant book, <i>An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around U</i>s (2022).)</p><p>Yoon argues that the history of changes in scientific taxonomy following Darwin is largely an account of battles to separate it from the human umwelt, to make it truly scientific and grounded in evolution. She writes that, in these fights, conscious or, often, unconscious adherence to our umwelt drove some taxonomists to hold tight to a classification system that treated species as definite and real, physical appearance as the best organizing principle, and intuition as a useful tool for organizing groups. After all, that is what our umwelt tells us about the living world – appearances are critical and groups are fixed. The taxonomists who adhered to those traditional methods based on general appearance of organisms fought the changes and lost.</p><p>The true villain in her piece are the cladists whose cladistic analysis (from the Greek <i>clade</i> meaning branch) came to the fore beginning in the 1970s, following the upheaval wrought by the numerical taxonomists (who drove as many different morphological characteristics as possible of different groups through computer algorithms to generate trees of relationships) and the molecular taxonomists (who relied on the study of what we cannot see – molecules – to determine the relationships among organisms).</p><p>Though Yoon describes cladistics, I had to look to additional sources to try and get a better grip on it. Not sure I succeeded. As I understand it, cladistics rejects general physical appearance as an organizing principle. In this system, only <i>shared derived character</i>s, that is, <i>evolutionary novelties</i> that are unique to an ancestor group and passed down to descendants, should be used to identify the evolutionary affinity among different taxa. A taxon that includes only those groups of organisms exhibiting the same evolutionary novelties is monophyletic, a clade. A clade is a “natural taxon which is a group of organisms that exists in nature as a result of evolution. Although there are many possible groupings of organisms, only a few groupings comprise natural taxa.” (E.O. Wiley, et al., <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/compleatcladistp00wile/page/3/mode/1up">The Compleat Cladist: A Primer of Phylogenetic Procedures</a></i>, University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, Special Publication No. 19, October 1991, p. 3.) Groupings that are not clades may be considered “artificial” in this schema.</p><p>I found a discussion on cladistics that paleontologist Donald R. Prothero included in his book <i>Bringing Fossils to Life: An Introduction to Paleobiology </i>(1998) useful. He noted that hair and mammary glands are found only in mammals and, thus, are considered shared derived characters for all animals classified as mammals. Other features, such as four limbs and backbones, are not helpful in separating mammals from vertebrates because these attributes are found in a multitude of other kinds of animals, originating in some ancestor species to all of these animals. They can, however, be useful in identifying larger clades that include mammals, such as the vertebrates (which, in the graphic below, include sharks, frogs, and mammals). (Prothero, p. 47-48.) Here is a very simple cladogram reflecting this example (it is largely based on figure 4.2 in <i>Bringing Fossils to Life</i>, p. 48).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv-_nxxnx89gqILxkH6BFSol47SVjQT1hTWQ6mea9igTzPct8bfBLtKUQEn6Ijxp-YpamOqIcJvpDZ3uwH6RhFzqMsQAz8R9IJcovDI4926Mwr3Js7OtyF3vlZMzClIEXtr-Sqp8ix1SIYJ5a8Kojtjm6R7IVQ-TqsIY2NgUQdBc9-j9lRmgy8i1XriZJV/s652/cladogram%20derived%20from%20Prothero%20figure%204%20point%202.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="652" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv-_nxxnx89gqILxkH6BFSol47SVjQT1hTWQ6mea9igTzPct8bfBLtKUQEn6Ijxp-YpamOqIcJvpDZ3uwH6RhFzqMsQAz8R9IJcovDI4926Mwr3Js7OtyF3vlZMzClIEXtr-Sqp8ix1SIYJ5a8Kojtjm6R7IVQ-TqsIY2NgUQdBc9-j9lRmgy8i1XriZJV/w640-h389/cladogram%20derived%20from%20Prothero%20figure%204%20point%202.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>This cladogram is annotated to identify examples of evolutionary novelties (e.g., vertebrae) that arose in an unknown ancestor group and were inherited by descendants from that group. These diagrams do not identify a specific ancestor group in which shared derived characters arose because, in practice, such a group likely will never be known. Instead, the goal for such graphs is the identification of the evolutionary relationship among groups, that is, which cluster of groups form clades.</p><p>There’s the rub. Cladistics “does away” with the so-called artificial groups of organisms, those groupings that are not truly clades. In their drive to promote their taxonomic system, cladists were motivated to target their methodology on special groups of organisms whose demise as taxonomically valid groups were particularly stunning, groups that most of us outside of science and some within science had long held dear and, based on our umwelt, certainly <i>real</i>. The cladists’ most celebrated and reviled “kill” which they promoted repeatedly may well have been that of <i>fish</i> which, as a group, is not a clade and so, according to cladistics, is artificial, in other words, “dead.”</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The death of the fish was a special moment each time it was an enacted because it was as grating, as disturbing, as umwelt-insulting as possible. It was, in essence, a direct attack on whatever was left of the taxonomist allegiance to their antiquated instincts. (Yoon, p. 259.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>The cladogram below, from The University of California Museum of Paleontology, shows the clade that consists of the ancestor group of all that we consider to be <i>fish</i>. Its descendants sharing its evolutionary novelties are shown. Unfortunately, among all these fish is a group (highlighted in yellow) that includes animals we certainly don't identify as fish: tetrapods. Tetrapods are four-limbed organisms which include myriad groups such as mammals and, thus, us. As a result, cladistics posits that <i>fish</i>, as the group is typically perceived, is not a valid clade because it excludes the tetrapods and their descendants. To make <i>fish </i>a valid evolutionary group, we have some less than satisfactory options. We might decide to include the tetrapods, thereby making us fish. We might remove the tetrapods, but, to do so, we would have to drop all of the animals that are shown to the left of the lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods in the cladogram, i.e., the hagfish, lampreys, sharks, and rays. And, so, <i>fish</i> are dispensed with by the cladists.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaStgXc2IyGG7sZIJUr86NOFhJuqLMIft421TXlMUk-cQRRWX6vcUWLnOk_h7wcjVVvDBhbGK8I4XHK-Sooerco3HijrYfJ4ZLTcJ4IU1By9URZLua4jZj3CDuhgnrJ81lYaIrs6vUFK7cGR4LTT9YEHlh9IRDpw6D4_yIIS1E1Wd4hciS2fFmkCpDO0T/s771/sarco_tree.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="771" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaStgXc2IyGG7sZIJUr86NOFhJuqLMIft421TXlMUk-cQRRWX6vcUWLnOk_h7wcjVVvDBhbGK8I4XHK-Sooerco3HijrYfJ4ZLTcJ4IU1By9URZLua4jZj3CDuhgnrJ81lYaIrs6vUFK7cGR4LTT9YEHlh9IRDpw6D4_yIIS1E1Wd4hciS2fFmkCpDO0T/w640-h440/sarco_tree.gif" width="640" /></a></div><p>(The cladogram above is from<i> <a href="https://evolution.berkeley.edu/fisheye-view-tree-of-life/what-is-a-fish/">A Fisheye View of the Tree of Life: What Is a Fish?</a></i>, part of the University of California Museum of Paleontology’s Understanding Evolution website. It is reproduced under the Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike 4.0 Creative Commons License.)</p><p>It’s a fascinating story that Yoon tells, this conflict between an increasingly evolutionary-based taxonomy and the innate, human umwelt that sees the order of the natural world in mostly Linnaean terms. Most of the objections I had as I followed her narrative centered on how much she engages in hyperbole to oversell the apparent impact on the rest of us (those outside of science) of the triumph of the cladists.</p><p>In her telling, most of the ills that currently plague the human relationship to the natural, living world stem from that separation of the scientific view of that world from that of the human umwelt. She posits, “Taxonomists abandoned their umwelt, and we did so along with them.” (p. 283.) People, she argues, stopped caring about the living world largely because, as defined by the cladists, the natural order no longer squared with our umwelt. As a result, gone were the amateur naturalists who could name a multitude of butterflies or beetles and, in their stead, have come consumers who can cruise the malls and identify myriad products on the basis of their logos. As this has been happening, the natural world has been under siege with species disappearing at an accelerating and alarming rate and, she posits, we do not care because science has turned its back on our umwelt.</p><p>Really? Science dominates our consciousness to that extent? There are points at which I think she realized how much she may have gone overboard about the consequences of the rise of the evolutionary-based taxonomy, and decided to leaven her message with some additional forces that might have contributed to our purported disconnect from nature. Consider this passage which begins with her central message and then segues into a discussion of how more than taxonomy might be at work:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Maybe it's no coincidence that, as taxonomy’s relationship with the living world began to change in many ways, so did everyone else's. It wasn't just scientists who were stepping away from luxuriating in the sights, smells, and sounds of the living world. The rest of us were, too. The 1960s certainly wasn't an age of spending one's weekends collecting shells or butterflies. But even beyond the decline of pure natural history pursuits, whose once obvious appeal had become largely mysterious, other factors were conspiring to decrease our chances for interaction with the living world. The paying work that brought people into regular, intimate contact with nature – small-scale farming, hunting, and fishing – was on the decline, the inefficient individual replaced by much more efficient industrial scale machinery. (Yoon, p. 207.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Frankly, I think she has it right at the end of that quotation: the rate of urbanization and industrialization probably has had much more to do with changes in people’s daily relationship with nature than did any of the musings of cladists.</p><p>I also wonder whether the loss of the human umwelt in scientific taxonomy can really explain why human beings might be so unconcerned and accepting, as Yoon sees it, of the decimation of different species. Wasn't it often so in the past? Even when taxonomy still largely enshrined the human umwelt, we drove countless species into extinction. Think of the passenger pigeon, for instance. Go back still further, to say, 52,000 to 9,000 BCE, well before we had science at all, when we were still thoroughly immersed in our umwelt for our very survival, and what do we find? Early humans across this span of time were most likely at the center of the extinction of the world’s megafauna. (See, for example, Hannah Ritchie, <i><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/quaternary-megafauna-extinction">Did Humans Cause the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction?</a></i>, Our World in Data, November 30, 2022.) We humans seemingly have for a very long time had no compunction about doing away with entire species. Cladistics doesn't really merit the blame here.</p><p>An unscientific sample of one (me) suggests how limited the impact of the cladists and the death of fish have had on our (my) understanding of the natural world. Earlier this year, I read science writer Lulu Miller’s widely acclaimed book <i>Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life</i> (2020), a book that (deliberately) defies facile categorization, flowing among genres: memoir (of finding personal and sexual identity), biography (of David Starr Jordon (1851-1931), a renowned ichthyologist and the first president of Stanford University, and a thoroughly despicable individual whose view of static categories within the natural order led him to eugenics), and popular science (of the death of fish). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDi_Gg-JGIx1MKe3rCaAoenX_yiKwcbK6sKDt9tDPwMy17F-HO1cQcrEhFOH8p1ChiqKo25AoPTUZEDUu42qPt9puvNcdY1UvMxA36FzGii3A5k04FZfB2teMZw0uLXZVi1sQU7l1hvmBJ85yKr2sUn19yhnDooX4YInHhST2E0hHEWdIZE5dB8LM6uDtJ/s600/Why%20Fish%20Dont%20Exist%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="388" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDi_Gg-JGIx1MKe3rCaAoenX_yiKwcbK6sKDt9tDPwMy17F-HO1cQcrEhFOH8p1ChiqKo25AoPTUZEDUu42qPt9puvNcdY1UvMxA36FzGii3A5k04FZfB2teMZw0uLXZVi1sQU7l1hvmBJ85yKr2sUn19yhnDooX4YInHhST2E0hHEWdIZE5dB8LM6uDtJ/w414-h640/Why%20Fish%20Dont%20Exist%20cover.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><p>Until I read Miller’s book, I was blissfully unaware of the “calamitous” consequences of the rise of cladistics, something that clearly had no impact on me. Was I previously aware of cladistics? Yes. Did my nascent understanding of cladistics somehow wrest me away from my love of natural history and my connections to the living world? No. I never felt it threatened my sense of the world around me. Even more damning, it was Miller’s book itself that alerted me to the demise of fish as a “real” category of organisms. So much for the impact (at least on me) of the “death” of fish.</p><p>Let me expand my unscientific sample of one to a larger, but still unscientific, sample of two by including Lulu Miller herself. She has written and reported on science for NPR, and currently cohosts NPR’s Radiolab; so, she’s presumably certainly well read and attuned to what is going on in the world of science. But she writes that her introduction to the cladists and what they did to fish was in fact Yoon’s book published in 2009. How can that be, if the triumph of the cladists in the 1970s and 1980s left all of us disconnected from nature and uncaring about its fate? I doubt that she was, and I know I wasn’t.</p><p>Nevertheless, despite my grumblings about <i>Naming Nature</i>, it merits a reading.</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-24482721453944612472023-12-30T16:30:00.007-05:002024-01-02T10:44:30.635-05:00 Relationship of John Muir and John Burroughs: "I love you, though at times I want to punch you or thrash the ground with you."<p>In early 1909, two of the country’s most prominent naturalists had gathered at the rim of the Grand Canyon.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvxE3EBc6qUoX21dOLtl24nsa5ZiYpuOuiupLp4J0794pyByjv2ANVbIHCFfmPQw7mJWudQMILx_lCgHEh1mZx1nq3zvvcI-tvLQr44tYHkhbTwL-5lZShZIwd_yRbqT5pTCTbckF6BADXecsNOOlu1jYK0WGSnjMshYbysdmAKZRcDGw1phpGGQ6zTKq1/s1044/NPG-NPG_2013_62-000002.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1044" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvxE3EBc6qUoX21dOLtl24nsa5ZiYpuOuiupLp4J0794pyByjv2ANVbIHCFfmPQw7mJWudQMILx_lCgHEh1mZx1nq3zvvcI-tvLQr44tYHkhbTwL-5lZShZIwd_yRbqT5pTCTbckF6BADXecsNOOlu1jYK0WGSnjMshYbysdmAKZRcDGw1phpGGQ6zTKq1/w490-h640/NPG-NPG_2013_62-000002.jpg" width="490" /></a></div><p>(This photograph is in the public domain and downloaded from <a href="https://www.si.edu/object/john-burroughs-and-john-muir%3Anpg_NPG.2013.62">National Portrait Gallery</a>, Smithsonian Institution.)</p><p>John Burroughs (1837-1921), seated on the left in the photograph, had journeyed from his home territory in the Catskills of New York, to be guided by John Muir (1838-1914), standing on the right, on a trek to the Petrified Forests, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite, part of Muir’s stomping ground. </p><p>Muir, born in Scotland, was known for his exploration of the American West and his environmental activism and efforts to preserve the American wilderness, as well as for his writings on Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, among other places. Environmentalist Bill McKibben captured the power of Muir’s writing and his broader importance: “Beyond its pragmatic force, Muir’s prose introduced an ecstatic new grammar and vocabulary of wilderness into the American imagination: in some sense, every national park on the planet owes its existence to the spell he cast.” (McKibben, 2008, p. 84. Full citations to this and other sources are given at the end of this post.)</p><p>Burroughs, in contrast to the peripatetic Muir, had a narrower home range, focused primarily on the Catskill region in New York. This area was the inspiration for much of his writing that included genial essays, many about the flora and fauna of his Catskill home. McKibben observed that Burroughs “reintroduced reading America to the natural world at the turn of the century. For several decades he may have been the most popular writer of any kind in the country. . . . His gift for close observation and large meaning launched the nature essay as we know it.” (McKibben, 2008, p. 145.)</p><p>Burroughs and Muir were an odd couple, to be sure. Their temperaments could hardly have been more different, and their views of nature could clash. It was a friction-filled bond, mostly maintained at a distance with several brief meetings and a couple of extensive trips together (the one in 1909 that found them at the Grand Canyon and an expedition to Alaska in 1899). The relationship was complex, replete with stinging comments and sharp disagreements, though, through it all, I feel there was deep affection.</p><p>This post is the result of a serendipitous find made when I was gathering material on New England stone walls (perhaps a topic for a future post). A stupidly phrased search (using just the word “walls”) of the Middlebury College archive on the <a href="https://archive.org/details/middleburycollege">Internet Archive</a> turned up a letter written by Muir on June 1, 1910, to Francis Fisher Browne (1843-1913), editor of the literary review <i>The Dial</i>, ostensibly to congratulate him on the 30th anniversary of the magazine. (Muir, 1910.) Browne had been part of the group, including Burroughs, that Muir led in 1909 to the Grand Canyon and elsewhere. Part of the two-page letter was devoted to describing the various writing projects Muir had underway, but, by far, the most interesting part to me was what Muir wrote about his fellow naturalist John Burroughs. This letter was my introduction to the wonderfully intricate bond between the two men. (Middlebury College is my alma mater and I assumed that a school in Vermont might have some material related to stone walls in its archives.)</p><p>According to Muir biographer Donald Worster, when the two men met for the first time in 1893, “the two Johns were instantly mated for life.” (Worster, 2008, p. 334.) This bond, however strong, would be filled with sharp elbows as each man poked at the other. This post explores some of the backstory to their relationship and shares some examples I particularly enjoy of the personal give and take between the two. On the way, I will quote from Muir’s June, 1910, letter and provide the source for the sentence quoted in the title. <i>Bottomline: this post has no hook, no twist, and no fossils.</i></p><p>One source of tension was that they did not always see eye to eye on nature and science. For example, for much of his life, Muir expressed a pantheistic view of nature, and saw an underlying divinity and goodness in it. Later in life, a theism crept into his writing:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>His earlier pantheistic tendencies, which celebrated every nodding flower, every zephyr, as divine in itself, became more muted. “All beauty, all is God,” he had once maintained. Now he was more careful to reassure his more conventional readers that beauty is <i>made</i> by God. (Worster, p. 374-375.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>It was a viewpoint not shared by Burroughs. In a review of Muir’s book <i>The Yosemite</i>, Burroughs took him forcefully to task:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Mr. Muir is a nature-lover of a fine type, one of the best the country has produced. But it may be the reader gets a little tired at times of the frequent recurrence in his pages of a certain note – a note which doubtless dates from his inherited Scottish Presbyterianism. Whatever else wild nature is, she certainly is not pious, and has never been trained in the Sunday-school. But, as reflected in Mr. Muir’s pages, she very often seems on her way to or from the kirk. All his streams and waterfalls and avalanches and storm-buffeted trees sing songs, or hymns, or psalms, or rejoice in some other proper Presbyterian manner. (Burroughs, 1912, p. 1165.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>To my mind, the more important source of sparks between the men was the dramatically different personalities of the two. Muir was a talker. Worster posited that Muir “liked to gab only a little less than he liked to hike.” (Worster, 2008, p. 3.) As a raconteur, Muir sought center stage with his stories and anecdotes. He was also argumentative, often provoking his listeners and engaging in verbal sparring. Burroughs considered him a tease. (Barrus, 1914.) In comparison, Burroughs was taciturn. When relating to other people, he looked for conversation and an amicable exchange of ideas, not confrontation.</p><p>Muir was impatient with people, Burroughs decidedly more gentle and genteel. When both Burroughs and Muir joined an expedition to Alaska in 1899 that was mounted to survey the area’s natural resources, things did not go well for Burroughs. "Muir . . . got on other people's nerves, particularly those of his friend and fellow literary naturalist Burroughs." (Worster, 2008, p. 361.) Burroughs, distressed and dismayed by the Alaska wilderness, longed for home. Muir was not sympathetic. Worster wrote, “The two men remained bonded in name – 'the twa [two] Johnnies' they were called – and in cause, but Muir was openly disparaging toward Burroughs and his insufficient ardor for the wild." (Worster, 2008, p. 362.) </p><p>The June 1, 1910, letter that Muir typed to Browne offers delightful evidence of their sometimes fraught connection. Muir noted that he’d recently written Burroughs suggesting that the naturalist move to the West Coast, urging that he:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>write more bird and bee books instead of his new-fangled Catskill Silurean [sic] and Devonian geology on which he at present seems to have gane gite, clean gite, having apparently forgotten that there is a single bird or bee in the sky. I also proposed that in his ripe mellow autumnal age he go with me to the basin of the Amazon for new ideas, and also to South Africa and Madagascar, where he might see something that would bring his early bird and bee days to mind. (Muir, 1910.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p><i>Gane gite, clean gite</i>. This is how Muir dismissed Burroughs’ relatively recent interest in geology, a field that he, Muir, had long embraced and expounded upon, particularly with regard to the impact of glaciers in Alaska and Yosemite. He joked to Browne that, with regard to geology, Burroughs had “gane gite, clean gite.” Lovely Scottish expression. Using the <a href="https://dsl.ac.uk/"><i>Dictionaries of the Scots Language</i> website</a>, I translate it as: “gone mad, clean mad.”</p><p>This is just one of a multitude of examples of how Muir’s Scottish roots were never far below the surface. Worster observed: “Muir, regardless of where he traveled, would remain a Lowland Scot all his days. Only secondarily would he become a product or patriot of his adopted United States or a citizen of the world.” (Worster, 2008, p. 14.)</p><p>Muir’s observation about Burroughs and geology was, I think, actually serious business. Muir, critical of Burroughs’ embrace of geology, suggested he ought to go back to his “bird and bee books.” Was there a note of territoriality over the science and some condescension here? At least as far as the science is concerned, I think there was. I find quite telling an anecdote that Clara Barrus (1864-1931) recounted from that 1909 tour of the Petrified Forests, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite. Barrus, a physician, was Burrough’s intimate companion and had accompanied him on this tour led by Muir. As the two Johns explored the Petrified Forests, Burroughs kept posing questions about the geological processes involved and Muir, despite his well known expertise, derided the questions, at one point telling Burroughs, “Oh, get a primer of geology, Johnnie.” (Barrus, 1914.)</p><p>Later in his June, 1910, missive, Muir reminded Browne of an incident that occurred during the 1909 trip.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I often think of the misery of Mr. Burroughs and his physician caused by our revels in Burns’ poems, reciting verse about in the resonant board chamber whose walls transmitted every on the blessed words to the sleeping and unwilling ears of John, much to the distress of Miss Barus [sic]. Fun to us, but death and broken slumbers to [typewritten word inked out] Oom John. (Muir, 1910.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Again, the Scots side of Muir shines forth as does the apparent penchant for winding people up. Recitation of Robert Burns' verse at the top of the lungs was likely <i>intended </i>to interrupt Burroughs' sleep and upset Barrus.</p><p>Not surprisingly, Burroughs was irritated by some of Muir's behavior on the trip. For instance, Barrus, in awe of being in the august company of the two naturalists, recounted the following exchange she had with Burroughs:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>One day at the Cañon, feeling acutely aware of our incalculable privilege, I [Barrus] said, “To think of having the Grand Cañon, and John Burroughs and John Muir thrown in!”</p><p>“I wish Muir was thrown in, sometimes,” retorted Mr. Burroughs, with a twinkle in his eye, “when he gets between me and the Cañon.” (Barrus, 1914.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>What I really see is an honesty in their relationship born of deep friendship, despite the many flashes of pique. That is, I think, clearly revealed in an exchange of letters from November and December, 1909. Geology is at the center of it again. Burroughs had sent Muir a manuscript he’d written about Yosemite, drawing on the trip he’d taken with Muir earlier in the year. In it, he’d delved into the geological origins of the valley. Muir, responding with a typed note on November 26, 1909, didn’t mince words in his criticism.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I have read your Yosemite Ms. and can make nothing of it. You saw so little of the Valley I think you had better say little or nothing on its origin. Leave it all out is my advice. It can do no good to yourself or others to try to tell what you have no chance to know. Compare this haphazard brazen ignorance with the careful loving life-long bird studies that made you famous. You must be growing daft. You say, “come study the geology of the Catskills – those Devonian rocks”. Could I do it in a day as you did Yosemite, I would come flying. (Muir, 1909a.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p><i>You must be growing daft</i>. After delivering those blows, Muir signed off with “Ever faithfully your friend and admirer.”</p><p>I assume Burroughs responded to this note with some vitriol and, presumably, argued quite stubbornly against Muir’s take on the geology. Though I have not located a copy of such a letter, it's evident that Burroughs did pen one because, on December 14, Muir wrote again, seemingly in response to the missing letter. He opened somewhat defensively:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Now, dear Burroughs, don’t waste your good nature. I only did as you requested with the Yosemite geology, but you give me no thanks – only the other stuff. (Muir, 1909b.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p><i>Only the other stuff</i>. Whoa! I do wonder what Burroughs wrote.</p><p>In the letter, Muir went back on the offensive (perhaps throwing some of Burroughs' words back at him).</p><p></p><blockquote><p>If obstinacy, unyielding as Yosemite dome, strangely mixed with lover of flowery hills and dales, bees and trees, bird song and brook song, is a Scotch characteristic, then you, my dear John, are as Scottish as I am or ever likely to be. (Muir, 1909b.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Basically, he told Burroughs that without sustained study on site, he would never come to understand the geological origins of Yosemite. And then he extended an olive branch:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>[N]ow that you have got Yosemite on the brain, why not come again. I’d be delighted to have you, in spite of your rank Scotch Catskill stubbornness, and you might perhaps learn to endure or ignore my glacial behavior and airs. (Muir, 1909b.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Burroughs, clearly moved, responded on December 28th. </p><p></p><blockquote><p>You are a dear anyway, Scotch obstinacy and all, and I love you, though at times I want to punch you or thrash the ground with you. But I have my laugh at your expense — when you are not around. The other day I said to a friend, “Muir will not agree with you about anything. If you were to say, ‘Now, Muir, two and two make four anyway,’ Muir would reply, ‘Well, three and two make five, but what of that, Johnny.’ My friend replied, ‘That is the Scotch of it.’ " Well, it is all right — I love the Scotchman too, and I will forgive him all his quips and jibes and fun at my expense if he will come here next year and help me study the geology of my native Catskills and of the Shawangunk grits at Mohonk. (Burroughs, 1909.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>(The Shawangunk Grit is a type of bedrock, also known as Shawangunk Conglomerate that can be found at the Mohonk Preserve in New York.)</p><p><i>I love you, though at times I want to punch you or thrash the ground with you.</i> I sense that that's the relationship from both men's perspective in a single sentence.</p><p>Their loving, though contentious, ties would be permanently broken in 1914 with Muir’s death. Of that passing, Burroughs’ journal entry of December 25, 1914 is quite poignant:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>News comes of John Muir’s death – an event I have been expecting and dreading for more than a year. A unique character – greater as a talker than writer; loved personal combat, and shone in it. He hated writing, and composed with difficulty, though his books have charm of style; but his talk came easily and showed him at his best. I shall greatly miss him though I saw him so rarely. (Burroughs, 1928, p. 283.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p><b>Sources</b></p><p>Clara Barrus, Camping with Burroughs and Muir, excerpted from <i>Our Friend John Burroughs</i>, 1914, as presented on the <a href="https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/barrus_camping.aspx">Sierra Club website</a>.</p><p>John Burroughs, letter to John Muir, December 28, [1909?], Scholarly Commons, <a href="https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/5209/">Item 5209</a>, John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. Though Burroughs failed to note the year on the letter, I believe, given what he wrote, that he was responding to Muir’s December 14, 1909, note. Indeed, the transcription to the letter on the University of the Pacific Library website cites the date as “[1909?].” I believe the title given to the letter and the heading to the PDF of the letter citing the date as “[1910?]” are incorrect.</p><p>John Burroughs, John Muir’s “Yosemite,” <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_literary-digest_1912-06-01_44_22/page/1165/mode/1up">Literary Digest</a></i>, June 1, 1912, p. 1165, 1168.</p><p>John Burroughs, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/heartofburroughs00burr/mode/2up">The Heart of Burroughs’s Journals</a></i>, edited by Clara Barrus, 1928.</p><p>Bill McKibben, editor, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/americanearth00bill/mode/1up">American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau</a></i>, 2008.</p><p>John Muir, letter to Francis Fisher Browne, June 1, 1910, scanned version of original document contained in the Abernethy Manuscripts Collection at Middlebury College, available at the <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/aberms.muirj.1910.06.01">Internet Archive</a></i>.</p><p>John Muir, letter to John Burroughs, November 26, 1909a, Scholarly Commons, <a href="https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/5933/">Item 5933</a>, John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library.</p><p>John Muir, letter to John Burroughs, December 14, 1909b, Scholarly Commons, <a href="https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/5946/">Item 5946</a>, John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library.</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-40510653592093303262023-11-30T15:51:00.000-05:002023-11-30T15:51:47.732-05:00Fossil Preparation: View From The Cheap Seats<p>Fossil preparators play a critical role in shaping the fossil specimens we see on display in natural history museums. I spent several years as a volunteer in the FossiLab at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History surrounded by people doing this kind of work. (I don’t think I’ve ever confessed on this blog that I was a FossiLab volunteer, though it was probably quite obvious. Also, I don’t consider the microscope work I did with microfossils brought in from the field to be fossil preparation.) This post is my attempt, sitting in the cheap seats, to cheer on the preparators, and to consider some of the complicated issues that greater transparency in delineating their roles appears to raise.<br /></p><p>The newest incarnation of the glass-walled FossiLab is located at one end of the Fossil Hall and provides visitors with a look at volunteers working with fossils. Its opening was celebrated in a piece in <i>Smithsonian Magazine</i>. (Bedford, 2019. Full citations to all references are at the end of this post.) Many of the volunteers around me in the previous versions of the lab in which I worked were, in my estimation, <i>fossil preparators</i> expertly removing matrix from bones and teeth; using air scribes to reveal fragile plant fossils or uncover teeth in a jaw bone; fashioning archival housing to store and cradle heavy or fragile fossils; making realistic, detailed molds and casting fossil bones; carefully gluing fossil fragments back into coherent wholes; and so on. At each step, they made decisions, alone or in consultation with professional preparators or scientists, which, whether big or small, influenced the content and contours of the fossils upon which they worked – adding or, on occasion, subtracting value. What these people in the lab were (and are) doing in the “fish bowl” of the FossiLab may well offer onlooking museum visitors access to the most important paleontological insight they could gain from a visit to the museum: fossils, despite their biological and paleontological origins in deep time, are also the products of human hands.</p><p>In a recent, provocative article titled Fossils Are Shaped by People. Does That Matter?, Asher Elbein describes two realities: (1) fossils on display in museums and elsewhere are human-mediated reconstructions of ancient life, and (2) the mediators are fossil preparators who largely and unfairly do not receive the credit due them. (Elbein, 2023.) The dynamic of these two realities is delineated in fine grain by Caitlin Donahue Wylie in the case studies that formed the foundation for her book analyzing fossil preparation in university and museum labs. (Wylie, 2021a.) Though the activities on display in a glass-walled lab in a museum might lead some to think fossils are being created, Wylie writes, “Preparators do not ‘make’ fossils from scratch; rather, they make fossils into specimens.” (Wylie, 2021a, p. 3) This is a crucial distinction and part of the process of “preparing knowledge.”</p><p>The label "preparator" seems inconsistently applied in the literature, leaving me confused as to when the term is used to describe only employed staff preparators, or used more broadly to encompass volunteers as well. (Of course, my lack understanding is not an uncommon state of affairs as any reader of this blog will confirm). Wylie writes,</p><blockquote><p>Preparators don’t have PhDs or authorship on publications. They receive no formal training or methodological protocols. To distinguish themselves from low-skill, instruction-following technicians, preparators portray their practices as creative and artistic. Moreover, the majority of people who prepare fossils are volunteers, not staff. (Wylie, 2021a, p. 11.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>What am I to conclude from a passage like this? Does she embrace volunteers as preparators or draw some sort of distinction? Are "preparators" different (paid and on staff?) from volunteers "who prepare fossils?" In an article, she describes a person working in a fossil lab as a "volunteer fossil preparator." (Wylie, 2012b, p. 14.) But others who have read her treatise find that she makes precise and hard distinctions as to fossil lab roles. A recent reviewer of her book asserts the following (presumably reflecting their reading of what Wylie is describing):</p><blockquote><p>Outnumbering both paleontologists and preparators, are the volunteers. Volunteers differ from fossil preparators sometimes via skill, but always in terms of professionalization and responsibility. Volunteers prepare fossils, but do not make decisions about how. . . .</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>So, the preparation of fossils relies on a network of paleontologists, who don't know how to prepare but do know how to interpret, preparators, who do not interpret, but prepare and decide how to prepare, and volunteers, who simply prepare, turning to preparators for guidance. (Currie, 2023, p. 4. "Simply prepare" is a singularly inappropriate and misleading phrase for any kind of fossil preparation work.)</p></blockquote><p>Is Adrian Currie providing an accurate reading of Wylie? I think such a hard and fast separation of preparators from volunteers misses an important aspect of the dynamic at play in fossil labs. There is a sharing of skills and roles in the preparator universe. So, in this post, rightly or wrongly, I use the label <i>expansively</i> to describe both professionals <i>and</i> volunteers. In my view, preparators are often volunteers, young and old, elsewhere employed or retired. Staff preparators may oversee and train volunteer preparators, but they do not make up the lion’s share of people who do this work. And volunteer preparators have a significant influence on fossils' transition to specimens.</p><p>Unlike paleontologists who follow a path of rigorous and lengthy academic preparation to reach their professional status, preparators in general have no structured, widely accepted course of study. Wylie has observed:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>There is no specific training or certification required to work as a preparator; preparators teach novices on the job through informal supervision and advice. They draw on skills from their diverse backgrounds to free fossils from rock and piece them together. (Wylie, 2021b, p. 14.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>There is a movement to professionalize the fossil preparation field, delineating what it should take to be hired as a preparator. For instance, with support from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, a group of professional preparators has identified the competencies that should underlie fossil preparation. (<i>Society of Vertebrate Paleontology</i>, 2011.) Further, there are models of programs to train volunteers in preparation skills and attitudes. The Smithsonian's FossiLab was the setting for one such program which trained and screened volunteers who then staffed the lab going forward. (Jabo, et al., 2010; Brown, et al., 2010.)</p><p>Context setting is important here. Much of the concern about transparency in the realm of fossil preparation focuses on <i>vertebrate</i> paleontology, the field that produces the fossil skeletons that are the megastars of natural history museums and the objects of out-of-control bidding in fossil auctions worldwide. Wylie posits that there is a strict division of labor in vertebrate paleontology when it comes to fossil preparation. She states that vertebrate paleontologists for the most part don't know how to do the preparation work that enables them to study their specimens. In contrast, invertebrate paleontologists do. (Wylie, 2021a, p. 12.) Nevertheless, it seems to me that, though the concerns and stakes may be less for invertebrate fossils, many of the same issues surrounding fossil preparation remain. (It's not always clear in the literature on fossil preparation whether or when this vertebrate/invertebrate distinction is being applied.) </p><p>Preparators as described by Elbein and Wylie are, to the outside world, largely invisible participants in the process of translating fossils into specimens. Wylie argues that the absence of due credit (e.g., in publications) to preparators, and their relatively low status in institutional hierarchies mean that “scientists effectively reify the more visible products and people of science: facts and scientists.” (Wylie, 2021a, p. 9) This ends up obscuring the actual process through which fossils are recovered from deep time, a process that introduces a subjectivity to the “facts,” and that is a blend of artistry and science. In essence, a call for crediting the work of fossil preparators is a call to make that blend known, highlighting who did the preparation and what they did.</p><p>Though from what I observed in my years of volunteering in the lab, all of this rings true, but I am having a hard time seeing the form that the desired and deserved credit for fossil preparators should take. Let me start by highlighting two fossils from my collection representing extremes of the credit issue.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiolowpcfnQVlSBGEUqbKzXafUfypGJs92-kPMKgrBEC_uiMTaup4PEHuhTG9vG442jJADRmgQf796MgvihMV_h6EAzpwfUFr42vh8l9K5_eKt6_eDeTYonmjhleljqPrKlBpSsfT2uB6ycBdeCMa7SrrfmXe2pHulsROmItqMwXIWDOdCO1_NWM4_cbROA/s600/Knightia%20Green%20River%20Formation.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="600" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiolowpcfnQVlSBGEUqbKzXafUfypGJs92-kPMKgrBEC_uiMTaup4PEHuhTG9vG442jJADRmgQf796MgvihMV_h6EAzpwfUFr42vh8l9K5_eKt6_eDeTYonmjhleljqPrKlBpSsfT2uB6ycBdeCMa7SrrfmXe2pHulsROmItqMwXIWDOdCO1_NWM4_cbROA/w640-h414/Knightia%20Green%20River%20Formation.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The fish fossils are from the genus<i> Knightia</i>. These are fresh water herrings from the Green River Formation in Wyoming and date back to the Eocene (roughly 50 million years ago). That is all the background I have on these fish. I don’t know precisely where they were found. More to the point, I don’t know if what I have at hand is the slab of limestone matrix exactly as it was exposed in the field or whether some preparator worked on the slab to expose more of the fish before sending it into the commercial market where I bought it. No record of what happened to the fossils on this slab means no way to give any credit.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HOCspuSAOxtnqPfGBhydKUXCS_v_0G6N6cOa_VrGB6iVy_pDS9bx9Al_qOrk3vhyphenhyphendKzcELU3SIcYdx9VxQbfwm4e67RHzHlrqXiEo_e4TbIL3hyphenhyphenphy_XP8A_fooVLl19-p1VAsSqRlSheLNm1iSBgtrNSA6mP1AaPBKhhZq_2-taF1HMBL6bH6XDQQOR/s600/Kainops%20Lower%20Devonian%20Behrendt.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="600" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HOCspuSAOxtnqPfGBhydKUXCS_v_0G6N6cOa_VrGB6iVy_pDS9bx9Al_qOrk3vhyphenhyphendKzcELU3SIcYdx9VxQbfwm4e67RHzHlrqXiEo_e4TbIL3hyphenhyphenphy_XP8A_fooVLl19-p1VAsSqRlSheLNm1iSBgtrNSA6mP1AaPBKhhZq_2-taF1HMBL6bH6XDQQOR/w400-h371/Kainops%20Lower%20Devonian%20Behrendt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>This fossil is a trilobite, <i>Kainops raymondi</i>, found in the Haragan Formation in Oklahoma and dating back to the Lower Devonian (400 or more million years ago). This specimen was prepared by Marc Behrendt, a preparator who serves the commercial market. I purchased this fossil from him and received detailed photographs delineating many of the steps in the process of removing matrix from the trilobite. Giving credit for this one is a slam dunk.</p><p>There is a broad middle ground between these two extremes, but complications seem to arise at every turn. For instance, as I witnessed it, the fossil preparation process can be a communal project in which multiple people have a hand. How is credit granted in that case? Those who did the most work? The most important? Only the professional staff preparators? How should any of this be measured? At a minimum, some sort of paper trail of the preparation process seems in order.</p><p>On the other hand, if a single preparator works largely alone to turn a fossil into a specimen, there’s not much challenge in identifying to whom the credit should be given. Even in that case, the process of rendering credit should depend upon record keeping delineating not only who worked on the fossil but what they did.</p><p>The issue of documenting the preparation process poses a challenge. As Wylie has written, “crucially, preparators leave few written records.” (Wylie, 2021a, p. 59.) This has some disquieting consequences. Researchers may be at some removed from the preparation process, remaining largely ignorant of what was done to the fossil. Wylie observes, “This lack of record keeping and supervision grants preparators de facto power over their techniques.” (Wylie, 2021a, p. 59.) Perhaps it's not surprising, as Elbein writes, “Many experts argue that preparators deserve both recognition and scrutiny.” (Elbein, 2022.) Transparency is a two-edged sword that may reshape the contours of the role of the fossil preparator.</p><p>A different set of issues arises when one considers how to give credit to preparators. I wrote a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2014/12/implications-of-spare-parts.html">post</a> nearly a decade ago about a small mammal skeleton from the Late Cretaceous that was then on display at the National Museum of Natural History.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWlguBXeKvoP_dzkyeX16hj35yF_YU6C1WU06Rs-bIhwu2sb3Hw_BvQkJxgb18fViYnuSaO8XnR5ShELnbhrNGy4a_m30MJuiCamsXs2_w1bx0KzUAQFGSA31KoWK9Y8ICo-NdjmFUxG_DK2ge-yPteLL7VBz2PSnpc-FsxW1C0g3tLchrcDVEnF9X7GH/s1202/Didelphodon%20cast%20skeleton%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="1202" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWlguBXeKvoP_dzkyeX16hj35yF_YU6C1WU06Rs-bIhwu2sb3Hw_BvQkJxgb18fViYnuSaO8XnR5ShELnbhrNGy4a_m30MJuiCamsXs2_w1bx0KzUAQFGSA31KoWK9Y8ICo-NdjmFUxG_DK2ge-yPteLL7VBz2PSnpc-FsxW1C0g3tLchrcDVEnF9X7GH/w640-h269/Didelphodon%20cast%20skeleton%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>It’s a lovely skeleton, but what was on display was not an actual set of bones, but a cast of a specimen for which only some 30 percent of the actual bones were recovered (that’s still a very high percentage). Here’s a picture of the label attached to the skeleton.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUlVPX-b0A4MYB_roFesR-EihMsf95xBIUBAzPVmNpfPJbMPeyj7tuYCUoy4V5BxS2Pa1cWnhJOrAxRJfTUvuSODJ0PERVk-KJ8cT5rsFH41AsgrfZatdjV0lXuzQUp4l4k2vSGNCaa4XqawqvGRdVIj6ooSWG0JLRGvEugYdc1VgASwHU6KDjUAMrAS87/s690/Didelphodon%20label.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="690" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUlVPX-b0A4MYB_roFesR-EihMsf95xBIUBAzPVmNpfPJbMPeyj7tuYCUoy4V5BxS2Pa1cWnhJOrAxRJfTUvuSODJ0PERVk-KJ8cT5rsFH41AsgrfZatdjV0lXuzQUp4l4k2vSGNCaa4XqawqvGRdVIj6ooSWG0JLRGvEugYdc1VgASwHU6KDjUAMrAS87/w640-h322/Didelphodon%20label.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The collector is listed as Mike Triebold. With minimal effort, the curious could follow that clue to the preparation of the skeleton by Triebold Paleontology, Inc. which Triebold headed and to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center which he founded. This label doesn’t go as far as it could to make the preparation transparent to a museum researcher or visitor. That said, how much detailed information should be given? Just who had a hand in the preparation? Some gauge of how much and what kind of preparation was involved?</p><p>Attribution of some aspects of the role that fossil preparators have played with individual specimens should made explicit. Research papers might more consistently acknowledge and, within reason, describe the work done to prepare specimens. Laboratory records could record who did what (though preparators would still remain largely invisible to the public). This attribution need not be as significant as was the case with <i>Opisthiamimus gregor</i>i, a newly identified Jurassic reptile. The authors of the research article in which the new species was named wrote:</p><p></p><blockquote>The species epithet ‘<i>gregori</i>’ recognizes Joseph Gregor, a dedicated Smithsonian volunteer who skillfully prepared the holotype and referred specimens. (DeMar, 2022, p. 6.)</blockquote><p></p><p>These are challenging issues with no simple answers given the myriad variables at play in the process of preparing fossils. I think it can only be helpful to make more explicit the role that preparators, whether professional or volunteer, play and, in doing so, give the general public a nuanced and more accurate understanding of what is on display. Fossil preparation is important work that, whether we recognize it or not, directly influences how we view and understand fossils.</p><p><b>Sources</b></p><p>Bailey Bedford, Smithsonian Puts Backstage Fossil Preparation Center Stage in its New Fossil Hall, <i><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2019/10/16/smithsonian-puts-backstage-fossil-preparation-center-stage-its-new-fossil-hall/">Smithsonian Magazine</a></i>, October 16, 2019.</p><p>Matthew Brown, et al., The Smithsonian Institution’s Exhibit Fossil Preparation Lab Volunteer Training Programme, Part II: Training and Evaluating Student Preparators, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261561330_The_Smithsonian_Institution's_exhibit_fossil_preparation_lab_volunteer_training_programme_Part_II_Training_and_evaluating_student_preparators"><i>Geological Curator</i>,</a> Volume 9, Number 3, September, 2010.</p><p>Adrian Currie, Cleaning, sculpting or preparing? Scientific knowledge in Caitlin Wylie’s <i>Preparing Dinosaurs</i>, <i><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-023-09902-4">Biology & Philosophy</a></i>, Volume 38, Number 10, 2023. </p><p>David G. DeMar, Jr., et al., A nearly complete skeleton of a new eusphenodontian from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Wyoming, USA, provides insight into the evolution and diversity of Rhynchocephalia (Reptilia: Lepidosauria), <i><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772019.2022.2093139">Journal of Systematic Palaeontology</a></i>, Volume 22, Issue 1, 2022.</p><p>Asher Elbein, Fossils Are Shaped by People. Does That Matter?, <i><a href="https://undark.org/2023/11/15/fossils-art/">Undark Magazine</a></i>, November 11, 2023.</p><p>Steven J. Jabo, The Smithsonian Institution’s Exhibit Fossil Preparation Lab Volunteer Training Programme, Part I: Design and Recruitment, <i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269279456_THE_SMITHSONIAN_INSTITUTION'S_EXHIBIT_FOSSIL_PREPARATION_LAB_VOLUNTEER_TRAINING_PROGRAMME_PART_I_DESIGN_AND_RECRUITMENT">Geological Curator</a></i>, Volume 9, Number 3, 2010.</p><p><a href="https://vertpaleo.org/preparators-resources-2/">Society of Vertebrate Paleontology</a>, Defining the Professional Vertebrate Fossil Preparator: Essential Competencies, 2011.</p><p>Caitlin Donahue Wylie, <i><a href="https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5180/Preparing-DinosaursThe-Work-behind-the-Scenes">Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work Behind the Scenes</a></i>, 2021a.</p><p>Caitlin Donahue Wylie, What Fossils Preparators Can Teach Us About More Inclusive Science,<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27092106"> <i>Issues in Science and Technology</i></a>, Fall, 2021b.</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-55662849246763107222023-10-31T12:38:00.000-04:002023-10-31T12:38:51.026-04:00Eastern Gray Squirrels - Coloring Outside of the Lines<p> Earlier this year, I had a question about the coloring of eastern gray squirrels (<i>Sciurus carolinensis</i>). In this post, I lay out some of what I’ve learned and ask some of the additional questions I have yet to answer. </p><p>In May, I hired a tree service to prune trees around my cottage on the North Fork of Long Island (Suffolk County, New York). During the work, a couple of black squirrels eluded members of the work crew by racing up the trunk of one tree and leaping onto the branches of another. I had long ago accepted the presence of those black versions (morphs) of the gray squirrel population living near my cottage, but the tree workers were astounded, swearing they’d never seen such squirrels before. (I should get something out the way at the outset, the black squirrels are members of the same species as their gray brethren.)</p><p>Is it possible that this tree crew working in and around trees every day on the North Fork of Long Island had never before encountered black squirrels? Turns out that it is. The testimony of these workers is one bit of evidence supporting the uniqueness of the population around my cottage. Unfortunately, I failed to take the time this summer to go and personally search for black squirrels on the North Fork, so I have turned to the citizen-science app <i><a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/">iNaturalist</a></i>. Observations posted on the app are accompanied by one or more photographs of the specimen in question. I reviewed over 360 gray squirrel observations from Suffolk County (which includes the North Fork where my cottage is located) that have been posted on <i><a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=2410&subview=table&taxon_id=1431493">iNaturalist</a></i>. For all of Suffolk County there are very few black morphs and none that I could find from the North Fork. (My use of <i>iNaturalist</i> was prompted by a recent study of gray squirrel morphs in the Great Lakes region: Lehtinen, et al., 2020. More on that study below. Full citations to this and other references cited in this post are included in the list of sources at the end of this post.) I was also pleased to find that there is an <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/black-squirrel"><i>iNaturalist </i>project</a> devoted to the black squirrel. (A project groups observations based on specified criteria.) Of the project's over 3,000 sightings worldwide, those from Long Island confirm a paucity of such squirrels on the eastern end of the island. These data show a very health concentration of black morphs on the western end of the island, in and around New York City. A bit more on this New York City cluster later in this post.</p><p>Up until the tree trimming crew reacted as it did, I hadn’t thought twice about the presence of black morphs living near my cottage because I'm used to them, given that they are not uncommon around my home in the Washington, D.C. area.</p><p>Pictured below are a few of the black and the gray squirrels that I’ve encountered in the D.C. area.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7IWFPTa0BeO66zpev0pEJpWDjxLkTFOOC6r385KTMDO90_TrNN_vHTjpreZ0N2L-yVz79CfJIw3-FfEkdu1YTEzf36UXCMZeu0BhRyB6UmoJO3-maQF5BkSodPY1akWpuDnW6oc2-dQnz4fGG5ThxQNGwwa570JgU6fUFmCynSlS4RwcD0s4sWoGceB99/s711/Blog%20Black%20squirrel%20from%20behind.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7IWFPTa0BeO66zpev0pEJpWDjxLkTFOOC6r385KTMDO90_TrNN_vHTjpreZ0N2L-yVz79CfJIw3-FfEkdu1YTEzf36UXCMZeu0BhRyB6UmoJO3-maQF5BkSodPY1akWpuDnW6oc2-dQnz4fGG5ThxQNGwwa570JgU6fUFmCynSlS4RwcD0s4sWoGceB99/w338-h400/Blog%20Black%20squirrel%20from%20behind.jpg" width="338" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKBHFnrSlxh6cr-eijWPEAhsXOqybED2mio1_WyhdfcE2k7RqsQAPkFTAgjVOWfuMJP9tFPugQv0WTbjZjPvZVxo1v1gQbT-ypOtPl7570IGGoKE09HXzsUimL4BB_WiQfRf6UY5TahY01GHknEDjTVK7qwWeIqLzkwzdVcISbG3xTCQBUmzvkHEReY0nm/s600/Blog%20Black%20squirrel%20in%20grass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="600" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKBHFnrSlxh6cr-eijWPEAhsXOqybED2mio1_WyhdfcE2k7RqsQAPkFTAgjVOWfuMJP9tFPugQv0WTbjZjPvZVxo1v1gQbT-ypOtPl7570IGGoKE09HXzsUimL4BB_WiQfRf6UY5TahY01GHknEDjTVK7qwWeIqLzkwzdVcISbG3xTCQBUmzvkHEReY0nm/w400-h316/Blog%20Black%20squirrel%20in%20grass.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhenAQJLRt28ZDnXI3qYpH1BYhjRRrk21II37GPm0t0PtH4IoMo89Wg8svJ3OuM_X4ourUgJi4AyU2IDr-2cDfce807RGWPd74ua9SlPcoKQsOBVBhXcITeIMnRG2vkz1nkwb2bJqBS-3uFMhywY7FKebSQuUWuJkfGAbQzyW3858setVUIl-qg8gNPfi4q/s640/Blog%20Gray%20squirrel%20foraging.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="640" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhenAQJLRt28ZDnXI3qYpH1BYhjRRrk21II37GPm0t0PtH4IoMo89Wg8svJ3OuM_X4ourUgJi4AyU2IDr-2cDfce807RGWPd74ua9SlPcoKQsOBVBhXcITeIMnRG2vkz1nkwb2bJqBS-3uFMhywY7FKebSQuUWuJkfGAbQzyW3858setVUIl-qg8gNPfi4q/w400-h323/Blog%20Gray%20squirrel%20foraging.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Hs7vEmV5_SLmR2krDgzSwGI8chi5e-LJOChsIZgS3MxwQAOHP85d3BT062olMUpyN-61qnzQIn587aCFq5FGCUVkSW6M7W98xpEWMPbCdEKpvuacG3k6LpCcZly-cZj4qwel-0_98jd544IVBTUR-RZG7uoQMFFN7F0Q3UsGKB8i1a-azsAonuIqCCPQ/s605/Blog%20Gray%20squirrel%20in%20tree.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Hs7vEmV5_SLmR2krDgzSwGI8chi5e-LJOChsIZgS3MxwQAOHP85d3BT062olMUpyN-61qnzQIn587aCFq5FGCUVkSW6M7W98xpEWMPbCdEKpvuacG3k6LpCcZly-cZj4qwel-0_98jd544IVBTUR-RZG7uoQMFFN7F0Q3UsGKB8i1a-azsAonuIqCCPQ/w396-h400/Blog%20Gray%20squirrel%20in%20tree.jpg" width="396" /></a></div><p>The eastern gray squirrel matures to breeding age at 10 months and has an average life span of one year. (Lehtinen, et al., 2020.) That one year average life span is greatly influenced by a high mortality rate in the initial year; adult females reportedly can live up to more than 12 years in the wild while adult males can live up to 9 years. (Koprowski, et al., 2016.) Melanism (presence of dark coloring) is actually quite rare across the entirety of the eastern gray squirrel’s range which encompasses nearly all of the eastern half of the county and parts of Canada (in that range, overall fewer than 1% of these squirrels are black). At the same time, melanism is common in the northern portion of the squirrel’s range (some 75% of the eastern gray squirrels are black in that stretch of the range). (McRobie, 2019.) Of note, the latitudes covered by the northern tier of that range includes Long Island, but not the Washington, D.C. area. There’s an additional piece of potentially relevant information: the demes of gray squirrels are small. (Gustafson and VanDruff, 1990.) Biologists define <i>demes</i> as local populations of individuals that interbreed, sharing the same gene pool. This means that these squirrels are likely to interact with only a small group of their squirrel companions.</p><p>It's useful, I think, to consider the genetic basis for melanism in <i>S. carolinensis</i>. Research out of Britain helps ground this story. Perhaps that origin of this research isn’t all that surprising because the gray squirrel came onto the scene there only relatively recently. Helen McRobie and her co-authors (2009, p. 709) described the British experience with gray and black squirrels as follows:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Introduced to Britain in captivity in the late 19th century, the gray squirrel has repeatedly escaped into the wild and has subsequently become a successful invader all but outcompeting the native red squirrel (<i>Sciurus vulgaris</i>). Melanic variants of the gray squirrel are common in North America, but the first sighting reported in Britain was in the early 20th century.</p><p></p></blockquote><p>(Later in this post, I describe how I think this description by McRobie, et al., is misleading or, at least, subject to misinterpretation.)</p><p>McRobie and her colleagues determined the genetic origins of gray squirrel melanism, finding that there are three color variants among the gray squirrels: “wild-type gray” (so called to distinguish this typical gray squirrel from the variants), “jet-black,” and “brown-black.” These color types are related to two specific two alleles (alternate forms) of a gene. The researchers found that the wild-type grays were homozygous for one of those alleles (that is, in this case, a wild-type gray will have inherited identical versions of this gray allele from each parent and will breed true, producing only gray offspring); the jet-blacks were homozygous for the other allele; and the brown-blacks were heterozygous for these two alleles. Given the color distributions among these three variants, McRobie et al. concluded that the jet-black allele was “incompletely dominant” to the wild-type gray allele. (It's a sad commentary on my observation skills that I have lumped the jet-black and brown-blacks together and considered all of them to be black squirrels.)</p><p>McRobie (with a different set of co-authors) has concluded that it is most likely that the allele at the core of melanism in gray squirrels did not evolve on its own, but came into this species through interbreeding with fox squirrels (<i>S. niger</i>). (McRobie, et al., 2019.)</p><p>Considering the overall distribution of black morphs in the broader gray squirrel population described earlier (few overall, high percentage in northern latitudes), and the dramatic difference between the population living around my North Fork cottage and those spread across my home territory of Washington, D.C., the question arises: What accounts for these frequency and distribution patterns?</p><p>Research posits that coloring among animals can serve various functions, among them camouflage, signaling, and temperature control. (McRobie, et al., 2019.) Various hypotheses about what in the environment might influence the representation of melanism in <i>S. carolinensis</i> populations have been put forward. The factors suggested and their effects are several and varied. For instance, some researchers have posited that, in urban environments, black squirrels may be present in high numbers because they are less likely than their gray compatriots to be hit by cars given how conspicuous they are. (For example, Gibbs, et al., 2019). Some explain the apparent concentration of melanic squirrels in northern latitudes by arguing it’s a matter of thermoregulation: dark coloring enables the squirrels to better absorb heat from the sun and, so, survive colder climates. (For example, McRobie, et al., 2019. See, also, Thorington and Ferrell, 2006. Though these latter researchers like the thermoregulation hypothesis, they described the presently available data as mixed in its implications.) These are quite interesting hypotheses but I don’t see that they explain the differences between my North Fork cottage squirrels and those in the broader Washington, D.C. area.</p><p>What if the relative frequency and distribution of melanism in the <i>S. carolinensis</i> population is not a product primarily of any of the various factors suggested to date? A recent study suggests exactly that. Biologist Richard M. Lehtinen turned observations he made over several years of eastern gray squirrels on his daily walks in the residential areas around the campus of the College of Wooster (Ohio) into part of the foundation of an analysis of the frequency and distribution of the squirrel’s color morphs in the Great Lakes region. (Lehtinen, et al., 2020.) He and his colleagues coupled his observations with data mined from observations posted on <i>iNaturalist</i> for the Great Lakes region, the Ohio Natural History Database (data provided by squirrel hunters), and separate surveys conducted in 59 localities mostly in the northern portions of Ohio.</p><p>Melanism was observed across the Great Lakes region, but (and it’s a very important “but”) the distributional and frequency patterns are mosaic in nature. That is, melanism is highly localized and can vary dramatically from location to nearby location, even though the locations surveyed “appeared highly similar from one town to the next and likely had a similar suite of potential predators and risks associated with human-dominated environments." (Lehtinen, et al., 2020, p. 1534.) This means that many of the various factors previously suggested as affecting the distribution and frequency of black squirrels do not explain the mosaic patterns found in this study. Further, the long-term study of squirrels in Wooster show “inconsistent patterns or idiosyncratic fluctuations over time and space” in morph distribution and frequency. (Lehtinen et al., 2020, p. 1535.)</p><p>How then to account for the mosaic distribution patterns they found? Lehtinen, et al. suggested that “genetic drift may be an important evolutionary mechanism operating in this system.” (Lehtinen et al., 2020, p. 1535.) Genetic drift involves changes in the alleles of the gene that are due to random genetic variation, i.e., chance. Lehtinen is quoted in an article about his research on the Wooster College website as follows:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>These patterns are suggestive of genetic drift as an important mechanism of evolutionary change. . . . Our initial expectation was that squirrel fur color would matter a lot and that we would see consistent patterns from year to year and place to place. But because the frequency of black versus gray varies so much from place to place, we ended up concluding that genetic drift – a random mechanism of change – had to be involved. (College of Wooster, 2020.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>An interesting additional finding was that the frequency of melanism in the squirrel populations studied was highest in mid-latitudes of the Great Lakes region, not in low- or high-latitudes. So the precise nature of the association between colder climates and melanism remains in question.</p><p>As useful as this study is, it has left me with a large clutch of questions, none more pressing than this: Does the research by Lehtinen, et al. support the idea that melanism can arise quite randomly? I think it does, suggesting that a local squirrel population of only gray morphs might, over time, come to have black morphs through genetic drift. But I’m not certain.</p><p>The issue of when the black version of <i>S. carolinensis</i> first appears in a population has been muddied by human trading in such squirrels. I have noted that I think McRobie’s description (quoted in its entirety earlier) of the first appearance of black morphs in Britain is misleading. She and her colleagues seemed to depict a natural (and random?) advent of melanism in the British gray squirrel population. That may not be true, given an alternative explanation that points to the escape of North American black squirrels brought over to Britain. (See, for example, Barkham, 2019.) Further, is the thinking that all of the black squirrels in Britain have come solely from those North American invaders? No evolutionary forces at work generating melanism? I really don’t know, though I’m inclined to doubt it.</p><p>Earlier I described data from the <i>iNaturalist </i>black squirrel project which showed a concentration of such squirrels in and around New York City. I would add that the pattern is decidedly mosaic with some areas in the city sporting many sightings and others not. Here, too, there's possibly some human meddling. Michelle Young, in a nice piece on New York City's black squirrels for her website <i>Untapped New York</i>, cited a 1935 <i>New York Times </i>article about a black squirrel being spotted in the New York Botanical Gardens. In the piece, Raymond L. Ditmas of the New York Zoological Society attributed that black morph to some that had been released several years earlier by the Botanical Garden. (Young, 2021.)</p><p>Perhaps the most well known example of human-moderated movement of black morphs is that of the squirrels in the Washington, D.C. area. It is widely asserted that black morphs in this area stem specifically from two gifts from Canada of a small number of these squirrels in the early 1900s to the recently established National Zoo. Released on zoo grounds (of course, they were), these black squirrels soon made their way throughout the Washington, D.C. area. (Thorington and Ferrell, 2006.) As a consequence, it seems to be commonly asserted that <i>every</i> black squirrel encountered in this region traces its roots to the National Zoo population. Indeed, I came across a paper written by a college undergraduate which makes an even broader application of this explanation, suggesting that <i>all of the mid-West’s black squirrels</i> come originally from that population. (Koleczek, 2014.) Attributing all black squirrels in the D.C. area to those few individuals shipped from Canada in the early 1900s seems a stretch. Applying it to all mid-West black morphs seems an impossible stretch.</p><p>So, at this stage of this exercise, I’ve concluded that my cottage’s population of black morphs is rare for the North Fork, which explains the tree trimming crew’s astonishment. How the black squirrels came to be there remains an outstanding question. And is there some way to implicate the National Zoo black squirrels?</p><p><b>Sources</b></p><p>Patrick Barkham, Black Squirrel ‘Super’ Species? No, Just a Darker Shade of Grey, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/13/black-squirrel-super-species-no-just-a-darker-shade-of-grey">The Guardian</a></i>, August 13, 2019.</p><p><a href="https://wooster.edu/2020/02/20/rick-lehtinen-examines-the-frequency-of-one-of-woosters-trademarks-the-black-squirrel-in-recent-study/">The College of Wooster</a>, Rick Lehtinen Examines the Frequency of One of Wooster’s Trademarks – the Black Squirrel – in Recent Study, February, 2020.</p><p>James P. Gibbs, et al., The Biological System – Urban Wildlife, Adaptation, and Evolution: Urbanization as a Driver of Contemporary Evolution in Gray Squirrels (<i>Sciurus carolinensis</i>), in <i><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-11259-2_12">Understanding Urban Ecology</a></i>, 2019.</p><p>Eric J. Gustafson and Larry W. VanDruff, Behavior of Black and Gray Morphs of <i>Sciurus carolinensis</i> in an Urban Environment, <i><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2425772">The American Midland Naturalist</a></i>, Volume 123, Number 1, January 1990.</p><p>Molly Koleczek, <a href="https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1055&context=honr_proj"><i>A Survey of the Ratio of Melanistic to Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) on 5 Midwestern College Campuses</i>,</a> Honors Scholarship Project, Olivet Nazarene College, April, 2014.</p><p>John Koprowski, Karen E. Munroe, and Andrew J. Edelman, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311886807_Gray_not_grey_the_ecology_of_Sciurus_carolinensis_in_their_native_range_in_North_America">Gray Not Grey: The Ecology of <i>Sciurus carolinensis</i> in Their Native Range in North America</a>, chapter in <i>The Grey Squirrel: Ecology & Management of an Invasive Species in Europe</i>, 2016.</p><p>Richard M Lehtinen, Brian M. Carlson, Alyssa R. Hamm, Alexis G. Riley, Maria M. Mullin, and Weston J. Gray, Dispatches From the Neighborhood Watch: Using Citizen Science and Field Survey Data to Document Color Morph Frequency in Space and Time, <i><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.6006">Ecology and Evolution</a></i>, Volume 10, 2020.</p><p>Helen R. McRobie, Alison Thomas, Jo Kelly, The Genetic Basis of Melanism in the Gray Squirrel (<i>Sciurus carolinensis</i>), <i><a href="https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article/100/6/709/834239?login=false">Journal of Heredity</a></i>, Volume 100, Number 6, 2009.</p><p>Helen R. McRobie, Nancy D. Moncrief, and Nicholas I Mundy, Multiple Origins of Melanism in Two Species of North American Tree Squirrel (<i>Sciurus</i>), <i><a href="https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-019-1471-7">BMC Evolutionary Biology</a></i>, volume 19, 2019.</p><p>Richard W. Thorington, Jr., and Katie Ferrell, <i>Squirrels: The Animal Answer Guide</i>, 2006.</p><p>Michelle Young, The Mysterious Black Squirrels of NYC, <i><a href="https://untappedcities.com/2021/10/14/black-squirrels-nyc/">Untapped New York</a>, </i>October 14, 2021.</p><div><br /></div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-2826747239277185592023-09-28T11:45:00.000-04:002023-09-28T11:45:54.260-04:00The Challenge of Dinosaurs in Virginia<p>Most of my fossil hunting has been in Maryland with an occasional foray into other states, including neighboring Virginia, Delaware, and West Virginia. So I thought I had some familiarity with the ground covered by geologist Robert E. Weems' new book: <i>The Age of Dinosaurs in Virginia and Nearby States</i> (2022). Actually, it turns out I didn't have a real clue as to the central challenge Weems faced in writing this book.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtk6h7aQAQe4eGJ-JeJCJEnVUeQ8aBCvVUyVnXcs24BLZPKdd6PMAcH8tAFeyDWBbvRVzXdtaOIqX9caAFMET7XzPm-ONqDceC5eC_sugPHkOqWbtv9vt7X2yCSgXqV7c3IG-npASqzR5IApvPPt0utepV57uLjfrI79G64D9J6yBw24DXydDuFSV2rXHa/s600/cover%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="388" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtk6h7aQAQe4eGJ-JeJCJEnVUeQ8aBCvVUyVnXcs24BLZPKdd6PMAcH8tAFeyDWBbvRVzXdtaOIqX9caAFMET7XzPm-ONqDceC5eC_sugPHkOqWbtv9vt7X2yCSgXqV7c3IG-npASqzR5IApvPPt0utepV57uLjfrI79G64D9J6yBw24DXydDuFSV2rXHa/w414-h640/cover%20for%20blog.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>Weems tackles a sweeping and complex topic in this well-written, accessible volume. (The <b>Background Note</b> below provides additional information about the author and describes a connection I have with him.) The book is organized chronologically, describing the flora and fauna of the region across most of the Mesozoic Era that encompassed the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods running from 252 to 66 million years ago (mya). The many tables, graphs, maps, and illustrations that grace the book are clear and informative. Sadly, though, the volume is missing an index which makes revisiting topics difficult.</p><p>Among the most important and welcome aspects of the book is Weems’ account of the deep impact that geological forces over time have had on the area’s geography and climate, factors shaping its flora and fauna. This includes the influence of the ever northward movement of Virginia (that is, the geographic region we now call “Virginia”) from near the equator in the early Mesozoic, to the “low latitude desert belt” in the late Triassic, and to the “subtropical belt” in the Cretaceous. (p. 14) I think it is important to always keep in mind these broad, powerful forces shaping the environment within evolution is at work.</p><p>The highlight for me of this focus on the geological influence on the composition of the flora and fauna is his discussion of the late Cretaceous. He delineates the effect of the separation of the Appalachia continent (of which the Virginia region was a part) from the Laramidia continent during the Cretaceous as shown in the map below of North America during late Campanian Stage of the Cretaceous (about 75 mya). (This map is taken from Scott D. Sampson, et al., New Horned Dinosaurs from Utah Provide Evidence for Intracontinental Dinosaur Endemism, <i><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012292">PLOS One</a></i>, September 22, 2010. It was modified from one prepared by Ron Blakey. It is available on <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_North_America_with_the_Western_Interior_Seaway_during_the_Campanian_(Upper_Cretaceous).png">Wikimedia Commons</a> and used here under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAQKF-dWRc1dlx6yK4O7hSk-4uzpmSEuSm9E9LuEP3GVvK-5bN9DSOXEZBWcFzjfGujvvjiz4laLAAU6G7kjJmlgaiS9gj74BXEso_nebOLMzU_SP2AoeKekd6M8OfHYFHUOXn51shDehppdVtiAtiFPjzZy06mD301QjhzvQ0HhXf_5i_7W7EQtb2XYxr/s2391/Map_of_North_America_with_the_Western_Interior_Seaway_during_the_Campanian_(Upper_Cretaceous).png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2391" data-original-width="1945" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAQKF-dWRc1dlx6yK4O7hSk-4uzpmSEuSm9E9LuEP3GVvK-5bN9DSOXEZBWcFzjfGujvvjiz4laLAAU6G7kjJmlgaiS9gj74BXEso_nebOLMzU_SP2AoeKekd6M8OfHYFHUOXn51shDehppdVtiAtiFPjzZy06mD301QjhzvQ0HhXf_5i_7W7EQtb2XYxr/w520-h640/Map_of_North_America_with_the_Western_Interior_Seaway_during_the_Campanian_(Upper_Cretaceous).png" width="520" /></a></div><p>According to Weems, this isolation of Appalachia in the late Cretaceous had important consequences for its terrestrial species, particularly its dinosaurs. He posits that during the Campanian, the dinosaurs of Appalachia “diverged markedly” from those of Laramidia whose extensive dinosaur fauna, I would note, included the iconic <i>Tyrannosaurus</i> and <i>Triceratops</i>. (p. 89) As Weems writes</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Because Appalachia was a small continent and isolated from the rest of the Campanian world, its dinosaurs were less diverse and on average smaller than the dinosaurs found elsewhere. In most other parts of the Campanian world, dinosaurs continued to diversify and on average grow ever larger. (p. 98)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Evolutionary changes marking the dinosaurs of Laramidia, such as the rise of the ceratopsians, could not be represented in Appalachia during much of the late Cretaceous when there was no terrestrial link.</p><p>The key challenge Weems set for himself in writing this book is significant: focusing this story on Virginia. An initial reflection of the impact of choosing this topic comes with the discussion early in the book of the phrase “Age of Dinosaurs.” Clearly, it falls within the Mesozoic because that’s when dinosaurs lived and the most logical ending point for Weems and the majority of the rest of us is with the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, 66 million years ago. (Admittedly, the present day existence of birds – avian dinosaurs – muddies the water of the ending just a bit.) An important question is: when did it begin? With the appearance of the first animal considered a dinosaur or when dinosaurs came to dominate the landscape? My own take on it squares with that of paleontologist Steve Brusatte who argues that the “Age of Dinosaurs” started in the Jurassic when dinosaurs were no longer bit players, but clearly in line to be faunal stars. (<i>The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World</i>, 2018, p. 99) Yes, there were dinosaurs before that, during the Triassic, but they didn’t seem destined to larger roles until the mass extinction at the end of Triassic opened up vast niches into which dinosaurs stepped. In contrast, Weems posits that the "Age" has its origins about 243 mya in the Triassic when the first dinosaurs came on stage, even though he acknowledges that those first representatives were “relatively small and unimposing animals” (p. 4) So, why look that far back? His answer is simple. It’s because “a large part of that early record is represented in the rock record of Virginia.” (p. 4)</p><p>This is an acceptable and understandable decision because those early years helped shape what came later. It is also true that, <i>without the Triassic fossil record</i>, the Virginia-based evidence of the kinds of flora and fauna that lived here during the "Age of Dinosaurs" is dramatically limited. Even with reaching back into the Triassic, Weems had no choice in telling this story but to look beyond Virginia to "nearby states." Why? Because the exposed geological formations of the Mesozoic in Virginia are much too limited. The map of Virginia (Figure 3, p. 10-11) he includes showing where Mesozoic strata are exposed makes the situation abundantly clear. There are 15 relatively small Mesozoic exposures in the state: nearly all (12) from the Upper Triassic (it's no wonder Weems starts the story there), a single one from the Lower Jurassic, none from the Middle and Upper Jurassic, 2 from the Lower Cretaceous, and none from the Upper Cretaceous. This map reflects the lengthy “unconformities” in the stratigraphic record of the state, that is, gaps where exposed geological strata are missing and, so, the fossil record in Virginia is absent there as well. A figure depicting graphically the stratigraphic record of the Mesozoic in Virginia (Figure 2, p. 6) makes this starkly evident: most of it is blank.</p><p>Weems is up front about this situation and his strategy for dealing with it: use information where available about the flora and fauna of neighboring states to fill in the picture, arguing that what was going on there likely was true for Virginia as well. That’s a perfectly reasonable approach, though one that he has to turn to repeatedly throughout the volume. That does raise the question of why he choose Virginia as the ostensible focus in the first place, and not, say, a broadly defined Mid-Atlantic region as a whole. In fact, his book is an excellent account of the "Age of Dinosaurs" as it played out in that broader region, albeit in the slightly uncomfortable guise of a story about Virginia.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Background Note</b></p><p>Robert Weems is a highly respected, much published geologist who had a long career with the U.S. Geological Survey. His publications cover a wide variety of geological and paleontological topics. Many can be downloaded in PDF format from the <a href="https://mdgeosociety.org/new_weems_page.html">website of the Maryland Geological Society (MGS)</a>. In the interest of full disclosure, I would note that Weems and I have both been members of the MGS, a club composed of amateur and professional geologists and paleontologists. The club helped Weems defray part of the cost of publishing <i>The Age of Dinosaurs</i>.</p><br />Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-7835699825644652112023-08-26T16:24:00.000-04:002023-08-26T16:24:08.024-04:00Jonathan Franzen, I Beg To Differ<p>Novelist (and birder) Jonathan Franzen has weighed in on what he believes is the mission for those of us who engage in nature writing and how best to fulfill (or, at least, serve) that mission. (<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-problem-of-nature-writing">The Problem of Nature Writin</a>g, August 12, 2023.) The mission, he claims, is “to interest nonbelievers in nature.” By nonbelievers, Franzen means “readers who are wholly wrapped up in their humanness, unawakened to the natural world.” Too much of nature writing, he concludes, simply exposes readers to an evangelical fervor about nature in the expectation that that alone will generate converts. Nature writing, he argues, must take a different approach to be effective.</p><p>He suggests that there are three effective avenues available to a nature writer seeking converts.</p><p>(1) Center the piece around a strong argument presented provocatively or counterintuitively, opening with a compelling flourish. Franzen posits, “Speaking for myself, I’m a lot more likely to read an essay that begins ‘I hate nature’ than one that begins ‘I love nature.’” Once the reader is drawn in, the author can present their “argument for nature,” and the striking opening will, Franzen, believes guarantee that the text will move forcefully to an ending not obvious in the opening.</p><p>I am not fond of this approach and liken it to “bait and switch.”</p><p>(2) Focus on the science that turns common perceptions on their head. As a primary example of this kind of nature writing, Franzen cites <i>Tropical Nature</i> by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata (“an essay collection that’s dear to me”).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigOtkRcQcGhdMhA7ABwlcbGKHgXVuuOtaD2rYKWyYLEBpYN__HhVpCpRDE-rHMqFW56VPKgmi7v-zn3rQvZovieLLuvdpB90O8N6HYIIn2HVQjfGD3uofxS4DU_a01O0QCTLANr-SJ23mgZoBbHsrMgOWoXfYxXY7rlaSpEMJ7MLDXzDN5WjrI9G1cksro/s640/Forsyth%20Tropical%20Nature%20Cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="421" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigOtkRcQcGhdMhA7ABwlcbGKHgXVuuOtaD2rYKWyYLEBpYN__HhVpCpRDE-rHMqFW56VPKgmi7v-zn3rQvZovieLLuvdpB90O8N6HYIIn2HVQjfGD3uofxS4DU_a01O0QCTLANr-SJ23mgZoBbHsrMgOWoXfYxXY7rlaSpEMJ7MLDXzDN5WjrI9G1cksro/w264-h400/Forsyth%20Tropical%20Nature%20Cover.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><p>He writes that the book “begins by serving up a set of facts about tropical rain forests. The facts are seemingly neutral, but they add up to a proposition: the rain forest is more varied, less fertile, less consistently rainy, more insidiously hostile, than the drenched and teeming ‘jungle’ of popular imagination.” “Wedded to an argument, the scientific facts speak far more compellingly to the glory of tropical nature than lyrical impressionism . . . .”</p><p>I endorse this approach most fully. I am reading <i>Tropical Nature</i> (1987) and consider it a superlative example of what I believe natural history writing should be.</p><p>(3) Tell a story about a person and offer the reader “the intensity of a personal relationship.” “For the nature writer who isn’t a polemicist or a scientist, a third avenue to intensity is to tell a story in which the focus on on nature but the dramatic stakes are emphatically human.” Franzen offers Kenn Kaufman’s <i>Kingbird Highway: The Story of a Natural Obsession That Got a Little Out of Hand</i> (1997) as a prime example of this approach. The book describes Kaufman’s effort over the course of 1973 to break the record for the most birds seen (or whose calls were heard) by an individual in a year in North America. I mentioned the book in a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html">post</a>, describing it as “an engrossing and wild book.” For Franzen, the beauty of the book is that it is a “classic road adventure” of a person in hot pursuit of a goal, the personal drama is a scaffolding for natural history (in this case, birds). By erecting that personal framework, the writer has a story that will take the reader from a point of origin to a climax. He argues that only a story focused on a human being (rather than some “wild animal”) can offer the narrative flow and pull that will engage the “unawakened” reader.</p><p>Though he identifies fine examples of nature writing that follow the first two paths described above in the quest for conversion, it’s that last that Franzen seems to hold near and dear to his heart, the one that will produce the quintessentially excellent piece of text and awaken us to nature. He concludes his essay:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>We can’t make a reader care about nature. All we can do is tell strong stories of people who do care, and hope that the caring contagious.</p><p></p></blockquote><p>I have inveighed in this blog several times against the approach that Franzen most fully endorses. In my opinion, the story telling path as he would have it is likely to result in the author cast as the hero of the piece and the relegation of the natural world to mere (forgettable?) backdrop. The right balance between the personal world and natural world often eludes such a writer. For instance, do readers of Kaufman’s book come away with some new appreciation of nature or just the thrill of a good story? It might be the latter.</p><p>There is another risk. The central character might be someone to whom the reader can relate or is attracted to, but, if not, then all bets are off in the conversion sweepstakes. (I wonder if Franzen is actually endorsing a different genre: biography. That is worth pondering, although a biography of someone immersed in the natural world may still suffer from an unattractive lead actor and subordinate nature in the story telling. Franzen may well believe any exposure to nature is better than none.)</p><p>Let me elaborate a bit on the risks I see in the personal story approach. In preparing to write on ospreys (the previous <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2023/07/ospreys-on-my-mind.html">post</a>), I read David Gessner’s <i>Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder</i> (2001). It’s an account of a spring and summer on Cape Cod that Gessner spent observing, researching, and trying to become one with ospreys. I make no reference to the book in that prior post because, although Gessner is a keen observer of this majestic raptor and writes well, his account is marred by his story telling. Among his transgressions are these: he indulges in far too many internal monologues wrestling with personal issues of little interest to this reader, he believes (erroneously) the reader will appreciate his efforts to mimic the osprey’s dive into the water to snare a fish, he recounts swimming naked (why?) on various occasions (once was more than enough) in marshy streams, and he drags the readers through his many and embarrassing impositions on the ornithologist and osprey expert Alan Poole (see prior post). In the end, Gessner as he depicts himself in this book is not an appealing character.</p><p>I don’t deny that having a good personal story to tell can be quite helpful - I do like a good story - but it’s not required. And some appearance of the author in the flow of the text isn’t anathema to me. It’s the subordination of the natural world to an account of the author’s adventures in exploring the subject that I object to. In fact, I consider some works in which the author clearly figures as among the best contemporary nature writing out there. I have in mind such books with an evident authorial presence as <i><a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2016/01/hanging-on-defying-winter-season.html">The Trees in My Forest</a></i> (1997) by Bernd Heinrich, the exquisite <i><a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2010/06/of-mice-and-megafauna.html">Ecology of a Summer House</a></i> (1984) by Vincent Dethier, and <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2009/10/glamour-of-moment-of-discovery.html"><i>Basin and Rang</i>e</a> (1981) by John McPhee. The authors aren’t hidden in these works, rather they are sharing (but not dominating) the stage with nature. Significantly, it certainly helps that I find each of these writers an amiable companion in the exploration of whatever topic, there’s no grasping for the spotlight.</p><p>One final, very personal observation. I am quite dismayed at how dismissive Franzen is of J.A. Baker’s <i>The Peregrine</i> (1967), describing it (with a sneer?) as an example of “ornithological lyricism,” seemingly lumping it in with nature writing that depends solely on the writer’s evangelical fervor and is without a narrative hook. Franzen characterizes parts as unreadable and derides Baker’s effort to enter the mindset of this raptor.</p><p>I, on the other hand, love the book, partly for the human element in it.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNI1rR8yyIDSBU-usOlJ1jOpo4rguew9ahNnGM1luvB9LC4k2_Ap_NPUxxMe8Nf9uLDcf5We94yNFSk9hYYrBTYNDpnSxNgzaAc_zOH8PkiMwpKjyPcczFLnGBuqe0XiJFvGJ5nr1GAFujf_UEk3sWk-kaOc_XCrFYluIJVVgHoSnQNzRD4cVpm8bvohRL/s640/Baker%20Peregrine%20Cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="425" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNI1rR8yyIDSBU-usOlJ1jOpo4rguew9ahNnGM1luvB9LC4k2_Ap_NPUxxMe8Nf9uLDcf5We94yNFSk9hYYrBTYNDpnSxNgzaAc_zOH8PkiMwpKjyPcczFLnGBuqe0XiJFvGJ5nr1GAFujf_UEk3sWk-kaOc_XCrFYluIJVVgHoSnQNzRD4cVpm8bvohRL/w266-h400/Baker%20Peregrine%20Cover.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><p>Baker’s mastery of words is coupled with his very engaging presence in the effort to understand the peregrine. I wrote about the book in a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2018/07/in-pursuit-of-search-images.html">post</a> in 2018, describing how Baker distilled a decade of observation into what purports to be the diary of single year of stalking the peregrine which, at the time, was in serious decline. The poetry of Baker’s writing and his insights into the bird are a powerful combination, with personal narrative and nature sharing the stage. (I am puzzled that Franzen didn’t appreciate the personal narrative that the diary format presents.) And, yes, I do enjoy Baker as a person (at least as revealed in the text).</p><p>Ultimately, though I do disagree with aspects of Jonathan Franzen’s critique of nature writing, it's really a matter of degree and emphasis. The field with its diverse audience is much too broad and eclectic to be shaped by his preferences (or mine).</p><div><br /></div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-59541347903220168062023-07-30T12:01:00.005-04:002023-07-30T16:06:25.320-04:00Ospreys On My Mind<p>This has been a summer of ospreys. I am surrounded by these glorious raptors. Less than a tenth of a mile from my Long Island summer cottage, a massive osprey nest sits atop a utility pole (a structure replete with electrical lines).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfaBCCtbIAN34-duVQKhedxzJArXh9KMOs2L2sJjQwCAvHgLPZ9qSqzhY9VABBE5BPTsDrsYz-YLUuZK-ZHj5UStvq1Q8gXPqNR6JHdVsILp7UlYntgVKKesbbDRCOrexyrZpDsBm0GM1ziqUCkCxznYO9NyZtZmRrItAKW_F6jQ-EST3laar6epNcMR26/s600/Blog%20Osprey%20on%20nest.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="600" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfaBCCtbIAN34-duVQKhedxzJArXh9KMOs2L2sJjQwCAvHgLPZ9qSqzhY9VABBE5BPTsDrsYz-YLUuZK-ZHj5UStvq1Q8gXPqNR6JHdVsILp7UlYntgVKKesbbDRCOrexyrZpDsBm0GM1ziqUCkCxznYO9NyZtZmRrItAKW_F6jQ-EST3laar6epNcMR26/w640-h475/Blog%20Osprey%20on%20nest.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>It holds a brood of two, perhaps three young ospreys. Their mother spends much of her time with them in the nest, guarding, watching, calling for food, and, at times, distributing pieces of the fish caught by their father. He, in turn, when not out in search of fish, roosts nearby.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLR9A0pv9dnKPAUCuSisvrcb1aPh8uKXvm5P1b26f3H9-NxReZ3u6xgajgh4P-QYResir8A5oxnJKK-Mx4PKAYe1W6xz51vODqW9HPKUm4Ski4Ozsin7GKCJ_acnNuAFAyCyIMwa8q4_p7Bu8VXIKbWIq_2oOAboTBypWBrwcWckd-zt5cEsfkaFrqZwoj/s600/Blog%20Osprey%20male%20near%20nest.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="600" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLR9A0pv9dnKPAUCuSisvrcb1aPh8uKXvm5P1b26f3H9-NxReZ3u6xgajgh4P-QYResir8A5oxnJKK-Mx4PKAYe1W6xz51vODqW9HPKUm4Ski4Ozsin7GKCJ_acnNuAFAyCyIMwa8q4_p7Bu8VXIKbWIq_2oOAboTBypWBrwcWckd-zt5cEsfkaFrqZwoj/w640-h472/Blog%20Osprey%20male%20near%20nest.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Joining the usual sounds of summer at the cottage are crystalline, high pitched, ringing <i>chirrups</i> (well, that’s what they sound like to my ear – descriptions in the literature vary quite widely), often starting slowly and well spaced, then rising in frequency and intensity. These are primarily the begging calls of the female osprey, pleading with her mate to bring the food needed by their voracious offspring. Ornithologist Alan F. Poole, in his recent, essential book, <i>Ospreys: The Revival of a Global Raptor</i>, posits that there are three kinds of osprey calls with many variations: alarm calls responding to a threatening interloper, guard calls signaling to other ospreys that a strange osprey is approaching, and begging calls voiced by mothers and young. (Poole, p. 24-25; full citations are provided in the <b>Sources</b> section at the end of this post.) The begging calls I’ve been hearing are apparently necessary to prompt the adult male to fulfill his biological role of providing for his family. As with all such relationships, some males are more responsive than others.</div><p>Though I know it’s really not, my cottage feels for all the world as if it is at the epicenter of the osprey revival: within roughly three to four miles of it are three other nests occupied by ospreys. What an amazing turnaround from a half century ago, when the outlook for these and other beautiful avian raptors was bleak, their numbers devastated by the damage done by DDT and its breakdown products.</p><p>A nascent environmental movement in the mid 20th century, sparked by publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s <i>Silent Spring</i>, targeted the uncontrolled, widespread use of this and other insecticides. The story of how the damage from DDT was stopped and reversed centers, in part, on Charles F. Wurster, an organic chemist, who was instrumental in the successful campaign against DDT which involved the filing of a series of lawsuits and much public testimony that galvanized public opinion against the insecticide. A great deal of credit for the osprey revival that surrounds me must be given to Wurster who, it is sad to note, passed away in early July this year at age 92. (Diamond, 2023) He was among those marshalling and presenting evidence in the 1960s and 1970s that the insecticide was spreading uncontrollably worldwide, well beyond the areas in which it was directly applied. They documented how its breakdown components seriously harmed wildlife, including avian raptors such as osprey who, at the top of the food chain, built up high levels of the insecticide in their bodies by consuming contaminated animals lower in the food chain, a process known as “biological concentration.” These high levels of the insecticide led the birds to lay eggs with thin, fragile shells which broke under the pressure of the brooding mate. (See, for example, Ackerman, 1996/2019, p. 46.) The threat to the survival of these iconic birds (including the bald eagle) was great. In 1967, Wurster was one of the founders of the Environmental Defense Fund which was instrumental in securing a nationwide ban on the use of the insecticide in 1972.</p><p>Poole notes that, although in North America the application of DDT decimated osprey populations (some specific populations declining by as much as 90 percent), once the ban took hold, osprey populations began a striking rebound. Indeed, in some areas, the successful recovery has led to slowing population growth as available nesting sites are occupied, leading to movement of some birds into new, neighboring areas. He reports that in Southern New England and Long Island (where my cottage is), there are at present approximately 1,500 breeding pairs of ospreys, primarily near saltwater. (Poole, p. 43-44)</p><p>Ospreys’ scientific name is <i>Pandion haliaetus</i>. The birds breeding in North America are <i>P. haliaetus carolinensis</i>, one of several subspecies. They have a wingspan of about 63” and an overall body length of 23”. Surprisingly, given how commanding they appear, they weigh only some 3.5 pounds. (Sibley, 2003) Ospreys’ diet consists nearly completely of fish. As a result, they are often referred to as fish hawks, though they are not truly hawks. <i>P. haliaetus</i> is the only member of the family Pandionidae which, in turn, is a member of the Accipitriformes order, a taxon that does include hawks, eagles, vultures, kites. Ospreys share a number of attributes with hawks and eagles, such as acute eyesight, robust talons, hooked beaks, and reversed sexual dimorphism (females are larger than males). But their piscatory diet has led to the evolution of a constellation of characteristics distinguishing them from all other birds of prey. They are singularly constructed to hunt and capture fish. Their fish-hunting armory includes long, nearly featherless legs well structured to reach into the water for their prey, particularly sharp, deeply curved talons (one of which on each foot can rotate so the bird can hold a struggling fish with two talons on each side), and longer and narrower wings bent at the wrist facilitating hovering and rising from the water after a dive. (Poole, p. 11-12) Pictured below is an osprey watching over a marsh near my cottage (this bird is not likely one associated with my nest).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJIXkQUACyu-gdhKPEjtzMuegF7oadapUAT_WzKp3B-DEkZTjRI7QJsoeXxJW0zDanxXwLoe-naqjZqjzRkFzDPdF7BhtYfyzoMzl46Cih99rkfjlTLHVkRXqyr6-9wlTQx2wVp456Mj3ebrBaT3RDyt7BsMsP1g9JBJgO008UkxFn0NqrPymvQLIWTdl6/s600/Blog%20Osprey%20marsh%20opposite%20marina.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJIXkQUACyu-gdhKPEjtzMuegF7oadapUAT_WzKp3B-DEkZTjRI7QJsoeXxJW0zDanxXwLoe-naqjZqjzRkFzDPdF7BhtYfyzoMzl46Cih99rkfjlTLHVkRXqyr6-9wlTQx2wVp456Mj3ebrBaT3RDyt7BsMsP1g9JBJgO008UkxFn0NqrPymvQLIWTdl6/w534-h640/Blog%20Osprey%20marsh%20opposite%20marina.jpg" width="534" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The “M” silhouette of the wings of an osprey in flight and its high speed dive into the water in pursuit of a fish are among the most prominent and visible hallmarks of the bird, along, of course, with their piercing calls and massive nests. Seen below are two ospreys in flight, quite possibly the pair nesting near me. Their distinctive wing profile is clear. Given the tattered wings, the bird in the lower right is a female because only they molt during the nesting season. Males require a full complement of feathers for their constant hunting.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO0KMQp7kHvlejyfnRZxspcwRErz5PBTa9isjFlg9xzfx4rMvAUAax0oL8FfrdCvoMmErQZZq5t2Af0fpRFYm1x3FA0VKjOzPTcm2-rqwFf2G0Ai0bz7xxflDL5XRuSZHRkOsHVgIEGDlF-SQXee9jigcul2-9ZDTMMnb6zrFMNHxlH5H6b1S1QmN4V-cq/s600/Blog%20Osprey%20in%20flight.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="600" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO0KMQp7kHvlejyfnRZxspcwRErz5PBTa9isjFlg9xzfx4rMvAUAax0oL8FfrdCvoMmErQZZq5t2Af0fpRFYm1x3FA0VKjOzPTcm2-rqwFf2G0Ai0bz7xxflDL5XRuSZHRkOsHVgIEGDlF-SQXee9jigcul2-9ZDTMMnb6zrFMNHxlH5H6b1S1QmN4V-cq/w640-h472/Blog%20Osprey%20in%20flight.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Nearly all of the osprey populations breeding in the northern hemisphere migrate in the fall to over-wintering areas in the southern hemisphere. Adults reverse the journey in the spring, many returning to the same mates and same nesting area of the prior spring and summer. Indeed, they may return to the same nests where they raised broods previously. Their migrations are staggering feats of physical endurance and navigation, covering thousands of miles, many of those miles over open ocean waters or deserts. Ospreys migrating from the Northern Hemisphere travel some 2,500 to 3,500 miles on average over the course of 4 to 5 weeks. Poole offers a detailed look at the migration patterns of these birds. (Poole, p. 106 <i>et seq</i>.)</div><p>When the young in the nest near me fledge they will undertake the same migration as their parents in the fall, but will remain in over-wintering areas for an additional year. When they migrate back to the north, they will often return to the areas in which they fledged 18 months earlier. Their early lives are full of perils, particularly those associated with these migrations. Fewer than half of the birds that fledge will survive to breed. (Carpenteri, p. 75) </p><p>Ospreys are singularly adaptable, cosmopolitan birds, found worldwide (on all continents, save Antarctica). They are clearly very tolerant of humans and human activity. The various descriptions of where ospreys build their nest testifies to that. In her lyrical description of nature along the Delaware side of the Delaware Bay (<i>Birds by the Shore</i>), science writer Jennifer Ackerman devotes a chapter to ospreys and recounts:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I have the good fortune to live within a three-mile radius of five active osprey nests. One sits atop a platform on the double cross-arms of an old utility pole in the marsh at the center of town, hard by a railroad and King’s Highway. The highway carries the crush of traffic disgorged from the Cape May-Lewes ferry, a steady stream of tourists hell-bent for a seaward peep. (Ackerman, p. 39)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>The nest down the road from me on Long Island also abuts clamorous human activity. Pictured below is the nest in its full context, situated right next to a railroad bridge over a road, and near a street level railroad crossing (not shown). All of this means the nest’s occupants endure the dinging railroad crossing bell, the screeching train wheels, and piercing whistle blows as a Long Island Rail Road commuter train makes eight daily trips east and west.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdFONjBaMTCORlh7tgdh_BsHoDjsaGaiATp2kc7QoRUzWuiHRvI3PlJ-hEXWPa5qt7APeiF_w0PQFF4Hsr01FYL5X7t6-pgkcWuqXh0SC035WOc2Jnb4VVRdUF7XoGzijb_TOz6UaNYgeGkjejcakmpeRSML5DJkbWtDlhxibrQsomj9TKLilGattQwcEK/s600/Blog%20Osprey%20nest%20with%20train%20and%20stop%20light.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="600" height="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdFONjBaMTCORlh7tgdh_BsHoDjsaGaiATp2kc7QoRUzWuiHRvI3PlJ-hEXWPa5qt7APeiF_w0PQFF4Hsr01FYL5X7t6-pgkcWuqXh0SC035WOc2Jnb4VVRdUF7XoGzijb_TOz6UaNYgeGkjejcakmpeRSML5DJkbWtDlhxibrQsomj9TKLilGattQwcEK/w640-h502/Blog%20Osprey%20nest%20with%20train%20and%20stop%20light.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The conditioning of these young birds to this environment certainly expands the range of nesting places they will accept when they are adults. With the ongoing destruction of the environment near the water along much of the east coast of North America, and with it the reduction in available natural osprey nesting sites, the adaptability of ospreys has stood them in good stead. They take readily to artificial nesting sites, to wit, the crossbar at the top of a utility pole. A broadscale effort to construct safe, artificial nesting sites is underway in many areas, and Poole reports that perhaps as many as 60% of osprey now nest on artificial sites. (Poole, p. 43)</div><p>With their dramatic hunting dives, their calls, their open and exposed nests, ospreys cannot be ignored. They predate the appearance of our species. The extant osprey species has been around for perhaps fewer than two million years, while two paleontologically accepted, now extinct species of <i>Pandion</i> were present much earlier: <i>P. homalopteron</i> from the mid-Miocene (some 16 to 13 millions ago) and <i>P. lovensis</i> from the late-Miocene (about 9 million years ago). (Warter; Becker; Florida Museum of Natural History)</p><p>I think it significant that two accomplished nature writers have been moved to suggest that there is an ancestral memory connecting us to ospreys. Jennifer Ackerman muses that, from the first appearance of humans on water’s edge, ospreys were there, and so we may inherently associate the bird with the seashore.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Perhaps the osprey exists on a mental map of an earlier world passed down from our ancestors, and the birds in its landscape enters us like the parental. Perhaps it is also the other way around: Perhaps <i>it</i> contains <i>us</i> as part of its element, having seen us through the ages, through our infancy and whole tumult of civilized man. (Ackerman, 51-52)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>In a strikingly similar vein, Alan Poole has pondered the “parallel lives of humans and Ospreys over the course of our evolution.” (Poole, p. 15) At each stage of our movement across the world, as we explored seashores and pursued fish, ospreys were probably part of our lives. He concludes,</p><blockquote><p>And it’s a good bet that in these early human societies Ospreys were part of nighttime conversations around campfires, woven into myth and culture, much as Ospreys enter the lives and conversations of people who live around them today. (p. 15)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Yes, when we encounter these raptors, there may well be a natural psychological affinity. Walt Whitman experienced this, I think, when, one day in June, 1878, he sat on a river bank, watching a bird roosting on dead tree on the opposite shore. It was, he wrote,</p><p></p><blockquote><p>a haughty, white-bodied dark-wing’d hawk – I suppose a hawk from his bill and general look – only he had a clear, loud, quite musical, sort of bell-like call, which he repeated again and again at intervals.</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Clearly, this was an osprey, perhaps marking Whitman’s presence with his calls. The bird then flew repeatedly over the water and left Whitman with an indelible memory: </p><p></p><blockquote><p>Once he came quite close over my head; I saw plainly his hook’d bill and hard restless eyes. (Whitman, p. 111-112)</p><p></p></blockquote><p><b>Sources</b></p><p>Jennifer Ackerman, <i>Birds by the Shore: Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast </i>(previously published as Notes from the Shore), 1995 and 2019.</p><p>Jonathan J. Becker, <i>Pandion Lovensis</i>, A New Species of Osprey from the Late Miocene of Florida, <i><a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34648593#page/338/mode/1up">Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington</a></i>, Volume 98, 1985.</p><p>Stephen D. Carpenteri, <i>The Fish Hawk Osprey</i>, 1997.</p><p>Dan Diamond, Charles Wurster, Scientist Who Battled to Ban Pesticide DDT, Dies at 92, <i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/07/25/charles-wurster-environmental-defense-fund-dead/">The Washington Post</a></i>, July 25, 2023.</p><p>Florida Museum of Natural History, <i><a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-vertebrate-fossils/species/pandion-lovensis/">Pandion lovensis</a></i>, Zachary Seth Randall, original author.</p><p>Alan F. Poole, <i>Ospreys: The Revival of a Global Predator</i>, 2019.</p><p>David Allen Sibley, <i>The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America</i>, 2003</p><p>Stuart L. Warter, A New Osprey from the Miocene of California (Falconiformes: Pandionidae), Collected Papers in Avian Paleontology Honoring the 90th Birthday of Alexander Wetmore, <i><a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/58212100#page/161/mode/1up">Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology</a></i>, Number 27, 1976.</p><p>Walt Whitman, <i>Specimen Days</i>, Dover Edition published in 1995 reproducing the 1883 publication.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-60617801820400737872023-06-25T14:03:00.002-04:002023-06-25T15:02:42.129-04:00Regarding A Fossil Collection: Post #3 Turtle Sulci Enlightenment<p><i>Prologue</i></p><p><i>If the previous post in this blog were any guide, this one should be the second of a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2023/05/regarding-fossil-collection-post-2.html">two-parter</a> on cetacean ear bones, and, overall, the third on specimens in a recently acquired collection of Miocene fossils from Plum Point, Maryland. But I am skipping that second installment on ear bones for the moment because of fundamental gaps in my understanding of the periotic bone, the intended topic of the post. Much as I’ve tried, I cannot resolve this issue. Such are the challenges inherent in being self-taught in most aspects of natural history.</i></p><p>Given that I abandoned the original topic intended for this post, I went in search of another that might be drawn from the Plum Point collection. It helped that I’d already been struck by the abundance of fossils in the collection that appeared to be from turtles. Later, while I was on a walk through a local park, the gods of coincidence arranged for this chalk drawing to be on my route:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Db5DqSUFAaIa1N1RItfawPaUPABEVBquMVbLmP2aTCuZvWqB1ScsaxpzPH4yMa1zrxDLYIKfZCeMXm0-sqP1lE2J7U9NTV8PoKA94W2LcrkFElsTMTy3yu0yguptipjGkumaMNDlrwgIO51v-kIsGz8sYL11a9DjMF1pMx8eFXiYUbh3t3v_3WdCEa0L/s600/Turtle%20Sidewalk%20Art%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Db5DqSUFAaIa1N1RItfawPaUPABEVBquMVbLmP2aTCuZvWqB1ScsaxpzPH4yMa1zrxDLYIKfZCeMXm0-sqP1lE2J7U9NTV8PoKA94W2LcrkFElsTMTy3yu0yguptipjGkumaMNDlrwgIO51v-kIsGz8sYL11a9DjMF1pMx8eFXiYUbh3t3v_3WdCEa0L/w400-h300/Turtle%20Sidewalk%20Art%20for%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>So, Plum Point turtles fossils became the launching off point for this post. At the outset, I assembled a small selection of fossil specimens from the collection that I can with some confidence attribute to turtle shells.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwjIMcDEGbwUrHOM-syQyuxl0th6kiD-TiKn0lhblufU13TCAb8HMsWX7zjUs4YKF3oEvaxLMh6YGKZcXRn7lQXCS7jD-9u7KOnIWKQddLUXsgpJjrsnE-YUii4rtDnNIxpEvXCBn9SFeEUqJqMsoAq2jloD2t2je1WpXTRtHoUpO_eMm3-YuUMoAcvOr/s600/Plum%20Point%20turtle%20fossil%20array%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="559" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwjIMcDEGbwUrHOM-syQyuxl0th6kiD-TiKn0lhblufU13TCAb8HMsWX7zjUs4YKF3oEvaxLMh6YGKZcXRn7lQXCS7jD-9u7KOnIWKQddLUXsgpJjrsnE-YUii4rtDnNIxpEvXCBn9SFeEUqJqMsoAq2jloD2t2je1WpXTRtHoUpO_eMm3-YuUMoAcvOr/w373-h400/Plum%20Point%20turtle%20fossil%20array%20for%20blog.jpg" width="373" /></a></div><p>Although intact turtle shells are readily identifiable, disarticulated shell bones, which is how turtle fossils are typically found by amateurs in the field, can pose identification challenges. Those pictured above are fairly easily classified as shell bones from their morphology: relatively thin, often slightly curved, generally smooth on at least one side, sometimes marked on a side with shallow curved grooves. Which specific bones these might be is another issue altogether and is touched on below.</p><p>It’s the shallow grooves often adorning turtle shell bones that ended up being the focus of this post. They are somewhat visible in the top center and bottom left specimens in the picture above, and most clearly apparent in the top left specimen. They are something I thought I understood but, as is often the case, there’s more to it than I realized. These grooves are known as <i>sulci</i> in the plural and <i>sulcus</i> in the singular. The name comes from the Latin word <i>sulcus</i> meaning “a furrow, groove, trench.” (Borror, p. 98; full citations of all references are given in the Sources section at the end of this post.) I mentioned sulci in a previous post (<a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-pastiche-of-turtles.html">A Pastiche of Turtles</a>, August 21, 2013) and briefly described their origin. </p><p>Before delving into that, I think a bit of basic shell “architecture” is in order. The turtle shell is a remarkable feature of these animals and “stands out as one of the most distinctive and morphologically novel structures in all of Vertebrata.” (Tyler R. Lyson, et al., 2013, p. 317.) Its evolution has long been the source of fascination, speculation, and debate. The shell consists of two main bony elements: the dorsal carapace and the ventral plastron. Both are covered in keratinous scutes which are analogous to scales in other reptiles. They give the turtle shell color and patterning, and they serve to retain water and body heat. Scutes are lacking in softshell and leatherback turtles which also have significantly diminished carapace bones. (Descriptions of the morphology of the turtle shell can be found in many different sources. For this post I drew in particular Ernst and Lovich, 2009; Sathe, no date; Dodd, 2001; and Romer, 1966.)</p><p>Sulci are the impressions on shell bones left by the scutes. Though I could recite that origin story, I did not understand its deeper meaning. That only registered for me after some interesting but seemingly unfocused floundering, a bit of which I, of course, describe below.</p><p>My initial foray into the research literature was just intended to get a feel for the Plum Point specimens pictured above with no particular attention to the sulci since I didn’t know where this journey would end up. This consisted primarily of a quick scan of many pictured fossils to see if any stood out. Quite early on, one specimen did. I was struck by pictures (shown below) of the dorsal and ventral sides of the nuchal bone from a newly named Pliocene turtle fossil from the Lee Creek Mine (Zug, taken from figure 5, page 211)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2Sl-hOIYDCLEE-nOwgzsZaRTAxEYdhSpYF4sdpzXqTCCuKUi03X9sY5-oUJY9_6n21oeEmRgnDAMwixCOVtPQOmimeVrOEOsPPm4lqDxxZWLq5wKy0Xkqc0GwChfOnENq5fWm33l1M_gEQSyO68Yibo2Q7-ZQ76FLn3ZVZ1dj0FAqfyICqc0Tev0WryH/s1246/Pliocene%20nuchal%20bone%20Zug%20from%20figure%205.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="1246" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2Sl-hOIYDCLEE-nOwgzsZaRTAxEYdhSpYF4sdpzXqTCCuKUi03X9sY5-oUJY9_6n21oeEmRgnDAMwixCOVtPQOmimeVrOEOsPPm4lqDxxZWLq5wKy0Xkqc0GwChfOnENq5fWm33l1M_gEQSyO68Yibo2Q7-ZQ76FLn3ZVZ1dj0FAqfyICqc0Tev0WryH/w400-h143/Pliocene%20nuchal%20bone%20Zug%20from%20figure%205.gif" width="400" /></a></div><p>The fossil shown in these images appears similar to the uppermost fossil in the photograph above of the Plum Point turtle fossils. I assume both fossils are not complete bones. Here’s a closer look at the Plum Point fossil which is somewhat smaller than the Pliocene specimen.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8i_Vzfo4mXqLyHrlxZPJ4cT_mHrvEPkmHfyx0ASFyBbllsfsWloLYGTcMnOV5PFaGVQQQjCw4MtTY1SURdSkEF6f7w-bQPFjpPLpDZV4iSlMaVU1CxXZBsAqM_yaqu24Lt2an2lFxBqgCkAwyqeqEjTrKonIqabwQodOHvepbe52xtPOFObo_0JupgYYf/s800/nuchal%20bone%20dorsal%20and%20ventral%20view%20Plum%20Point%20fossils%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="249" data-original-width="800" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8i_Vzfo4mXqLyHrlxZPJ4cT_mHrvEPkmHfyx0ASFyBbllsfsWloLYGTcMnOV5PFaGVQQQjCw4MtTY1SURdSkEF6f7w-bQPFjpPLpDZV4iSlMaVU1CxXZBsAqM_yaqu24Lt2an2lFxBqgCkAwyqeqEjTrKonIqabwQodOHvepbe52xtPOFObo_0JupgYYf/w400-h125/nuchal%20bone%20dorsal%20and%20ventral%20view%20Plum%20Point%20fossils%20for%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Nuchal bone? I hadn’t a clue what that was. Turns out this is a significant bone in all turtles’ carapaces. It is the major plate at the anterior end of the carapace and in most turtles is the meeting place for three lines of bones. Its name comes from the Middle Latin <i>nucha</i> meaning nape (back of the neck). (Borror, p. 64.) These other bones of the carapace are the<i> neural</i>s covering the top of the shell (the animal’s vertebrae are attached to them ventrally), the <i>costals</i> encircling the middle of the sides of the shell (these are “modified ribs”), and the <i>peripherals</i> forming the skirts that ring the bottom of the carapace. The nuchal bone “is recognizable for the distinctive pattern of lines from the overlying epidermal scutes, and for its bilateral symmetry.” (Sathe et al.) In the illustration below of the bones of a box turtle carapace, I shaded the nuchal <i>black</i> and the neural immediately behind the nuchal <i>gray</i>, inserted a <i>crosshatched pattern</i> in the two anterior-most costals, and highlighted the two anterior-most peripherals with a <i>diamond pattern</i>. This illustration is based on Figure 1-3a in herpetologist C. Kenneth Dodd’s <i>North American Box Turtles</i> (p. 8).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhve96ziuM30kyidH_gjS8HpUfkzNdqwuG2V5P6DFpATeGxqm0lHe5m0__cwykFefYTbxHT-LcUiGYUjCJLcFmTGdoxyQNLfvPNFAw0Pyz2-WXxJtj2E5UkyZ2vr4EZw8I7aQmMq8ISnLQ1d7_zGgG48hjehwJS2JWWnYpIjsFD-z0HSJidk9wAQdOmn7P/s506/Turtle%20Carapace%20Bones%20from%20Dodd%20with%20nuchal%20neurals%20costals%20and%20peripherals%20tagged.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="347" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhve96ziuM30kyidH_gjS8HpUfkzNdqwuG2V5P6DFpATeGxqm0lHe5m0__cwykFefYTbxHT-LcUiGYUjCJLcFmTGdoxyQNLfvPNFAw0Pyz2-WXxJtj2E5UkyZ2vr4EZw8I7aQmMq8ISnLQ1d7_zGgG48hjehwJS2JWWnYpIjsFD-z0HSJidk9wAQdOmn7P/w274-h400/Turtle%20Carapace%20Bones%20from%20Dodd%20with%20nuchal%20neurals%20costals%20and%20peripherals%20tagged.png" width="274" /></a></div><p>I deliberately used the illustration of a box turtle carapace because it became crucial to my understanding of the sulci. Among the various specimens in my natural history collection is the carapace of what I believe to be an eastern box turtle, <i>Terrapene carolina carolina</i>, found in West Virginia woods many years ago. It is approximately 13 cm in length from anterior to posterior. Although wood turtles have also been found in those particular woods, the high dome of this carapace suggests it's from an eastern box turtle.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGglusjsJC1pG9qEd8Rr8A4495JlNJzEc6rKlSgIDO3INKrU2wyTqmR3gxNbvBahmIyPXtVP5B4A22li0HxQrpPxMJM9bbBXR6WSsGAwWSOCB4zM22A7diDgvmrlvCNNiJVBX-MgXY6ksbmJG_BE58rkipGmBWLb879N4xEqz3TdvCZwi62d6f_HtsDJYp/s863/Box%20turtle%20shell%20dorsal%20and%20ventral%20views%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="863" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGglusjsJC1pG9qEd8Rr8A4495JlNJzEc6rKlSgIDO3INKrU2wyTqmR3gxNbvBahmIyPXtVP5B4A22li0HxQrpPxMJM9bbBXR6WSsGAwWSOCB4zM22A7diDgvmrlvCNNiJVBX-MgXY6ksbmJG_BE58rkipGmBWLb879N4xEqz3TdvCZwi62d6f_HtsDJYp/w400-h244/Box%20turtle%20shell%20dorsal%20and%20ventral%20views%20for%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>When I drew it out of the drawer where I store it, I was quite flummoxed. There was no apparent nuchal bone and, even more disturbing, the pattern of the pieces on the dorsal side of the carapace bore no resemblance to the diagram of carapace bones shown above. It took me awhile to realize my error; someone with experience and training in herpetology or the fossils of turtles wouldn’t have made it. My carapace is indeed most likely that of an eastern box turtle, and it actually has a nuchal bone and the other carapace bones which are organized as the earlier illustration would have them. What I failed to realize was that, though this carapace had weathered for some time in the woods and had been stripped in the process of any other feature of the animal (such as skull bones or leg bones), <i>it had not lost its scutes</i>. The illustration below of the scutes that cover the carapace of the eastern box turtle makes this fact painfully obvious (illustration based on Dodd, Figure 1-2a, p. 8).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJC0o0cKXt0Mi8rIxIW136i300E3C-WvJ32ZGsT08hzmdrf-PGefaxYYy5wdOq89Xyedl6dcvgXE5PhYB_QfjiSjzdR4gFUa0PurecLrUxxhY-44Nj_rETQQagUIvssQ5ZnIQhfisZ6UWcOQZl_Zh7KievgKcf3S3EPDI5laObfe8PJegDBPDkWxZFxfGy/s507/Turtle%20Carapace%20Scutes%20from%20Dodd.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="365" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJC0o0cKXt0Mi8rIxIW136i300E3C-WvJ32ZGsT08hzmdrf-PGefaxYYy5wdOq89Xyedl6dcvgXE5PhYB_QfjiSjzdR4gFUa0PurecLrUxxhY-44Nj_rETQQagUIvssQ5ZnIQhfisZ6UWcOQZl_Zh7KievgKcf3S3EPDI5laObfe8PJegDBPDkWxZFxfGy/w288-h400/Turtle%20Carapace%20Scutes%20from%20Dodd.png" width="288" /></a></div><p>As I already knew, though scutes do form an interesting pattern on a turtle’s carapace, that pattern does not coincide with that of the underlying carapace bones, and this disconnect is the source of the sulci. That said, I’d never realized the sheer extent of this disconnect. And that led me to ask the question I should have posed much earlier: What is gained for the turtle shell by this dissimilarity in layouts between bones and scutes?</p><p>I am embarrassed to admit that the answer had been given in some of what I’d already read but which I’d glossed over, never absorbing it. The “aha” (and “I’m an idiot”) moment came when I reread paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer’s description of the turtle shell. In it, he wrote:</p><blockquote><p>The arrangement of the outlines of scutes and bones does not coincide; in general, there is an alternating arrangement, which gives greater strength to the combined structure. (Romer, 1966, p. 112)</p></blockquote><p>Later, I came across Dodd’s instructive analogy. He posited that “overlapping scutes provide additional strength and protection, much as shingles do on a roof.” (Dodd, p. 138) Though the sulci are not the source of this strengthening of the shell, they are the evidence that remains on shell bones of this beneficial arrangement.</p><p>So, that’s it. No big reveal at the end of this journey, only a mild “aha” moment and a better understanding of shell bones, scutes, and sulci.</p><p>I’ve already admitted that I started this post with no particular destination in mind. I was buoyed by the hope that something interesting might turn up if I pondered some of the Plum Point turtle fossils, and I think it did. This brings to mind a wonderful, new song by J.J. Shiplett which has the refrain:</p><blockquote><p>You never really know just where you’re going to go until you’re already there. (<i>Already There</i>, 2023.)</p></blockquote><p><b>Sources</b></p><p>Donald J. Borrow, <i>Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms</i>, 1960.</p><p>C. Kenneth Dodd, <i>North American Box Turtles: A Natural History</i>, 2001.</p><p>Carl H. Ernst and Jeffrey E. Lovich, <i>Turtles of the United States and Canada</i>, Second Edition, 2009.</p><p>Tyler R. Lyson, et al., Homology of the Enigmatic Nuchal Bones Reveals Novel Reorganization of the Shoulder Girdle in the Evolution of the Turtle Shell, <i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257202760_Homology_of_the_enigmatic_nuchal_bone_reveals_novel_reorganization_of_the_shoulder_girdle_in_the_evolution_of_the_turtle_shell">Evolution & Development</a></i>, Volume 15, Number 5, 2013.</p><p>Erik Sathe, et al., <i><a href="https://berkeley.pressbooks.pub/morphology/chapter/vertebral-column-and-turtle-shells/">Morphology of the Vertebrate Skeleton: A Manual for Lab and Field</a></i>, Department of Integrative Biology, University California, Berkeley, no date.</p><p>Alfred Sherwood Romer, <i>Vertebrate Paleontology</i>, Third Edition, 1966.</p><p>George R. Zug, Turtles of the Lee Creek Mine (Pliocene: North Carolina), appearing in <i><a href="https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/2006">Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina III</a></i>, edited by Clayton E. Ray and David J. Bohaska, Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, Number 90, 2001.</p><p><br /></p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-44181955695891108672023-05-19T14:07:00.000-04:002023-05-19T14:07:19.584-04:00Regarding A Fossil Collection: Post #2Cetacean Middle Ear Fossils, Part 1<p>This is the second in a series of posts about a recently acquired collection of fossils. Many of these fossils were collected at Plum Point, Maryland, along the Calvert Cliffs on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. They possibly came from the Plum Point Member of the Calvert Formation which would make them roughly 17 to 14 million years old, an age range straddling the line between the lower and middle Miocene Epoch. The <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2023/04/regarding-fossil-collection-post-1.html">first post</a> described the collection in very general terms, bemoaning the original collector’s abysmal job of organizing and labeling the fossils, and explored the location where most of them were collected: Plum Point. I admit that I paid an inordinate amount of space in that post to the derivation of the name “Plum Point.”</p><p>Cetaceans are one of my intellectual “<a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/BasinofAttraction.html">basins of attraction</a>,” something to which I am inevitably drawn. I find the story of their evolutionary trek from land back to the sea and the challenges that posed irresistible. So, it’s been quite easy to devote time, energy, and blog space to this “new” collection because most of its readily identifiable specimens are two kinds of cetacean fossils – tympanic bullae and periotic bones, both of which are part of these mammals’ middle ears (more on these below). Identifying these fossils as bones from cetacean middle ears is quite easy, understanding their function is not.</p><p>As an initial step in organizing the Plum Point collection, I transferred to a separate case (pictured below) all of these cetacean fossils that were clearly identified by the original collector as coming from Plum Point.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlOqFpb2DhOC3qhGpZtkLH-_0X3S670sTVYOYJSFNnc8Qv4c5csRt52_yG974cD6HNnFtpQuR_kTasq-cyfp2S34hBKYxfCtOLqVyuiJnjmWdwU8Fh5Hi4mrhgzeu_W9qwasNGtpo0g5lRg9iPhfk13njf8m5RxyomMcWl16rWC2rhXhnpvsS_BKiYXQ/s600/Cetacean%20portion%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlOqFpb2DhOC3qhGpZtkLH-_0X3S670sTVYOYJSFNnc8Qv4c5csRt52_yG974cD6HNnFtpQuR_kTasq-cyfp2S34hBKYxfCtOLqVyuiJnjmWdwU8Fh5Hi4mrhgzeu_W9qwasNGtpo0g5lRg9iPhfk13njf8m5RxyomMcWl16rWC2rhXhnpvsS_BKiYXQ/w400-h300/Cetacean%20portion%20for%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>My objective with this present post is to put these fossils into several broader contexts: (1) cetacean fossils from the Calvert Cliffs, (2) evolution of cetaceans in general, and (3) cetacean hearing with a focus on the middle ear. I conclude with a brief display of several tympanic bullae from this collection. A separate post will explore the Plum Point periotic bones and report on my effort to use these bones to identify cetacean genus and species. They are considered by some to be diagnostically useful in this regard.</p><p>It may be helpful to make three points at the outset:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>the term <i>cetacean</i> includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises, although these animals are frequently referred to collectively as <i>whales</i>;</li><li>fossils of porpoises are not found at the Calvert Cliffs; and</li><li>cetaceans are divided into members of the Odontoceti, the toothed cetaceans which includes dolphins and porpoises, and members of the Mysticeti which have baleen.</li></ul><p></p><p><b>Cetaceans in the Maryland Miocene</b></p><p>It’s certainly not surprising that this Plum Point collection is awash with cetacean fossils. The Chesapeake Group formations (ranging from the upper Oligocene, more than 23 million years ago, to the upper Pliocene, fewer than 3 million years ago) that are exposed along the Atlantic Coastal Plain are considered to “contain one of the world’s richest and most diverse assemblages of fossil cetaceans.” (Michael D. Gottfried, et al., Miocene Cetaceans of the Chesapeake Group, <i><a href="https://ia902808.us.archive.org/1/items/cbarchive_47941_miocenecetaceansofthechesapeak1990/miocenecetaceansofthechesapeak1990.pdf">Proceedings of the San Diego Society of Natural History</a></i>, Number 29, 1994, p. 232.) Of the Miocene formations in the Chesapeake Group, the Calvert Formation, which produces fossils found at Plum Point, is reportedly the one with the “highest vertebrate diversity” of all. (Gottfried, p. 233.) Of the 24 established cetacean genera listed by Gottfried, et al. as found in the Miocene formations of the Chesapeake Group, fully 19 occur in the Calvert Formation. Relevant to the Plum Point collection, at least 11 of the cetacean genera from the Calvert Formation are genera of dolphin. The small size of many of the cetacean fossils in this collection suggest they are from dolphin genera. </p><p><b>Evolution of Cetaceans</b></p><p>Where do these Miocene cetaceans fit into the broad sweep of cetacean evolution? The evolutionary transitional changes needed to live in the water occurred before the Miocene Epoch (23 to 5 million years ago). Fossils considered to be cetacean first appear very early in the Eocene Epoch which ran from 56 to 34 million years ago. The evolutionary arc of these mammals from land to water is well documented in the fossil record: in the early Eocene, from a common ancestor arose the taxon that would lead to the modern hippopotamus and a separate taxon from which the stem cetaceans, and ultimately the crown cetaceans, would evolve. In a beautiful figure (no other adjective for it) showing the phylogenic relationships among the cetacean taxa that evolved from that common ancestor, Michael R. McGowen, et al., delineate the appearance over time of the distinguishing attributes for cetaceans. (Figure 1, Molecular Evolutionary Tracks Macroevolutionary Transitions in Cetacea, <i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534714000846">Trends in Ecology & Evolution</a></i>, Volume 29, Number 6, 2014.) Given copyright concerns, I thought it inappropriate to reproduce that figure here.</p><p>Fossils of the earliest primitive cetaceans are likely more than 50 million years old. The transition of the early pioneers into the water to the status as fully marine animals took place in what is a paleontological and geological instant, perhaps as few as 10 million years. The figure in McGowen, et al., shows that the morphological and behavioral changes incumbent upon an initial semiaquatic existence came quickly, beginning with the acquisition of heavy limb bones, loss of some hair, and initiation of underwater nursing. The steady acquisition of marine and loss of terrestrial attributes meant that, by some 40 million years ago, early cetaceans had become <i>obligate aquatic</i>, that is, they could no longer survive on land. Paleontologist Nick Pyenson divides the overall evolutionary span of cetaceans into two unequal parts. As already described, the first (some 10 million years or so) saw key <i>transitional</i> changes necessary for life in the water. Among these transitional modifications were "shell-shaped ear bones being repurposed for underwater hearing." The second, longer phase (40 million years) was a time for <i>innovations</i> that allowed cetaceans to diversify markedly: the development of baleen (Mysticeti) and of echolocation (Odontoceti). Both of these innovations appeared during the Oligocene Epoch (34 to 23 million years ago) which preceded the Miocene. (The quoted text is from Pyenson, <i>Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures</i>, 2018, p. 36; a fuller discussion of these two periods can be found in Nicholas D. Pyenson, The Ecological Rise of Whales Chronicled by the Fossil Record, <i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982217305377">Current Biology</a></i>, Volume 27, June 5, 2017.) </p><p><b>Cetacean Hearing with a Focus on the Middle Ear</b></p><p>Moving into the water posed myriad challenges, one of the most critical was how to hear in this medium so different from air. Mammalian ears designed for hearing on land are clearly malformed for hearing under water. For one thing, the acoustical impedance of water and that of the organism's soft tissues are similar, meaning that when such ears are under water, sound will enter the inner ear from multiple avenues, not just through the outer ear and ear canal, and middle ear. Locating the source and direction of sounds becomes very tricky. In order to function effectively in water, cetacean ears changed and that transformation happened relatively quickly. McGowen's Figure 1 shows that almost “immediately” the stem cetaceans developed dense ear bones which were important for hearing under water. By perhaps as early as some 50 million years ago, stem taxa had evolved a fat pad attached to the lower jaw to aid in hearing (more on that below). By no later than 40 million years ago outer ears were gone.</p><p>To make some sense of these Plum Point cetacean fossils (both kinds coming from the middle ear), I went in search of basic research material on the morphology of the cetacean middle ear. In a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2010/05/partners-in-hunt-fossil-collectors-and.html">post</a> over a decade ago, I lamented the lack of literature accessible to the layperson on cetacean hearing. As I prepared the present post, I was dismayed to discover that there were in fact some quite useful sources available back then. Nevertheless, despite locating these and other sources, my grasp of the basics of cetacean hearing remains tenuous. I welcome any corrections of errors of fact or interpretation in the following discussion. In a subsection at the end of this discussion, I discuss some of the principal sources I used.</p><p>As the cetacean ear evolved to deal with the new medium through which sound had to travel, I’ve already noted that the bones of the ear became heavier. The outer ear, of no utility, faded into obscurity. The air-filled middle and fluid-filled inner ears were encompassed in what is known as the tympano-periotic complex consisting of two bones: the tympanic bulla and periotic bone. Pictured below is a periotic bone (top) and a tympanic bulla (bottom) from my Plum Point collection.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN2GLVcHbDIWfj0nABw1ImD342yhlu6Zmh3O0QwrOE0tkPIUEzFzBK4rZ-y1a0n87vxPXp_dvvGBBbIn_pHQxAIrvEIFeCOrjb9CChjAiCl_7zFWv7WVswxg93__lLxVJd4dJWTIw8KKjShqswrkD15GBPF3DVHfLLO8wMjVHPg33rnnm2fiPQmQhfTg/s325/Periotic%20bone%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="325" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN2GLVcHbDIWfj0nABw1ImD342yhlu6Zmh3O0QwrOE0tkPIUEzFzBK4rZ-y1a0n87vxPXp_dvvGBBbIn_pHQxAIrvEIFeCOrjb9CChjAiCl_7zFWv7WVswxg93__lLxVJd4dJWTIw8KKjShqswrkD15GBPF3DVHfLLO8wMjVHPg33rnnm2fiPQmQhfTg/s320/Periotic%20bone%20for%20blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcjOhEMfZ0oc3WlAxAfjIDxLfpxFg4jvQr8LMAv2nAu-3fde6a7Ig1ml70_8eaP9D51eGhhZVo90gPOVWqSj_sWJeuvyoBqnKUriOunpcSHPDpKUNlys_OvAcNdYy7glE-JNkpSfbWoa1Oi-vt1cibi-TegZXQFCiyLCxEEqussqrDcTvfO_MxaiS8w/s420/Tympanic%20bulla%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="411" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcjOhEMfZ0oc3WlAxAfjIDxLfpxFg4jvQr8LMAv2nAu-3fde6a7Ig1ml70_8eaP9D51eGhhZVo90gPOVWqSj_sWJeuvyoBqnKUriOunpcSHPDpKUNlys_OvAcNdYy7glE-JNkpSfbWoa1Oi-vt1cibi-TegZXQFCiyLCxEEqussqrDcTvfO_MxaiS8w/s320/Tympanic%20bulla%20for%20blog.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">To help me orient the overall relationship between the periotic bone and bulla which house the complex, I prepared this drawing of the complex exterior based on a photograph of a modern neonate bottlenose dolphin.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPA7987N_zsiaJSzSVAgtRqa7MS2f4aPOpVSM7zjE5X0hDBuo01ol-k_-UXQocWqSm1HIiPKxUtYXfOeRrdv05pPCulq84dgdVcI2l013qBo9CzAMwoZpR5XGnR-B1Q1GLI9gBNXZvJ-i3mJ2v5MfGTB86tgQCzKiJXB9d6XSrxY9jVgcic1keFSHyvw/s500/Periotic%20and%20Bulla%20Drawing%20from%20Mead%20and%20Fordyce%20for%20blog.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="500" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPA7987N_zsiaJSzSVAgtRqa7MS2f4aPOpVSM7zjE5X0hDBuo01ol-k_-UXQocWqSm1HIiPKxUtYXfOeRrdv05pPCulq84dgdVcI2l013qBo9CzAMwoZpR5XGnR-B1Q1GLI9gBNXZvJ-i3mJ2v5MfGTB86tgQCzKiJXB9d6XSrxY9jVgcic1keFSHyvw/w400-h371/Periotic%20and%20Bulla%20Drawing%20from%20Mead%20and%20Fordyce%20for%20blog.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>The tympano-periotic complex is largely isolated acoustically from the skull (completely for odontocetes, less so for mysticetes). In odontocetes, sound waves travel from the cetacean’s thin lower jaw through a fat pad to the tympanic bulla. For mysticetes, the process through which sound is received is still "unknown," though at least for some genera fat is likely to play a role. (Maya Yamato and Nicholas D. Pyenson, Early Development and Orientation of the Acoustical Funnel Provides Insights into the Evolution of Sound Reception Pathways in Cetaceans, <i><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118582">PLOS One</a></i>, Volume 10, Number 3, March 11, 2015.)</p><p>The bulla is a distinctively shaped bone, much like an elongated cup or scoop, with a greatly thickened medial lip called the <i>involucrum</i> and a much thinner outer lip named the <i>tympanic plate</i>. Though all mammals have a bulla of sorts, it’s the involucrum that sets the cetacean bulla apart. As Pyenson observes, the involucrum is a critical feature used by paleontologists to distinguish the earliest cetaceans from other ancient animals: it's an attribute that "makes them whales and not something else." (<i>Spying on Whales</i>, p. 29.) The involucrum and tympanic plates are labelled in the picture below.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYTTrHjeqXqAfCrngmrBuBejcMkNpsGi1O-4PfRI5wTiRfaCH9w0AZabVq_nvbbFq94qvrLhJv3c37cjp0LhzUo2hjg-LYyss3-_Fjmf2f2rxIfKSZWmSNXUZNLYRWveGIZXwnTXuqiWb5_MdBHq-oRNeIYwgD0UpfgfdSP5CZ31XvbbtzEoGB0O07Bw/s420/Tympanic%20bulla%20for%20blog%20with%20labels.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="411" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYTTrHjeqXqAfCrngmrBuBejcMkNpsGi1O-4PfRI5wTiRfaCH9w0AZabVq_nvbbFq94qvrLhJv3c37cjp0LhzUo2hjg-LYyss3-_Fjmf2f2rxIfKSZWmSNXUZNLYRWveGIZXwnTXuqiWb5_MdBHq-oRNeIYwgD0UpfgfdSP5CZ31XvbbtzEoGB0O07Bw/s320/Tympanic%20bulla%20for%20blog%20with%20labels.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><p>The isolation of the bulla from the other bones of the skull and the thick-thin configuration of the bulla lip are instrumental in allowing the bulla to vibrate in response to incoming sound waves (and to forestall conduction of sound to the inner ear through any other bones). The tympanic plate has a bony connection to an array of ossicles (small bones), beginning with the malleus which in turn connects to the smaller incus and then to the still smaller stapes. These small bones transmit the sound vibrations to the fluid-filled inner ear canal and to the cochlea. That process strengthens the sound. The prominent knob in roughly the top center of the periotic bone (see photograph above) contains the circular passages of the cochlea in which sound waves are converted to electrochemical impulses which are then transmitted to the brain via the vestibulo-cochlear nerve. The periotic bone has various openings (some of which are visible in the photograph above); through one, the cochlear nerve connects to the brain. Here is a schematic outline of the key elements in the cetacean middle ear as it directs sound waves to the inner ear.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhie27YKLkF78w5wDRZnZvo4nyz3qKBJ5pXfy2Q2SOWKn__6usYunZ77xk45o3GChziNTEash1d_-b6X6QDGK3Z25sN5JHyQziCqJTgVKlFII2i2QDqhyRyyR0vlRnVDpM2mm_6A5xwj9ga3lfsai8GNUYpSR7C52o8YbUOX2r1t0KVjfCQ_V0x3eVxEQ/s860/Odontocete%20Middle%20Ear%20Hearing%20Research%201999%20for%20blog.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="702" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhie27YKLkF78w5wDRZnZvo4nyz3qKBJ5pXfy2Q2SOWKn__6usYunZ77xk45o3GChziNTEash1d_-b6X6QDGK3Z25sN5JHyQziCqJTgVKlFII2i2QDqhyRyyR0vlRnVDpM2mm_6A5xwj9ga3lfsai8GNUYpSR7C52o8YbUOX2r1t0KVjfCQ_V0x3eVxEQ/w326-h400/Odontocete%20Middle%20Ear%20Hearing%20Research%201999%20for%20blog.png" width="326" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b>Some of the Principal Sources for the Preceding Discussion of Cetacean Hearing</b></p><p>Among the available valuable resources on cetacean hearing in general is the first of two extensive posts written by paleontologist Robert Boessenecker for his blog<i> The Coastal Paleontologist: Perspectives on Marine Vertebrate Paleontology</i>. This post, titled <a href="https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2022/12/bobbys-guide-to-whale-dolphin-earbones.html">Bobby’s Guide to Whale & Dolphin Earbones 1: Introduction,</a> is dated December 3, 2022, and explores the morphology of mammalian ears, contrasting those of land mammals and those of the cetaceans. (I intend to use the second, <a href="https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2023/01/bobbys-guide-to-whale-dolphin-earbones.html">Bobby’s Guide to Whale & Dolphin Earbones 2: Identifying Toothed Whale Periotics</a>, which appeared January 15, 2023, in a later post.)</p><p>One of the clearest expositions of the process of cetacean hearing can be found in an article by Sirpa Nummela et al., who used CT scans to delineate how the features of the middle ear of a killer whale (an odontocete) function and how they relate to each other. (The Anatomy of the Killer Whale Middle Ear (<i>Orcinus orca</i>), <i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378595599000532">Hearing Research</a></i>, Volume 133, Issues 1-2, July 1999, residing behind a paywall.)</p><p>Later, Sirpa Nummela and a different group of colleagues produced a very informative article on the evolution of different ear structures and their role in cetacean hearing. (Sound Transmission in Archaic and Modern Whales: Adaptations for Underwater Hearing, <i><a href="https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.20528">Hearing Research</a></i>, Volume 290, 2007.) </p><p>A wealth of information and relevant images (one of which formed the basis for the drawing above of the complex) can be found in J.G. Mead and R.E. Fordyce’s <i><a href="https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/8298">The Therian Skull: A Lexicon with Emphasis on the Odontocetes</a></i> (Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, Number 627, 2009).</p><p>Helpful, and the underlying source of the schematic drawing above of the middle ear, is A Model of the Odontocete Middle Ear by Simo Hemilä, et al. (<i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595599000556]">Hearing Research</a></i>, Volume 133, 1999, resides behind a paywall).</p><p><b>Selection of Tympanic Bullae from the Plum Point Collection</b></p><p>Here are four additional specimens from the collection. They are unquestionably quite well worn and their small size certainly suggests dolphin origin.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTU2WR0nqUb9R1hkn_6eKsv-WMs9sD8oKsvsPwLRQVWm9PnOX6L7olfR0_WCZ0XzZA371NMIyWq7-s9b0gKYZWEObjCeZkY6mxe43jRWCFIV30dm47M5YrnRGazebzaBnOz3mB04BmAUbJkSeAVQyza8EXDKfFh05Rco_krMcHBHx8HGC_nhxZOOb2PQ/s600/tympanic%20bullae%201%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="600" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTU2WR0nqUb9R1hkn_6eKsv-WMs9sD8oKsvsPwLRQVWm9PnOX6L7olfR0_WCZ0XzZA371NMIyWq7-s9b0gKYZWEObjCeZkY6mxe43jRWCFIV30dm47M5YrnRGazebzaBnOz3mB04BmAUbJkSeAVQyza8EXDKfFh05Rco_krMcHBHx8HGC_nhxZOOb2PQ/s320/tympanic%20bullae%201%20for%20blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7otfknliCoJ0JoSiTg_h2wkO6Op9LRUJzreEwOMo_XwpNFr3KRgkHCVE3uaiG6ERzddm4rKxiG_p3zU0LghSoiXvQB5GSv69Dqyx-aSYP1F2Z10NYF-qdqQdEUbKXMu5FsdX00aCTJoM7N79rudExyaswQzCU-0L2HfPsKQB9pYS1S0BzlNucVxeGg/s600/Tympanic%20bullae%202%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="600" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7otfknliCoJ0JoSiTg_h2wkO6Op9LRUJzreEwOMo_XwpNFr3KRgkHCVE3uaiG6ERzddm4rKxiG_p3zU0LghSoiXvQB5GSv69Dqyx-aSYP1F2Z10NYF-qdqQdEUbKXMu5FsdX00aCTJoM7N79rudExyaswQzCU-0L2HfPsKQB9pYS1S0BzlNucVxeGg/s320/Tympanic%20bullae%202%20for%20blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>From my earliest fossil collecting, I found tympanic bullae singularly attractive, capped as they are by the wave-like flow of the involucrum. It's the feature most likely to survive over millions of years, retaining the visible poetry of its sculpted form.</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-35951797727915238162023-04-28T10:26:00.004-04:002023-06-17T11:36:56.875-04:00Regarding A Fossil Collection: Post #1What's Plum Point?<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>This is the first in a projected series of posts in which I try to make sense of a newly acquired fossil collection. The collection is a mess, but trying to bring some order to it seems (at this stage) to be a worthwhile and interesting task. This initial post explores the likely geographic and geologic source of the bulk of these fossils. Later ones will describe and discuss some of the specimens.</i></p><p><i>Early on, I fell into a research abyss trying to answer the question: What's Plum Point? This is shorthand for a group of issues regarding the where, what, and why of Plum Point. Some of these I deal with better than others. Though this present post does have a very real fossil connection (something explored more directly in subsequent posts), it also reflects how an obsession with cartography that I didn't know I had led to hours exploring the name “Plum Point” or is that “Plumb Point” or even "Plumpoint?"</i></p></blockquote><p>A fossil collection I recently purchased on the web has given me a glimpse of the bleak future for my own fossil holdings. The original collector (not the seller who acquired it at an estate sale) apparently wasn’t enamored of labels and didn’t invest much time in identifying the specimens. Here is one of the several containers in which the material came to me.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFU4EPLomOKTs_1saEwSUhe9Ud8cqzGHdONZFLb9KDJyT6WsUFLv83c9nAMxw1LM76UN_P8qJfs8uqxmWIzGN-MyVG9hm6AVzZnVT2rUY-501rk5wA71m0IJK3rXYCdUajlgsNhca9ECODws8OJoPdOblZKzNr5KfiBXzBIoCCac-4atKT7hOsg92O5A/s640/Plum%20Point%20collection%20plastic%20box%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFU4EPLomOKTs_1saEwSUhe9Ud8cqzGHdONZFLb9KDJyT6WsUFLv83c9nAMxw1LM76UN_P8qJfs8uqxmWIzGN-MyVG9hm6AVzZnVT2rUY-501rk5wA71m0IJK3rXYCdUajlgsNhca9ECODws8OJoPdOblZKzNr5KfiBXzBIoCCac-4atKT7hOsg92O5A/w400-h300/Plum%20Point%20collection%20plastic%20box%20for%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>To be fair, these criticisms may not be entirely valid. I suspect that what I have in my possession is the remnant of a larger collection. Indeed, these fossils may be those that were assigned to the triage category of “boring and nothing special.” Supporting that conclusion is the complete absence of shark teeth (certainly present in the geologic formation feeding this collection).</p><p>Despite having taken to heart with my own collection the dictum to label, I suspect that many of the challenges this new collection poses will be confronted when mine is dispersed (that is, if it’s not simply tossed in a dumpster by my spouse or my kids). For starters, my labels are keyed to a master list of locations, so if that list is separated from the fossils, all bets are off. Further, outside of the most distinctive fossils, my attempts at serious identification of the fossils I’ve collected have been relatively few and far between. Finally, I know that if someone with paleontological expertise were to sort through my holdings, the biggest category created would be undoubtedly “boring and nothing special.”</p><p>This then begs the question, why am I planning on dedicating several posts in this blog to this newly acquired collection? Perhaps it’s because the challenge to make some sense of what I have at hand is irresistible, clearly requiring some sustained research. That many of the fossils are cetacean in origin and that some of the bony fragments appear, at this early stage of my exploration, to be from turtles increase the allure. Nevertheless, my commitment to these fossils is probably best explained by the evidence that a good portion of them were collected at <i>Plum Point, Maryland</i>. This place name evokes warm, though admittedly vague, early childhood memories. My grandfather’s brother and his wife owned property at Plum Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and, when I was very young, my family would visit for beach outings. My older sister remembers a long hike down to a very narrow beach. Undoubtedly there were fossils to be found along the shore, but I don’t remember looking for them.</p><p>This initial post is focused on setting the context for future narratives about some of what makes up the collection. My first major struggle with these fossils was determining what the collector meant by the label on one box which read "Plum Point" and a couple of slips of paper (nestled with some of the specimens) on which was written “Plum Point, Md,” with dates in the early 1970s.</p><p>It’s not quite as obvious as I initially believed. In fact, the United States Geological Survey’s <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis">Geographic Names Information System</a> informs me that, of the 21 geographic features in the United States named “Plum Point,” fully 5 of them are located in Maryland. Of these Maryland sites, four are capes (i.e., a high land sticking out into a body of water) and one is an unincorporated populated place. The red pins in the map below locate the four capes. I’ve circled the Calvert County, Maryland, red pin because it’s actually two overlapping pins: one for a cape and one for an unincorporated populated place.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwx9QrUxl0IMXJhHINVAS04kMcAoYIlRzQcxtOKxyC-Mp27xHWZS6QVvi1KlrVJKp1Fy4Xcr1DY7i0hjUuF46btMlvl9WjWY7mgYwAJhaLJqpHk-k4mUtQfjvwpoj5JTL7gz7mjttelG5WSzo19ypSrMrmeuL5X5Z6TUmm_oMcesl8ZLRg_Fok30G_xA/s621/USGS%20map%20with%20Maryland%20Plum%20Points%20flagged.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="575" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwx9QrUxl0IMXJhHINVAS04kMcAoYIlRzQcxtOKxyC-Mp27xHWZS6QVvi1KlrVJKp1Fy4Xcr1DY7i0hjUuF46btMlvl9WjWY7mgYwAJhaLJqpHk-k4mUtQfjvwpoj5JTL7gz7mjttelG5WSzo19ypSrMrmeuL5X5Z6TUmm_oMcesl8ZLRg_Fok30G_xA/w370-h400/USGS%20map%20with%20Maryland%20Plum%20Points%20flagged.gif" width="370" /></a></div><p>(A bit of advice for me going forward: make sure that any place name used in my fossil labels is unambiguous. Some sources on how to collect fossils advocate for the use of precise location data such as coordinates from a GPS, something that no longer seems like overkill.)</p><p>That said, despite this number of potential candidates, I’m sure the location referenced in these meager labels is at or near the Plum Point in Calvert County (conveniently circled in the map above). This is the one associated with my family. That it yielded the fossils in this collection stands to reason because this cape is intimately linked to the incredibly fossiliferous Calvert Cliffs (dating 18 to 8 million years ago). The stratigraphic composition of the Cliffs includes the Calvert, Choptank, and St. Marys Formations. A segment of the particularly fossil-rich Calvert Formation was named the Plum Point Member because that is “where the beds [of that member] are typically developed.” (George Burbank Shattuck, <a href="https://archive.org/details/miocene01mary/page/n95/mode/1up"><i>Miocene, Tex</i>t, Maryland Geological Survey</a>, 1904, p. lxxiv. Shattuck originally named this stratigraphic layer the Plum Point Marl.)</p><p>Shown below is the Plum Point (Calvert County) portion of the Maryland Geological Survey’s 1968 geologic map of Maryland as made available on the <a href="https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_16548.htm">United States Geological Survey website</a>. (A hint at place name problems I would have later is seen in this map section. Note that the name "Plum Point" appears to be associated with a location back from the water's edge, probably the unincorporated populated place.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh819wNNPuZgN0I_jcbyk14CJYQyHw8QZOHMv7ICRbEd3cYwzzjJmkA0xQqUBp4FOV-qwtYRHU8gvdg36d4ILfpMn5fWC6RMiN247Lb9ujowf0OEncMqVuxug0wYggDCIMk-L8zXizxkcUjTOG40bf10cI_sFk323yLmpfg5tpuekOeTDJado7lwrVP2A/s560/Plum%20Point%20MGS%20geologic%20map%201968.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="560" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh819wNNPuZgN0I_jcbyk14CJYQyHw8QZOHMv7ICRbEd3cYwzzjJmkA0xQqUBp4FOV-qwtYRHU8gvdg36d4ILfpMn5fWC6RMiN247Lb9ujowf0OEncMqVuxug0wYggDCIMk-L8zXizxkcUjTOG40bf10cI_sFk323yLmpfg5tpuekOeTDJado7lwrVP2A/w400-h346/Plum%20Point%20MGS%20geologic%20map%201968.gif" width="400" /></a></div><p>The pink colored bedrock formation seen in this map marks outcropping of the Plum Point Member of the Calvert Formation. My crude estimate is that this member is roughly 17 to slightly less than 14 million years old (estimate based on Figure 1.3 in <i><a href="https://scholarlypress.si.edu/store/life-sciences-biodiversity/geology-and-vertebrate-paleontology-calvert-cliffs/">The Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, USA</a></i>, edited by Stephen J. Godfrey, Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, Number 100, 2018).</p><p>What’s striking about a view from the Bay toward the shoreline of Plum Point is that where the cape (barely) protrudes into the Bay is mostly sandy beach (Plum Point Creek flows into the Bay at this juncture) and the Calvert Cliffs are notably absent (eroded over the eons by the creek?). From a paleontological perspective, the area identified as Plum Point is wider than the most immediate area at the cape. The geological profile below of this area captures this phenomenon. This profile is modified from the diagram included in the Calvert Marine Museum’s <i>Fossils of Calvert Cliff</i>s (1995, 3rd edition). (That diagram, in turn, was modified from the one prepared by Peter R. Vogt for the <i><a href="https://www.academia.edu/download/58843161/_Marylands_Cliffs_of_Calvert001.pdf">Geological Society of America Centennial Field Guide – Northeastern Section</a></i> (1987). It appears in the chapter by Vogt and Ralph Eshelman titled Maryland’s Cliffs of Calvert: A Fossiliferous Record of Mid-Miocene Inner Shelf and Coastal Environments.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCp-WDoPZy5_u1jE40nQx9w6gM5-DoxYellIa77PSRnJZFlStVZQPvTp8SJZHKPHLiFl3JZs4SKwndWRqmZgel10BVw669iGYZW5_Z5pNIKakJeybXeWWS_Y3bPOpUKQGRTZ3e67crgun7oc9nw4pOpCVmJrk_DmAvefLcHbqZlvC9KvSrhF-dImdRPA/s316/Plum%20Modified%20Point%20portion%20of%20geological%20profile%20of%20Calvert%20Cliffs%20from%20Calvert%20Marine%20Museum%20publication.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="136" data-original-width="316" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCp-WDoPZy5_u1jE40nQx9w6gM5-DoxYellIa77PSRnJZFlStVZQPvTp8SJZHKPHLiFl3JZs4SKwndWRqmZgel10BVw669iGYZW5_Z5pNIKakJeybXeWWS_Y3bPOpUKQGRTZ3e67crgun7oc9nw4pOpCVmJrk_DmAvefLcHbqZlvC9KvSrhF-dImdRPA/w400-h172/Plum%20Modified%20Point%20portion%20of%20geological%20profile%20of%20Calvert%20Cliffs%20from%20Calvert%20Marine%20Museum%20publication.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Given that the fossils in this collection are well worn, I assume they were captured primarily as “float” along the shoreline and not dug out of the cliffsides. Further, I strongly suspect that the collector worked along some narrow beach at the base of the cliffs, not in the stretch where the cliffs are absent. I have in mind an area like that pictured below in a 2019 photograph in the public domain from the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/calvert-formation-near-plum-point-md">U.S. Geological Survey</a> which is labeled “Calvert Formation Near Plum Point, MD." It captures, I believe, work on a project studying foraminifera gathered from several sites along the Calvert Cliffs. One product of this effort appeared in the newsletter of the Calvert Marine Museum’s Fossil Club (Microfossils From Calvert Cliffs Give Us Clues to the Future Warmer Climate, <a href="https://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/DocumentCenter/View/3997/Ecphora-September-2021"><i>The Ecphor</i>a</a>, September, 2021).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWtZKxexMtMAjadNIzfdMZ5a0sV0PLovkIZss1VgOGknUhJcj5bON8SeJ7mye6U1K4-qhQv6gdG50-hlFDuLI5I0Vc_hA9zWVUwHbQcA1mBNeHyos-GQg9CFh7xeKB1R18D1RvQCwzKSh5-VPhhXumD9lGQHKu7W10nM-ddfp6n9eZrRawXG3NKcGXQ/s600/USGS%20at%20Work_Marci%20Robinson_Seth%20Sutton%20at%20Calvert%20Formation%20reduced%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWtZKxexMtMAjadNIzfdMZ5a0sV0PLovkIZss1VgOGknUhJcj5bON8SeJ7mye6U1K4-qhQv6gdG50-hlFDuLI5I0Vc_hA9zWVUwHbQcA1mBNeHyos-GQg9CFh7xeKB1R18D1RvQCwzKSh5-VPhhXumD9lGQHKu7W10nM-ddfp6n9eZrRawXG3NKcGXQ/w640-h480/USGS%20at%20Work_Marci%20Robinson_Seth%20Sutton%20at%20Calvert%20Formation%20reduced%20for%20blog.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Certainly, any effort to answer a question (to wit, where is Plum Point?) can only prompt still more questions. One that popped up is: why the name Plum Point?</p><p>According to geologist and paleontologist Ralph Eshelman, in the 1600s Plum Point featured a significant sand bar that swept to the southeast and then turned to the south. (Eshelman is truly a man of many, diverse talents. See, for example, Southern Maryland Matters and Mavens: Dr. Ralph Eshelman, by Sal Icaza, <a href="https://southernmarylandchronicle.com/2022/06/22/southern-maryland-matters-and-mavens-dr-ralph-eshelman/"><i>The Southern Maryland Chronicl</i>e</a>, June 22, 2022.) In his <a href="https://www.neeldestate.com/plum-point-history">draft history of Plum Point</a>, Eshelman cites a source identified as "Briscoe 1954" for the explanation that the name derives from the presence on the sand bar of "plum trees" or perhaps "sand plums." (Pursuing his citation for this explanation has been, dare I say it, fruitless. Despite my proclivity to worry an issue to death, I don’t propose to tackle the question: is the fruit-link the impetus for all those other Plum Points in Maryland and elsewhere in the United States?) [After the initial posting, this paragraph was edited in part to include the reference to "sand plums."]</p><p>A map of Maryland and Virginia published in 1673 identifies the point as Plum Point and clearly shows the sand bar. The image below was cropped from the map by Augustine Herrman and Thomas Withinbrook, <i>Virginia and Maryland as it is planted and inhabited this present year 1670</i>, 1673. (Retrieved from the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2002623131/">Library of Congress</a>.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiV3WaBeIEojNweZ9mk8CcbKXBvMN4pfqZAaFS_ISNgpxceFmrkISRIKUFa9zdYlIebp1cV05OBpXInLV7PVd0BdTGtZhi5dH2S7Ir4RIJPrab_KKe6JuucuQjdNaUGmBicC87IlJdAGXQdEHIOXNPWFmugi357LsGNPr1gWAo7mW0lR_LG_tV_gH2hg/s517/Plum%20Point%20part%20of%201670%20map.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="517" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiV3WaBeIEojNweZ9mk8CcbKXBvMN4pfqZAaFS_ISNgpxceFmrkISRIKUFa9zdYlIebp1cV05OBpXInLV7PVd0BdTGtZhi5dH2S7Ir4RIJPrab_KKe6JuucuQjdNaUGmBicC87IlJdAGXQdEHIOXNPWFmugi357LsGNPr1gWAo7mW0lR_LG_tV_gH2hg/w640-h328/Plum%20Point%20part%20of%201670%20map.gif" width="640" /></a></div><p>In pursuit of Plum Point across the centuries, I spent a mostly enjoyable several hours exploring a wide variety of historical maps of Maryland at the <a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com/">David Rumsey Map Collection</a>. It is a simply amazing resource that makes many thousands of maps available for online searching in great detail. My qualification of the enjoyable nature of this part of my research is due to what I found or, sometimes, didn't find, and has nothing to do with the site.</p><p>I documented in various maps how the spelling of the name of the Calvert County's Plum Point was inconsistent across the centuries. After the very early map shown above had it as "Plum Point," I came across several maps of the area from the 18th century which identified the site as "Plumb Point." Others in the same period continued with "Plum Point." Most of those from the first two-thirds of the 19th century that I examined identified the site as “Plumb Point.” Not until the latter portion of the 19th was the name of the point somewhat more likely to be spelled “Plum Point.” I expected to find that in the 20th century, the spelling became standardized at "Plum Point." Instead, I found maps distinguishing the physiographic feature (the cape) from the populated location, and introducing another variant into the mix. For instance, a 1924 Rand McNally map identified the cape as "Plum Point," and the population center as "Plumpoint." A 1927 map from the National Map Company also identified the populated site as "Plumpoint," without labelling the cape at all. At this juncture, I decided to cut my losses and not try to find out when in the 20th century the spelling actually became fixed at "Plum Point" for both the populated area and the cape.</p><p>Admittedly, during this process, I wondered if Eshelman (and Briscoe) might be wrong and there is in fact a definition of “plumb” applicable to the geographic location since that was where most maps in the first two-thirds of the 19th century appeared to settle. In other words, could I prove that this spelling ("Plumb Point") was intentional and not just a variant of “plum” in reference to the fruit? Some time with the <i>Oxford English Dictionary </i>showed me that I couldn't make that case. The spelling of the fruit’s name was quite variable through the 18th century. It included such variants as “plumme,” “plumbes,” and “plumbs.” (A source for this last spelling is Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/notesonstateofvi1787jeff/page/64/mode/1up">Notes on the State of Virginia</a></i> (1787 edition, p. 64) that Virginia orchards produce: “apples, pears, cherries, quinces, peaches, nectarines, apricots, almonds, and plumbs.”) I imagine that when some cartographer first spelled the name of the point as “Plumb,” it was just carried forward in many subsequent maps. Not surprising given how flexible spelling was at the time.</p><p>Always a glutton for punishment, I also dug into question of whether the fluctuation in spelling affected the other Plum Points in Maryland. Though these other locations were unlikely to show up in historical maps of Maryland or the Chesapeake Bay, in the several instances when they did, their spelling varied in sync with how the Calvert County spelling changed. More support for Eshelman (and Briscoe).</p><p>My apologies, yes, I am often “a dog with a bone,” so I did more and poked around to see if the spelling fluidity affected any of the <i>non-Maryland</i> “Plum Points.” In this instance, I lost interest relatively quickly because, with one exception, the few locations I looked for did not appear at all in historical maps. That one exception reflected the Maryland experience: Plum Point on Centre Island in Oyster Bay, New York, appeared as “Plumb Point” in an 1863 map and as “Plum Point” in maps of 1873 and 1888.</p><p>The most salient conclusions reached in this post?</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The fossils associated with the Plum Point label in this collection were very likely collected somewhere on the shoreline at the foot of the Calvert Cliffs near the cape in Calvert County, Maryland.</li><li>As a result, these fossils are likely to date from about the middle of the Miocene epoch.</li><li>Naming a geographical feature “Plum Point” in the United States has not been a one-off.</li><li>Calvert County’s Plum Point is possibly named for the fruit that once grew on a sand bar that is no longer there.</li><li>Spelling of the fruit name in the colonial period and for awhile afterward was in flux.</li><li>Studying maps at the David Rumsey website is a wonderful way to do research.</li><li>Questions beget questions.</li></ul><p></p><div><br /></div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-74687831406254902642023-03-28T17:50:00.001-04:002023-03-29T10:46:55.650-04:00A Few Fewtrils<p><i>This post may be a first in the multi-year run of this blog, not because it ignores fossils completely (that’s not unprecedented), but because it may be disconnected altogether from natural history (unless etymology can be construed as part of natural history, which I doubt).</i></p><p>The source for this post is a file to which over the past few years I’ve added phrases and words that strike me as insightful, amusing, or simply unusual. Also, they must be new to me. Beyond those attributes, there is nothing that links them, so no big reveal at the end. In this post, I share several of the more recent entries, describing what they mean, where I found them, and, if possible, their etymology. (I discussed the word "fewtrils" that appears in this post's title in a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2022/02/are-mineral-specimens-without-labels.html">previous post</a>.) </p><p><i>How long is a piece of string?</i></p><p>I first came upon this expression in a 2021 article by Scott Reyburn in <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/arts/design/caravaggio-spain-export-ban.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare">The New York Times</a></i> about a painting that had come up for auction in Madrid at a meager starting price, only to become the focus of a debate over whether it might actually be the work of Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Were it a Caravaggio, the work would be worth a great deal. Drawn into the affair, the Spanish cultural ministry banned export of the painting, an action that killed the auction. Reyburn posed the question of what the painting might have fetched if authenticated as a Caravaggio and auctioned in the international art market. One British art expert quoted in the article, after hazarding an estimate of at least 50 million Euros, concluded, “But how long is a piece of string?”</p><p>That question – “how long is a piece of string?” – is someone’s retort to an initial question for which the respondent believes there is no answer. In other words, a generic piece of string can have any length; a <i>specific</i> piece of string has a definite length.</p><p>Pascal Tréguer, in his excellent blog titled <i><a href="https://wordhistories.net/2021/03/03/how-long-piece-string/">word histories</a></i>, described the expression as American-English in origin, and wrote, quite perceptively, that it’s “a response to a question that cannot be answered precisely, although a precise answer seems to be expected.” That latter observation about an expected answer is spot on, capturing what I think is a flippant tone to the retort.</p><p>Where and when it originated remain unknown. Tréguer noted that the first instance of its use that he has found is an American newspaper article of 1885.</p><p><i>KD (as in “KD and lunch meat”)</i></p><p>Boy Golden (Liam Duncan) is a Canadian country rock musician with a gentle and mellow vibe (in keeping with his songs' frequent references to weed) whose excellent solo album (2021) <i>Church of Better Daze</i> opens with the song titled KD and Lunch Meat. (Here’s the official video of the song on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-dB3V4yyJ8] The thrust of the song is about the singer lighting up, quitting his job, and living with his significant ">YouTube</a>.) The song is about the singer lighting up, quitting his job, and living with his significant other on the bare minimum.</p><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">Babe we got a<br />Few hundred bucks<br />Between the two of us.<br />That should be enough<br />If we eat really cheap,<br />KD and lunch meat.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">This entry is a cheat in some ways. I don’t think “KD and lunch meat” is a specific Canadian expression. Rather, it’s the “KD” that has the story to tell because most Canadians know this stands for “Kraft Dinner.” Life for the macaroni and cheese product began in 1937 when it was introduced and called, in both the U.S. and Canada, “Kraft Dinner.” A split occurred in the 1970s when the product was renamed “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese” in the States, but remained “Kraft Dinner” north of the border. The colloquial name in Canada for this meal became “KD.” In 2015, Kraft of Canada leaned into that and officially renamed the product “KD.” (For more on this story, see Susan Krashinsky’s article Kraft Embraces Canadian Term of Endearment to Rebrand Kraft Dinner, <i><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/kraft-embraces-term-of-endearment-to-rebrand-kraft-dinner/article25770268/">The Globe and Mail</a></i>, July 30, 2015.)</p><p>So, Boy Golden is singing about how to stretch the food dollar as far as possible, and eating “KD” is certainly one way to do that.</p><p><i>Mondegreen</i></p><p>My sister introduced me to the word when I told her that, only upon watching Questlove’s spellbinding documentary <i>Summer of Soul </i> (2021), did I realize that The Edwin Hawkins Singers were singing “When Jesus washed” in the refrain of their rendition of the gospel song <i>Oh Happy Day</i>. I had always thought the line was “When Jesus walked.” That error, she said, was a “mondegreen,” a term I’d never heard.</p><p>The writer Sylvia Wright coined the word, explaining its origins in an essay titled The Death of Lady Mondegreen, published in <i>Harper’s </i>in 1954. It is included in <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/getawayfrommewit00wrig/page/105/mode/1up">Get Away From Me With Those Christmas Gifts and Other Reactions</a></i> (1957, p. 105 et seq.), a compilation of Wright’s essays.</p><p>When Wright was a child, her mother read to her from <i>Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry</i>. (Thomas Percy (1729-1811) originally published his compilation of English and Scottish ballads in 1765.) Among Wright’s favorites was The Bonny Earl of Murray which recounts the tragic murder of James Stewart, Earl of Murray, in 1592 at the hands of a nefarious agent of Scotland’s King James VI. Here is the first verse of that ballad from <a href="https://archive.org/details/percysreliquesof02percuoft/page/62/mode/1up">an edition published in 1906</a>:</p><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Ye highlands, and ye lawlands,<br />Oh ! quhair hae ye been?<br />They hae slaine the Earl of Murray,<br />And hae laid him on the green.</blockquote></div><p style="text-align: left;">Wright heard the last line of that verse as: “And Lady Mondegreen.” which gave rise to her rich and romantic mental vision of the scene. The handsome Earl, dead from an arrow to the heart (Wright’s wonderful imagination at work), did not die alone, for he was with the Lady Mondegreen, slain by an arrow to the throat.</p><p>In her essay, she acknowledged that she misheard that line but preferred it as she heard it:</p><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">Leaving him to die all alone without even anyone to hold his hand – I won’t have it.<br /></div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original (p. 106-107)</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">There are those who insist that a mondegreen can only be derived from mishearing a song, a poem, a prayer – an oral performance of some sort. It’s evident from Wright’s essay that for her, though mondegreens may arise in that way, that’s not always the case. For example, she identifies “Pay Treats Day” (instead of “Patriots’ Day”) as a mondegreen, although it is simply the result of mishearing what people say or of people misspeaking. I will leave to others the quibbling over whether an expression like “Pay Treats Day” is a mondegreen or actually an “eggcorn.” (See, for example, “Wedding Vowels”, “Tongue and Cheek” and Other Eggcorns in the <a href="https://wordhistories.net/2018/03/07/eggcorn-origin/"><i>word histories</i> blog</a>.)</p><p>Wright’s assertion that mondegreens must surpass the actual wording is probably best not applied with any rigor. Fruitless debate will ensue if we go down that road. </p><p>That I had never heard the word is puzzling. Identifying mondegreens is clearly a favorite past-time of many as any web search will reveal. The array of very funny mondegreens from pop songs appears endless. I’ll close this entry with one of my wife’s mondegreens. John Lennon's So This Is Christmas has the following refrain:</p><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>A very merry Christmas<br />And a happy New Year<br />Let's hope it's a good one<br />Without any fear.</blockquote></div><p style="text-align: left;">She always heard it as: "Without any beer."</p><p><i>Semordnilap</i></p><p>This is not a word that I like, though the concept behind it is rather novel. My introduction to the word was in a recent <i>New York Times</i> crossword puzzle (March 18, 2023) constructed by Ada Nicolle. A long down answer was making no sense even as I filled in many answers to the cross clues. The clue to this unknown entry was: “Words that form other words when read backward.” Finally, I completed the crosses and had “semordnilap” as the answer. What??</p><p>I had to turn to blogger Rex Parker for the explanation. In always entertaining but occasionally annoying posts, he dissects the <i>Times</i> puzzle of the day. In the post for this puzzle, he explained that the word in question is “palindromes” spelled backward. (<i><a href="https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2023/03/response-to-thumb-biting-in-romeo-and.html">Rex Parker Does The NY Times Crossword Puzzle</a></i>, March 18, 2023). Goes without saying (but I will anyway), palindromes are words or expressions that are unchanged whether spelled forward or backward, to wit, the puzzle’s constructor’s first name is a palindrome: Ada. So is “Madam, I’m Adam.” </p><p>Rex expressed great frustration with “semordnilap”: “So . . . I liked the ‘aha’ moment and I liked learning a new *concept* but man I hate this word and also it is 100% obscure, if ever a word was obscure.” I agree with Rex. Not only obscure, it’s unpronounceable.</p><p>Still the word describes an interesting concept which poses an intriguing challenge. Can I come up with words (or expressions) to which the word would apply? Some initial offerings are: god (dog), star (rats), live (evil), part (trap), tuba (abut), and desserts (stressed). So far, I've been unable to compose an expression or sentence that would qualify.</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-85345835519428121772023-02-27T11:53:00.003-05:002023-02-27T14:03:35.826-05:00An Infinity of Wonder and Beauty - Review of An Immense World<p> One summer night in his bungalow on the Maine coast, as Vincent Dethier lay in bed, he became aware of a presence in the darkness. It was hinted at by only the slightest sounds, and perhaps a stirring in the air. This signaled, he surmised, that a brown bat had made the bungalow its summer home and was now engaged in an aerial battle with a moth. The bat hunted, probing the darkness with ultrasound, listening to and deciphering the returning echoes, while the moth, registering the sound, might abruptly shift course to evade the predator. To Dethier, an entomologist, the experience was profound:</p><p></p><blockquote>To realize that a whole world of life and death is being enacted before a person’s eyes and he cannot see it, and around his ears, and he cannot hear it is to diminish whatever feelings of superiority and arrogance one may have. It is to feel humble in the knowledge that there are other worlds and other perceptions. It is to appreciate that we are surrounded with an infinity of wonder and beauty. (<i>The Ecology of a Summer House</i>, 1984, p. 39-40.)</blockquote><p></p><p>That knowledge of other animal worlds, captured in the concept of <i>Umwelt</i>, is the focus and core of science writer Ed Yong’s masterful new book, <i>An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us</i> (2022).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10J0ip1mEPllgG89vIeXSOZBHZTp1MnqpCRqCH48Cc1oUbfqo-J8UQ9DL6knJGN1KotuCTO_EaCEK6uGTvxNzsqkteYhr1RjjahTOBO4eNM25rnD2Q7OIbSKJXluKOuchZYnBWhag_HtszOm6s5SQtprPeFoe_D6klw-_hcrXloMGUjY6z2mfB2zKrA/s600/An%20Immense%20World%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="410" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10J0ip1mEPllgG89vIeXSOZBHZTp1MnqpCRqCH48Cc1oUbfqo-J8UQ9DL6knJGN1KotuCTO_EaCEK6uGTvxNzsqkteYhr1RjjahTOBO4eNM25rnD2Q7OIbSKJXluKOuchZYnBWhag_HtszOm6s5SQtprPeFoe_D6klw-_hcrXloMGUjY6z2mfB2zKrA/w274-h400/An%20Immense%20World%20cover.jpg" width="274" /></a></div><p>As Yong writes, zoologist Jakob von Uexküll first used the word Umwelt in 1909 to define that part of an animal’s environment it “can sense and experience — its <i>perceptual</i> world.” (p. 5) Yong explores what science can tell us about the worlds that different animals perceive, and the senses they employ to map, navigate, and survive in those worlds. Put aside the notion of just the traditional five senses being the portals through which animals understand their worlds, or a similarly limited number of stimuli that animals have evolved to register, respond to, and employ. The overarching world in which we and all other animals live contains each of those perceptual worlds, but no animal perceives them all. Different groups of animals are at home in one or more of these worlds in markedly different ways and degrees. Our challenge is to move beyond the limitations of how we humans engage in the world and stretch our understanding to catch a glimmer of those perceptual worlds alien to us, in order to better understand the one world in which we and all other animals live.</p><p>There is an urgency, Yong writes, to gaining that understanding and acting on it before human-generated environmental changes – such as light pollution and noise pollution – render entire perceptual worlds barely habitable or, indeed, uninhabitable for their denizens.</p><p>Our journey in the book is through several different kinds of perceptual worlds accessible through specific senses. I came away with a set of critical guideposts that helped me appreciate, though, perhaps, not understand, the worlds Yong was exploring for me. He writes, “The first step to understanding another animal’s Umwelt is to understand what it uses its senses <i>for</i>.” (p. 61) Essential to that effort is an appreciation that the world in which we all live is full of “invisible currents of information that flow around us, and which animals can detect with the right sensory equipment." (p. 173) Further, we must recognize that all animals are engaged in an evolutionary balancing act – strengthening any particular sense in any particular way carries a cost. Writ large, an animal’s resources are finite and, so, what is gained to enhance survival is often compensated for by something lost. Further, given that the overarching world is dynamic, change is the watchword and every animal group’s Umwelt can remain static only at its peril. Finally, we humans must recognize that our particular Umwelt prejudices us in favor of those senses at which we excel – sight in particular – and limits our ability to understand, intuitively or otherwise, another animal’s perceptual world. There is no hierarchy of superior and inferior Umwelten, just different ones. A heady brew of insights, indeed.</p><p>Yong devotes chapters of the book to the sensing of smell and taste, light, color, pain, heat, contact and flow, surface vibrations, sound, echoes, electrical fields, and magnetic fields. The reality of the senses across the animal kingdom is staggering. Consider just a single aspect: where the organs or cells that work on the traditional ones might appear. Eyes are not just for heads, but adorn the inner edges of a scallop’s shells and are on each of a starfish’s five arms; ears can be found on the joints of certain insects, the abdomens of others, the mouths of still others and on antennae; smell is helped by the tongues of snakes and lizards; some insects taste with their feet and legs. Clearly, this affects how those senses work and what they perceive.</p><p>The book is replete with amazing examples of the ways animals understand and live in their Umwelten. Consider the tiny treehopper which uses its abdomen to vibrate the surface of plants to generate myriad sounds, some deep throated and others shrill, to communicate (the young to tell mom they perceive a threat, adults to call a group together, adults to find mates). These sounds are generally inaudible to us but not to others in the taxon. When insects that vibrate plant surfaces to communicate gather together, the cacophony must be impressive. Or consider the whiskers of harbor seals that stand up from the animal’s nose and eyebrows. These are sensitive sensory organs that are touched by the wakes left by objects moving through water. This hydrodynamic touch sense is fine tuned to follow a wake with great precision. Harbor seals in the wild will lie in wait, their whiskers able to signal not only when a fish swims past but its size as well. As Yong observes, our own sense of touch is tied to the present, but the seal’s whiskers which respond to the touch of the wake capture the recent past.</p><p>One sense that resonated (pun intended) with me in particular was echolocation as practiced by bats and dolphins. Echolocation differs from the other senses because it’s adding to the environment and using the response to that added energy to define a perceptual world. For the bat, this sense poses a host of significant challenges – outgoing sounds need to be distinguished from incoming echoes, it must protect its ears from the deafening volume of the ultrasonic calls it emits, the interplay of call and response occurs while bat and prey are on the move – and bats have evolved different mechanisms and behaviors to cope with the complexity of those challenges.</p><p>Actually, air is a rather poor medium for echolocation because sound loses energy quickly in it and so this sense can define the contours of a perceptual world only over a short distance. In contrast, water is an excellent medium for sound conduction and dolphins take full advantage of that. Indeed, sound retains enough energy as it travels through water that dolphins use echolocation to probe <i>inside</i> of objects. Animals’ skeletons because perceptible to them as do fish swim bladders, allowing a dolphin to distinguish among potential prey.</p><p>At the same time, evolution has fueled responses to the powerful echolocation sense. Although most insects are deaf, some, including half of moth species, have ultrasonic hearing, an ability that appeared in the insect world after bats came on the scene, perhaps some 65 million years ago. Thus, a moth might well hear a bat’s outgoing call and take evasive action before the echo reaches the predator’s ears. Other moths have evolved the ability to make ultrasonic clicks, potentially confusing bats. Still others evolved long, elaborate tails, incredibly beautiful to the human eye, but misleading to the echolocating bat who may well interpret returning echoes as describing a much larger prey. The attacker may come away with a mouth full of moth tail while the insect survives to carry on its kind.</p><p>Yong’s prose is graceful, carrying the reader along easily in this journey of exploration. That he has mastered an immense world of information and anecdote is abundantly clear. I must acknowledge that the cumulative effect of being exposed to these multiple perceptual worlds can be overwhelming, leaving a reader (well, <i>this</i> reader) mostly intuiting what is there, and not understanding it in any meaningful way. That may be unavoidable in a work of this depth and breadth. Despite that, I suspect I am now more open to the incredible diversity of the perceptual worlds around me whether I can understand them or not. (On a very immediate level, this has added a new dimension to my appreciation of the two cats currently sharing our house.)</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-83707485519428165152023-01-28T14:01:00.006-05:002023-01-28T21:31:25.118-05:00Phosphorus, Brachiopods, and Fate: A Story Marred in the Retelling<p><i>In her newspaper column, the popular science writer paints a bold and exciting picture of the role of phosphorus on evolution in deep time. She draws on a new scientific opinion piece by two paleontologists. This post describes how I think the columnist gets it wrong.</i></p><p>Phosphorus had been on my mind. Number 15 on the periodic table, the element is volatile, toxic, and essential. Prone to explosions, it’s frequently found under the “control” of calcium in the form of phosphate rock (Ca3(PO4)2). “In what is perhaps the most disgusting method of discovering an element, phosphorus was first isolated in 1669 by Hennig Brand, a German physician and alchemist, by boiling, filtering and otherwise processing as many as 60 buckets of urine.” (<a href="https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele015.html">Jefferson Lab website</a>, U.S. Department of Energy.)</p><p>One of my most recent encounters with this element was in <i><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81406219">Enola Holmes 2</a></i> on Netflix, the second movie in the mystery series and, though this outing is not quite up to the standard set by the first, it’s still fun. (Millie Bobby Brown breaks the fourth wall with the best of them.) The dire situation of “match girls” working in a London match factory in 1888 prompts the action of the movie. The “strike anywhere” matches they made had tips coated in a mixture that contained white phosphorus, a highly unstable allotrope of the element. Exposure to the fumes from the mixture wreaked havoc on the workers’ health. (Lowell J. Satre, After the Match Girls' Strike: Bryant and May in the 1890s, <i><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3827491">Victorian Studies</a></i>, Autumn, 1982, Vol. 26, No. 1.)</p><p>I’ve since learned that today’s safety (“strike on box”) matches use red phosphorus, a more stable allotrope, and that the element is not in the match tip, but embedded in the rough box sides. The heat from the friction created by drawing the match across the box side converts the red to white phosphorus which combusts when exposed to air, igniting the match head. (Match, <i><a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/match-tinder">Encyclopedia Britannica</a></i>, accessed January 23, 2023.) (Clearly, when I learn something new, I feel the need to share.)</p><p>So I was primed when I came across a column by science writer Natalie Angier about the hypothesis newly advanced by paleontologists Petr Kraft and Michal Mergl. Angier’s piece, titled The Sad Fate of the Ancient, Well-Shelled Mariners (<i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/science/phosphate-paleontology-biology.html">The New York Times</a></i>, November 4, 2022, online version), describes in dramatic terms the scientists’ contention that the availability of phosphorus in the Paleozoic Era (roughly 541 to 252 million years ago, encompassing the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian Periods) played a critical role in the evolution of invertebrate organisms utilizing phosphorus to build their shells. She focuses on brachiopods. Their fate, in Angier’s account, hinged on the availability of phosphorus. In the Cambrian, a surfeit of phosphorus gave rise to hard phosphatic shells. Come the Devonian, a diminished supply of phosphorus doomed these shell builders to extinction.</p><p>Early in her column, Angier writes: </p><p></p><blockquote><p>As researchers recently proposed in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, the collapse of the brachiopod empire exemplifies a struggle that has defined life from the start: the quest for phosphorus.</p><p></p></blockquote><p>And the brachiopods lost out in that quest with the rise of vertebrates making judicious use of phosphorus in fashioning their skeletons.</p><p>She concludes her piece with:</p><p></p><blockquote>“It’s a big advantage to have these [phosphatic] shells,” Dr. Kraft said. By comparison, the shell of a modern mollusk, made of calcium carbonate, cracks easily beneath a beachcomber’s feet. But as the seas grew crowded and bony fishes appeared, phosphate supplies dwindled, and brachiopods could no longer freely scavenge what they needed to construct their expensive housing. Bony fishes were judicious in their use of phosphate as a building material: their teeth, a few parts of the skeleton, and that was it. And being mobile, fish could trap whatever phosphate and other nutrients filtered down from land to sea, before they reached the lumbering hard shells below.</blockquote><p></p><p>This, at least, is the story she tells and attributes to Kraft and Mergl.</p><p>But is that the story the paleontologists actually told in their paper titled Struggle for Phosphorus and the Devonian Overturn (<i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169534722000623">Trends in Ecology & Evolution</a></i>, Volume 37, Issue 8, August, 2022, residing behind a paywall)? Broadly speaking, that’s mostly correct but it’s certainly not when it comes to claims of collapse of the brachiopod “empire.” The arguments advanced by the scientists in that regard are carefully nuanced, not so Angier’s retelling.</p><p>My focus is specifically on their and her treatment of brachiopods, a taxon about which I know a bit. Brachiopods are invertebrates whose shells suggest mollusks, though their internal physiological structures are quite different. (Also, brachiopod shells are singly symmetrical, that is, each half of a shell matches the other half. In contrast, mollusk shells are not necessarily symmetrical individually, but a mollusk’s two shells are mirror images of each other.) Brachiopods were particularly abundant during certain periods of the Paleozoic Era, but relatively few genera have managed to survive to the present.</p><p>At the risk of committing interpretative errors on a par with those of Angier, it’s important to summarize what I think are the salient points that Kraft and Mergl make in their paper. They begin by asserting that phosphorus is a critical “limiting” element for biological processes. In living organisms, phosphorus is a component of DNA and RNA, of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the energy source for living cells, and of cell membranes. (It strikes me that our so-called “carbon-based” life forms might just as well be considered “phosphorus-based.”) In vertebrates, phosphorus is used in forming skeletons.</p><p>They note that biomineralization of shells utilizes one of three types of minerals: calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, or silicon dioxide. A core hypothesis they put forward is that, during the Paleozoic Era, fluctuations in the availability and biological uses of phosphorus directly influenced the evolutionary fate of certain shell-building taxa. Because phosphorus was so abundant in the early Cambrian, they assert, many taxa arose that built their shells out of calcium phosphate. It was “the golden age of phosphatic shells of the groups that produced them.” Among the groups they identify in particular creating such cells are linguliform brachiopods, tommotids, and hydrozoans. (As already noted, my interest is in the treatment of brachiopods, not the others about which I know little.)</p><p>During the Ordovician, organisms profligate in their use of phosphorus in shell building were at a disadvantage as availability of the element declined. This was compounded, the scientists posit, by increased use of phosphorus in cells. Linguliform brachiopods suffered and went into general decline. In the latter part of the Ordovician and in the Silurian, phosphorus was more readily available, but the Devonian saw another marked reduction, particularly, they argue, because of a “key factor:” the rise of vertebrates drawing significantly on phosphorus for skeleton building, sealing the fate of many phosphatic shell builders. “They were victims of a combination of circumstances in the long-term trend of phosphorus availability.”</p><p>It's quite a provocative hypothesis, one that mostly removes the decline of invertebrates using calcium phosphate to build shells from the overall impact of the three mass extinctions that punctuated the Paleozoic (end-Ordovician, end-Devonian, and the largest of all mass extinctions, the end-Permian). Kraft and Mergl argue that many builders of phosphatic shells went into decline in the interims between the mass extinctions.</p><p>It's also a very neat hypothesis whose arguments, if not read and interpreted carefully, I fear may reduce a very complex set of interacting factors to a relatively simple horse race with a set of winners and a set of losers, and a single cause, the relative abundance and uses of phosphorus. The temptation to strip away any complexity and nuance from Kraft and Mergl’s opinion piece is one that Natalie Angier gives into in her <i>New York Times</i> column. In it she fails to heed a key limitation that the scientists imposed on their claim for the impact on brachiopods of changes in the availability of phosphorus.</p><p>The Brachiopoda phylum (brachiopod “empire” as Angier characterizes it) did not collapse because of vertebrates’ increase utilization of phosphorus. Kraft and Mergl did <i>not</i> make that claim. Rather, they identified linguliform brachiopods as among the groups that, in particular, used phosphorus to craft their shells, and that this specific group of brachiopods suffered as the relative supply of phosphorus diminished, possibly due to greater use by vertebrates.</p><p>Bear in mind that the Brachiopod phylum was (and is) made up of taxa whose shells were composed of calcium phosphate <i>and</i> taxa with calcium carbonate shells. So, at a minimum, reduction in the supply of phosphorus wouldn’t affect the latter. Further, the origins of the brachiopods with calcium carbonate shells stretches far back into the early Cambrian when, apparently, phosphorus was abundant. (Sandra J. Carlson, The Evolution of the Brachiopoda, <i><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-earth-060115-012348">The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences</a></i>, Volume 44, 2016, p. 424.) Thus, some brachiopods, very early on, were uninfluenced by the supply of phosphorus. </p><p>The linguliform brachiopods that Kraft and Mergl cite specifically had inarticulated shells (no tooth and socket hinge) that were, yes, exclusively phosphatic in nature. They did indeed decline during the Ordovician. But that didn’t seal the fate of entire brachiopod empire because the articulated brachiopods (those with tooth and socket hinges), bearing calcium carbonate shells, flourished. Of all known extinct and extant genera, 95 percent are articulated brachiopods. So, the Ordovician and later seas were not, as Angier seemingly would have it, somehow bereft of brachiopods. Instead, the balance in the brachiopod world seemingly had shifted to the articulated taxa which were less reliant on phosphorus.</p><p>For that matter, when is it thought that the brachiopod empire actually did collapse? The end-Permian extinction event is the key. The brachiopod kingdom went into serious decline toward the end of Permian. (Decline does not equate to disappearance since brachiopods are still with us, including some members of the Linguliformea subphylum, builders of calcium phosphate shells.) Paleontologist Douglas H. Erwin notes, “About 90% of brachiopod families and genera disappeared between the mid-Permian and the Early Triassic.” (<i>Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago</i>, 2006, p. 108.)</p><p>To belabor the point even further, I turn to a paper by Stephen Jay Gould and C. Bradford Calloway which challenged the once popular argument that brachiopods faded into relative obscurity while mollusk bivalves (specifically, clams) rose to prominence because the former failed to compete successfully. (Phosphorus doesn’t play any role in this scenario.) They tabulated the number of genera of brachiopods and clams found across a range of time intervals, beginning in the lower Cambrian. (Clams and Brachiopods – Ships That Pass in the Night, <i><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/paleobiology/article/abs/clams-and-brachiopodsships-that-pass-in-the-night/D9C48C21DB46EB259B1986FDBD54BE19">Paleobiology</a></i>, Volume 6, Number 4, 1980.) They found:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The famous pattern of Paleozoic domination by brachiopods followed by a later hegemony of clams arises as a result of one incident: the Permian extinction. Brachiopods exceed clams throughout the Paleozoic. The Permian event then affects brachiopods far more strongly than clams. Both groups decline, but clams much less so, and the earliest Triassic stage finds clams ahead, a status they have never relinquished. (p. 386)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Exploration of the causes of the end-Permian mass extinction is beyond the scope of this post, but nothing in my reading on the subject implicates phosphorus.</p><p>Here’s my take on the hypothesis advanced by Kraft and Mergl. Frankly, I don’t see any room for the dramatic struggle that Angier depicts in her article which is, I think, misplaced, failing to acknowledge that brachiopods did not fade into obscurity because of a change in the availability of phosphorus. In my opinion, the soundest takeaway from the Kraft and Mergl hypothesis is that fluctuation in the availability of phosphorus may well have <i>influenced</i> how evolution proceeded with regard to shell building. An abundant supply in the Cambrian may have enabled many inarticulated brachiopods with their calcium phosphate shells to flourish, and they may have suffered as the supply of phosphorus decreased, but they never went away. Not as exciting or newsworthy I guess.</p><p>A couple of final points. The hypothesis being put forward by Kraft and Mergl isn’t really new. As early as 1984, paleontologists Peter J. Cook and John H. Shergold posited that an abundance of phosphorus across the late Precambrian and early Cambrian may have given rise to a shelled fauna utilizing calcium phosphate as the building material. (Phosphorus, Phosphorites, and Skeletal Evolution at the Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary, <i><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/308231a0">Nature</a></i>, Volume 308, March 15, 1984.) They are cited by Kraft and Mergl in a footnote.</p><p>Another aspect of Angier’s column I found rather confusing. The print and online versions are illustrated with a photograph of an assemblage of fossils whose caption points specifically to one from the <i>Leptaena</i> genus of brachiopods. I won’t violate copyright law and reproduce that photograph here. Instead, here is a picture of a portion (about 20 mm across) of a <i>Leptaena</i> brachiopod from my fossil collection. It's on a piece of limestone from the Brookville Formation (Indiana), Late Ordovician in age.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigN-6pYSJIwKv_970b7NLHRIytMGqYIiNG43E4G8GrqiZ7v2e36Imo0o1hfSSOQot2ogxgFGSCwZasZGgvBT8Rj_axnwHYCT1e3TdCtYrayffJT2jgUBdeZ3VKANFbRIYjHnnlwohfPFnVtzX3o_elC9uqfvTjDAk1zykDxh3aHarzggAn6MPldz-0ag/s600/Leptaena%20Upper%20Ordovician%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="459" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigN-6pYSJIwKv_970b7NLHRIytMGqYIiNG43E4G8GrqiZ7v2e36Imo0o1hfSSOQot2ogxgFGSCwZasZGgvBT8Rj_axnwHYCT1e3TdCtYrayffJT2jgUBdeZ3VKANFbRIYjHnnlwohfPFnVtzX3o_elC9uqfvTjDAk1zykDxh3aHarzggAn6MPldz-0ag/s320/Leptaena%20Upper%20Ordovician%20for%20blog.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><p>So, why, I wonder, would a brachiopod from this genus be used in Angier’s column, given that this is an articulated brachiopod whose shell is made of <i>calcium carbonate</i>?</p><p><br /></p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-85274451298094412812022-12-27T17:08:00.000-05:002022-12-27T17:08:57.820-05:00Fossil Hunt Diary<p>The format and illustrations of this post were inspired by “Metropolitan Diary,” a feature of the <i>New York Times</i> that runs each Sunday. I love this weekly column which, over the years, has spoken to me in myriad ways, often prompting laughter, and, on occasion, tears. It offers five brief, true stories written by <i>Times</i> readers about life in New York City. These miniature essays, recounting some specific experience, capture the urban existence in tiny prose gems. The five stories in this past Sunday’s (December 25, 2022) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/25/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html">column</a>, were selected by readers as the best of 2022. They are quite wonderful. Still, I was disappointed that one of my favorites from 2022, written by Sharyn Wolf and titled Rock, Rock, Rock (included in the December 18, 2022 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/18/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html">column</a>), failed to make the cut. That one begins:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>“Rock, rock, rock,” I heard a voice repeating. “Rock, rock, rock”</p><p>I was walking up a trail into the ramble in Central Park when I came upon the voice’s owner: a tall, slender man with a twist of silver hair over one eye.</p><p>I waited, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was that he was doing.</p><p>“Rock, rock, rock,” he said again in a monotone. “Rock, rock, rock.”</p></blockquote>The explanation that Wolf provides in the ensuing three short paragraphs is unexpected and delightfully funny.<br /><p>These wee tales are hard to resist and their appeal has been enhanced over the past five years with deceptively simple drawings by artist <a href="https://ahjlee.com/">Agnes Lee</a>. These appealing illustrations have a timeless quality to them. <a href="https://open.nytimes.com/what-the-new-york-times-metropolitan-diary-taught-its-illustrator-about-new-york-195686a4852d"> Lee has written</a> about her arrival in New York City and the process she follows preparing these drawings. Though she is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/25/nyregion/agnes-lee-metropolitan-diary.html">now leaving</a> the city for the West Coast, her artwork will continue to grace “Metropolitan Diary.”</p><p>The story which follows is somewhat modeled on the <i>Times</i> column; it includes two of my illustrations influenced by Agnes Lee's.</p><p>Some further context is needed. The setting is Purse State Park, a tree-lined Paleocene site on the Maryland shore of the Potomac River about which I’ve <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2009/08/fossil-hunt-in-historical-context.html">previously posted</a>. The man named Mel featured in this account was a committed, consummate fossil collector who was a mainstay in a fossil club to which I still belong. A wonderful person, he has since passed away.</p><p>Here then is my fossil hunt diary entry:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Several days after joining a fossil club and attending my first meeting, I was hunting fossils at Purse State Park, wandering somewhat aimlessly and unproductively along the deserted shoreline. I struggled to climb over, or around, the fallen trees lying in the water.</i></p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfpsoslclBxJwSd9Grk9I0D_qRGaKJWVvFousKxuWIu_RRzE8vU43JkGKbjWi_JmBURBRksNkvP8pr7r2hKcol0TzazM_0bNAFzFlTG5cXhMTy3_FKNEOnBB-K4-qvYSwteINuwYplETFkl2bXt1pJvW75llsKxDvsUwNOUACVFGWgJ4nSrwFtzu3rVw/s600/Purse%20for%20blog%20take%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="600" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfpsoslclBxJwSd9Grk9I0D_qRGaKJWVvFousKxuWIu_RRzE8vU43JkGKbjWi_JmBURBRksNkvP8pr7r2hKcol0TzazM_0bNAFzFlTG5cXhMTy3_FKNEOnBB-K4-qvYSwteINuwYplETFkl2bXt1pJvW75llsKxDvsUwNOUACVFGWgJ4nSrwFtzu3rVw/w400-h309/Purse%20for%20blog%20take%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>I had no idea what I was doing.</i></p><p><i>Suddenly, though, I spotted something in the water at my feet. I reached down and picked it up: a beautiful fossil shark tooth. What kind was it? As I stood there puzzling over my find, a voice startled me.</i></p><p><i>“Hey, what do you have there?”</i></p><p><i>I turned around and there was Mel, whom I'd met at the club meeting.</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>I extended my hand to show him the tooth.</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6cQP3K5rBo1Amkk1ePvQjeIAveV4PEA77d8EmuKWyF1iLDXvMuFI-A3DHp_k-3ges80jt_uWEu_3Gm4Po8JllrFgngqFPDgI8JzZErw84OfSLZgcpso1Yq4o4gIckqqd9LedQZLEdtT-5Fd7WXClWCBqEMA4NlZ38_O5NY-XZvoBvlVO0c0JtvgoaA/s480/Otudus%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="405" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6cQP3K5rBo1Amkk1ePvQjeIAveV4PEA77d8EmuKWyF1iLDXvMuFI-A3DHp_k-3ges80jt_uWEu_3Gm4Po8JllrFgngqFPDgI8JzZErw84OfSLZgcpso1Yq4o4gIckqqd9LedQZLEdtT-5Fd7WXClWCBqEMA4NlZ38_O5NY-XZvoBvlVO0c0JtvgoaA/w169-h200/Otudus%20for%20blog.jpg" width="169" /></a></div><i>“Otodus obliquus. Nice one,” he said.</i><p></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>It was at that point that I realized what a truly amazing organization this club is: I go out into the field, find something I'm not sure about, and a club member immediately appears to give me the definitive ID!</i></p></blockquote><div><br /></div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-10208399408554187442022-11-27T10:12:00.001-05:002022-12-01T08:53:34.329-05:00The Color of November<p> In the waning days of November, I cleared out a small area in my front yard. Only then did I consider whether shrubs might be planted so close to the year’s end. I thought that Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd might advise me, so I consulted their lyrical <i>A Year at North Hill: Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden</i> (1996). Landscapers Eck and Winterrowd were introduced in a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2013/11/asters.html">post</a> on asters nearly a decade ago. In their chapter devoted to November, I found no inspiration about what to plant, possibly because that far up in the northern latitudes planting was now out of the question. But I was inspired by Eck and Winterrowd’s characterization of November which prompted this post; I surround myself with a group of wonderful nature writers (and one cartoonist who is an expert on human nature) and see how their views of November might inform my own. (Note: Fossils don’t make an appearance in this post.)</p><p>I’ve come to appreciate that, here in the mid-Atlantic and further north, November is a special month, a transition month like no other in the calendar year. The contrast between what came before and what the latter days of November offer is unique; we move from harvesting summer’s bounty and basking in October’s dramatic colors (the wash of reds, yellows, purples, and oranges in the deciduous trees as they mark the passing of their season of growth) to a time of hunkering down, living more in darkness than light, and often mourning an apparent loss of color in the landscape. The change is quite abrupt and, for many, a depressing taste of a winter to come when a look back, around, and forward offers no relief. Grayness has arrived.</p><p>That is, precisely, what Eck and Winterrowd write of November:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>We could never say about this somber month that it is our favorite in the garden. As the year winds down to its close, gray days occur with greater and greater frequency - not cloudy and not sunny, but simply gray. Gray is also the predominant color of the garden and surrounding woods. Most of the fiery splendor of October has fallen, revealing the great boles of trees and tanged architecture of deciduous shrubs, now an endless play on one monochromatic color. (p. 125.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>So, for these Vermont gardeners, November equals gray. (Though I must admit that perhaps in my area, hundreds of miles south of North Hill, late November may not be quite as gloomy. That will emerge in a bit.)</p><p><i>New Yorker</i> cartoonist Roz Chast agrees with Eck and Winterrowd. Her cartoon titled <i>November</i> in the November 21, 2022, issue of the magazine features three shell-shocked individuals, typical denizens of her cartoons. They are standing on a city sidewalk, mouths agape, hair in frizzy explosion, and arms nervously shaking. They are clothed in well-worn jackets clearly guarding against the cold, and the scene around them is awash in gray.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The first person complains: “It’s only 4:15, but it’s PITCH DARK!”</p><p>The second warns: "Something is seriously amiss."</p><p>The third laments: "It's the end of the world."</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Now that <i>is</i> a truly dire, truly gray view of November, one brought on, of course, by the loss of daylight saving time. But this month, even without that time change, would still be a period of shortening days and lengthening nights. Darkness encroaching steadily.</p><p>Yet it’s not only this transformation from a time of abundance, light, and color to one of grayness that November effects. The month <i>literally</i> provides a degree of profound clarity to our landscape. Writer Verlyn Klinkenborg, from the vantage point of his Vermont farm, captures that truth when he describes November as “this bare month.” That he also shares my sense of the transition we’ve undergone is made plain when he adds: “October’s memory seems a little lurid from the perspective of mid-November.” (The Rural Life: A Private Month, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/opinion/19sun3.html">New York Times</a></i>, November 19, 2006.)</p><p>But this is not the apocalypse, no matter what the Chast cartoon characters might think. That clarity offers a chance to consider changes to your landscape. Eck and Winterrowd write that November has days inviting one outside in the light of a “lowering sun,” “to evaluate plantings that show their structures better for having been stripped, and to make ambitious plans for the spring – what to move and what to order.” (p. 126, 127.)</p><p>The opportunity to view your landscape, or just your garden, as a whole and consider its immediate and long-term future is an integral feature of November, something which triggers very different responses. Planning for action in the spring helps with the transition from fall to winter, and seed catalogues are a tool of choice for this. This is quite passive compared to a more robust embracing of that opportunity to chart the future of the land. Consider what the visionary conservationist and ecologist, Aldo Leopold writes in his seminal book, <i>A Sand County Almanac</i> (1949), about this eleventh month of the year as it plays out on his 80-acre farm in the sand country of central Wisconsin:</p><blockquote><p>November is, for many reasons, the month for the axe. (p. 68.)</p></blockquote><p>Yes, he, too, sees November as a month of opportunity with a focus on the trees that, with the loss of their leaves, stand in sharp relief, making it clear where their branches intersect and what the arc of their growth will be. He writes, "Without this clear view of treetops, one cannot be sure which tree, if any needs felling for the good of the land." (p. 68.) Some will obstruct others, some will ultimately destroy others. Given the finality of taking an axe to a tree, Leopold lays out at length how he passes sentence, exploring the various biases that may influence his decisions. Ultimately, he concludes, "The wielder of an axe has as many biases are there are species of trees on his farm." (p. 70) Thus, November to such a wielder of the axe in the landscape is a month of planning, foresight, and being, oh, so, deliberate in this action.</p><p>November also offers an invitation for a different kind of contemplation, for taking a moment from the rush of living to look broadly and closely at the natural world around us, not because we want to change things, but because we move beyond the boundaries of what we might control. As he writes in <i>A Year in the Maine Woods</i> (1994), biologist and naturalist Bernd Heinrich deems November a month for stalking deer. Yet, though he journeys through the month armed with a rifle, rarely is a shot fired, rather he spends his time hiking through the woods on and near his old Maine homestead and farm, or sitting high up in a tree. All the while he’s observing the scene around him, registering the activities of the animals, particularly the birds (his books on birds are wonderful), studying the trees and plants that grace the woods.</p><p>My sense is that, by taking the opportunity in November for a close observation of nature, there comes a leavening of the Chastian dread that accompanies the month’s plunge into grayness. The relief can be subtle, hardly dispelling the gloom, but still there nevertheless. Heinrich captures it well.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>From my perch in a tree, and walks to and from it I see the predominant gray and white tree trunks, and the kaleidoscopic pattern of browns from their fallen leaves. It is a rare event indeed to see a deer on a deer watch, but until I do I enjoy seeing the woods – particularly the stunning display of mosses and lichens that are now an open book. Before, when the canopy was green with leaves, and the ground was covered with herbs and small seedlings, these mosses did not stand out. Now they shine with luminescent brilliance. (p. 136.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>The month can have surprising color. Some of that is reflected in Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals. She, the sister and an inspiration for poet William Wordsworth, is a sensitive observer of nature in the Lake District of England. Her journals are fascinating, mixing accounts of the mundane – who’s visiting whom (poet Samuel Coleridge was a close friend), and who’s ill or recovering – with spellbinding passages describing the natural scene around her. (<i>Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth</i>, 1971.)</p><p>Hers is a gentle view of nature, a positive, upbeat one. At this time of the year, colors are there, though often quite muted. I like the entry for Sunday, November 15, 1801. The image she creates of a landscape seeming at rest is delightful (as are the place names).</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I walked in the morning to Churnmilk Force nearly, and went upon Heifer crags. The valley of its winter yellow, but the bed of the brook still in some places almost shaded with leaves – the oaks brown in general but one that might be almost called green – the whole prospect was very soft and the distant view down the vale very impressive, a long vale down to Ambleside – the hills at Ambleside in mist and sunshine – all else grey. (p. 58.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>There’s the grayness but also some counterbalance to it.</p><p>I am taken by what she writes on Sunday, October 23, 1802, though it’s not an entry for November. I think it merits quoting because she uses a word that so perfectly captures what is happening at this time of year.</p><blockquote><p>It is a breathless grey day that leaves the golden woods of autumn quiet in their own tranquillity, stately and beautiful in their decaying, the lake is a perfect mirror. (p. 162.)</p></blockquote><p><i>Decaying</i>, perhaps that’s the fundamental dynamic at work in how one might come to view the month. This process starts in October, signaled by the burst of colors from the tree leaves, and continues deeply into November. I wonder if it may be less the dullness of the encroaching grayness that worries us, but, rather, the subconscious recognition that this is a time of decay, things dropping away, breaking apart.</p><p>We are conditioned to view the month as monochromatic but, even when writers such as Wordsworth note the grayness, they punctuate their descriptions with notes of other hues. I do think that, in this month, there is brightness and richness, if only you, like Heinrich, are open to it. So, I went in search and found wonderfully sudden splashes of color adorning some of the paths down which I wandered. Particularly striking are deep, robust blood reds. Consider these seed clusters of sumacs (horn or smooth, I don’t know which) that I came upon in <a href="https://montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/brookside-gardens/">Brookside Gardens</a> (a 54-acre site in the public park system of Montgomery County, Maryland):</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_U0Xxyojg7pq-uW9vNE2BSPUXq4zEHkSSWK8i5fqCAt5cQ7J51ef4zykRDGV0V8bDJcFSZzj31C2Jw2PZde-DZBL1BB1aN7l85vV-sXPjFMAcE9diTu8LxbAyjN_pp0qD5V_65LUL0hnfzsHqR8zyiHieruBMgKXZGWGM2kPd9-e6r26u-AP_D2iJDQ/s600/sumac%20berries%20for%20blog%20-%20Copy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="287" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_U0Xxyojg7pq-uW9vNE2BSPUXq4zEHkSSWK8i5fqCAt5cQ7J51ef4zykRDGV0V8bDJcFSZzj31C2Jw2PZde-DZBL1BB1aN7l85vV-sXPjFMAcE9diTu8LxbAyjN_pp0qD5V_65LUL0hnfzsHqR8zyiHieruBMgKXZGWGM2kPd9-e6r26u-AP_D2iJDQ/w306-h640/sumac%20berries%20for%20blog%20-%20Copy.jpg" width="306" /></a></div><br /><p>Or the winterberry bushes outlined with their berries (also at Brookside):</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwKQoBeQf_HvcFNsbpIm7AcXfkalZM5i2_UjwlgBl33jQvs69ac3En6hZixh0wVV3K3yuLh6W1wdJmr-yzOLV2XoJBz3K2-Sjxavyy2jrMBGoy3Z3_ZDEbpPAtEGDpBOW37jugmrancK68wadLdajIQsiW41uqu-2g_0MNruSp5aY8KJOzProI-fMiag/s600/winterberry%20for%20blog%20-%20Copy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwKQoBeQf_HvcFNsbpIm7AcXfkalZM5i2_UjwlgBl33jQvs69ac3En6hZixh0wVV3K3yuLh6W1wdJmr-yzOLV2XoJBz3K2-Sjxavyy2jrMBGoy3Z3_ZDEbpPAtEGDpBOW37jugmrancK68wadLdajIQsiW41uqu-2g_0MNruSp5aY8KJOzProI-fMiag/w640-h480/winterberry%20for%20blog%20-%20Copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Or the Christmassy palette of the St. John’s Wort in my own garden, capped by plump red berries:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-HyDuxaS7ynqKD7mWjgFnMKq6VYHU_ry_7d-Qw8EsVUGCfuwM_EfiGkN8nWTN69tNElOJJSV-Qu-cjaFujj6vLXgO-OldKLvlWgr1kVZpbw65pTpu0I1T_7-5PT6DXgx0xm6dH-Ni4oUGrec4oIQaIZylQkiFpcpnb8dG-kDcTyXJAw7ZEOw_yooZog/s600/st%20johns%20wort%20for%20blog%20-%20Copy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="600" height="584" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-HyDuxaS7ynqKD7mWjgFnMKq6VYHU_ry_7d-Qw8EsVUGCfuwM_EfiGkN8nWTN69tNElOJJSV-Qu-cjaFujj6vLXgO-OldKLvlWgr1kVZpbw65pTpu0I1T_7-5PT6DXgx0xm6dH-Ni4oUGrec4oIQaIZylQkiFpcpnb8dG-kDcTyXJAw7ZEOw_yooZog/w640-h584/st%20johns%20wort%20for%20blog%20-%20Copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Though November marks a fundamental transition from abundant growth to a time of decay, it offers more than just despairing grays. It’s also a month of clarity, offering the chance of taking stock and looking forward. It invites a closer look at the landscape and the chance to be moved by unexpected bursts of color. There’s certainly enough here to keep one moving forward.</p><div><br /></div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-61760409034566624312022-10-29T11:19:00.002-04:002022-11-19T15:26:55.267-05:00On A Piece of Jurassic Basalt<p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Sliding down upon the slide</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Seems like it never ends</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">When we get to the other side</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Maybe then we'll make amends</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">It's the end of time</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">The end of time</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Can you feel it?</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Can you feel it?</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">It's the end of the line</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">It's the end of time</div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Lindsey Buckingham</div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">End of Time on the album <i>Seeds We Sow</i> (2011)</div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>Is there a limit to how much significance a person can ascribe to an inanimate object? I’m certainly guilty of overthinking nearly everything and may be particularly guilty of that when it comes to the small chunk of nearly 200-million-year-old basalt, collected from a site in Hartford, Connecticut, which sits on a bookshelf next to my desk. I see this rock as a symbol and a warning.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgBrOVg3zXId4eYGE8ugUqJrQxn9z_w2EeSIK9f08NGlQpWhBmOC6DIy6azhr1ijyiMJS-DGaVJPjEnnGRvDub9gy1qeylaNEj5HZUKyipaSfJSkcX85VYZcll3aV7WLRrHrYNbtg4ZIJ33JIeQr2CVLLpk2o6_Wgfy-jBQFLfHx7cruTjtfVIgLzxA/s600/piece%20of%20Holyoke%20Basalt%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgBrOVg3zXId4eYGE8ugUqJrQxn9z_w2EeSIK9f08NGlQpWhBmOC6DIy6azhr1ijyiMJS-DGaVJPjEnnGRvDub9gy1qeylaNEj5HZUKyipaSfJSkcX85VYZcll3aV7WLRrHrYNbtg4ZIJ33JIeQr2CVLLpk2o6_Wgfy-jBQFLfHx7cruTjtfVIgLzxA/w358-h400/piece%20of%20Holyoke%20Basalt%20for%20blog.jpg" width="358" /></a></div><p>I collected it and a few other pieces of basalt about a decade ago, and wrote about them in a <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-mother-in-law-asks-question.html">post</a> prompted by a visit to my mother-in-law whose retirement community was seated on top of a basalt ridge. That post placed the basalt somewhat in context but, in retrospect, I did not do it justice, missing much of the meaning. This post paints a fuller and necessarily much darker picture.</p><p>The solidity, dullness, and quiescence of this rock belie its explosive and destructive history. I believe this is Jurassic Holyoke basalt, part of “one of the world’s largest basalt flows” which created a lava lake that took a century to cool. (Philpotts, 2012; Philpotts, 2010. Full citations are provided in the References section at the end of this post.) Holyoke basalt is dated to an estimated 199.3 million years ago (plus or minus 0.6 million years), meaning it formed just about at, or shortly after, the beginning of the Jurassic Period (201.3 to 145.0 million years ago). (Marzoli, 2011, Figure 2.) This was essentially just a <i>geological minute</i> after the end of the Triassic Period (251.902 to 201.3 million years ago) which went out with a mass extinction that consumed some three-fourths of animal life on Earth. So, though I cannot directly implicate this rock in that extinction event, one of the big five massive ones upon which there is general scientific agreement, I think it’s part and parcel of a series of volcanic events that straddled the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods and which did the deed.</p><p>Basalt, an extrusive igneous rock, is formed from magma flowing onto the planet’s surface as lava from volcanoes or volcanic fissures. Despite being the most prevalent igneous rock, nearly all of it is out of sight, constituting the central component of ocean floors. Most telling for this post, its volcanic origins link it to some of the most extensive animal extinctions on Earth.</p><p>Mass extinctions hold a morbid fascination; they’re car wrecks I cannot turn away from, largely because I see ourselves in one. We humans have initiated our own global wreck from which none of us will escape unscathed. I don’t think that’s a too pessimistic or too alarmist point of view. Whether we’re in the beginning of the sixth mass extinction animal life has experienced on this planet or not may be mostly a matter of semantics. Even if we’re not, something wicked this way comes and, indeed, has entered the building. (There are those who argue that, until we’ve actually passed the tipping point and there’s no way of turning back, we’re not in a mass extinction. Something of a distinction without a difference, I think.)</p><p>For several of the planet’s previous mass extinctions, it would seem that massive amounts of basalt are compelling clues as to a probable cause. As Peter Brannen, in his <i>The Ends of the World</i>, writes</p><blockquote><p>The three biggest mass extinctions in the past 300 million years are all associated with giant floods of lava on a continental scale – the sorts of eruptions that beggar the imagination. . . . In these rare eruptive cataclysms the atmosphere becomes supercharged with volcanic carbon dioxide, and during the worst mass extinctions of all time [the End-Permian mass extinction], the planet was rendered a hellish, rotting sepulcher, with hot acidifying oceans starved of oxygen. (Brannen, p. 4.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Not a pretty or encouraging picture, particularly given what we’re doing right now - pouring massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (Note that the 300-million-year period Brannen mentions here covers the last three mass extinctions: End-Permian, End-Triassic, and End-Cretaceous. The inclusion of the last might cause some agita for those who attribute that extinction solely to a collision of a bolide with Earth. Brannen is quite interesting on that score.)</p><p>Over the years, I’ve read several popular books on mass extinctions and Brannen’s is certainly an excellent treatment of the subject. How could it not be? The superb science writer and paleontologist Steve Brusatte wrote recently that this book is “the best pop-science book on mass extinctions,” and, he goes on to assert, Brannen “is one of the finest science writers working today, and his earth science writing is on par with my favorite all-time geologizing author, John McPhee.” (Brusatte, 2022, p. 145.)</p><p>Basalt formations figure prominently in Brannen’s account of the End-Triassic mass extinction for good reason. Not only are they signs of the volcanic havoc that occurred at the time, but they are very accessible in North America. He recounts his exploration of the Palisades basalt cliffs in New Jersey with the eminent paleontologist Paul Olsen and, so, sees up close and personal “the continental flood basalt that wiped out the Triassic world.” (Brannen, 2017, p. 153.)</p><p>What’s the relationship of my bit of basalt to the events that doomed the Triassic world? The following two maps orient the formation from which I collected this basalt. Its history also helps to place it in proper context. The first map is a small portion of the 1985 <i><a href="http://cteco.uconn.edu/maps/state/Bedrock_Geologic_Map_of_Connecticut.pdf">Bedrock Geological Map of Connecticut</a></i> prepared by the Connecticut Geological and Natural History Survey to which I’ve added an arrow (located in a slightly different place than it was in my earlier post) pointing to the location of where my basalt was collected (on the edge of Cedar Mountain). The reddish orange area on the map (labeled Jho) marks Jurassic Holyoke basalt. As already noted, this basalt is dated just after the end of the Triassic.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2HCdsNEPGa6owHrW5rWHG3a2BA64eR1HTBFj8Ns6jJqNxP0NhwRlrxRSVq_koNJjO8a5jL_QfO481V-6ikXq_x9_C7ZC4QCJnhfZleg-ulZlsV54FNXpcbxiY85QIjx_unaC_OTSgfE6EiXHdY11MooktqPmvNmqWd5f58TkZTx9bIrlHwVzS016spQ/s810/Geologic%20map%20showing%20Cedar%20Mt%20and%20basalt%20site.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="544" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2HCdsNEPGa6owHrW5rWHG3a2BA64eR1HTBFj8Ns6jJqNxP0NhwRlrxRSVq_koNJjO8a5jL_QfO481V-6ikXq_x9_C7ZC4QCJnhfZleg-ulZlsV54FNXpcbxiY85QIjx_unaC_OTSgfE6EiXHdY11MooktqPmvNmqWd5f58TkZTx9bIrlHwVzS016spQ/w269-h400/Geologic%20map%20showing%20Cedar%20Mt%20and%20basalt%20site.gif" width="269" /></a></div><p>This second map is from <i>Trap Rock Ridges of Connecticut </i>and provides a close-up look at the igneous features of Connecticut’s Central Valley (part of the Hartford Basin). (Lewis, 2013, Figure 5.) The little brownish line numbered 6 is Cedar Mountain.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAX9OCLT81IvHMHLU-HVGcIKx9BLbEM3ilz-INwfqYZExUQw9WHKQCuFZygY0LSPn8GCwMf-8Ic-McPJsmTLq-kVVAQwSnavbBsLpVtz91qW1Ho0yFAr5Fpo7fbW0OgiAag9e12DyGaZlDtV9Fs1vomxz1iBH7kCNZjuRiqKlvSJBYGytODrBJd4V2g/s600/Ct%20Map%20of%20Central%20Valley.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="399" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAX9OCLT81IvHMHLU-HVGcIKx9BLbEM3ilz-INwfqYZExUQw9WHKQCuFZygY0LSPn8GCwMf-8Ic-McPJsmTLq-kVVAQwSnavbBsLpVtz91qW1Ho0yFAr5Fpo7fbW0OgiAag9e12DyGaZlDtV9Fs1vomxz1iBH7kCNZjuRiqKlvSJBYGytODrBJd4V2g/w426-h640/Ct%20Map%20of%20Central%20Valley.gif" width="426" /></a></div><p>In the <i>Trap Rock Ridges of Connecticut</i>, geologist Ralph S. Lewis’ chapter provides a succinct and accessible description of the geological story behind these ridges, nicely inserting my piece of basalt into <i>part</i> of the larger geological picture. (Lewis, 2013.) What follows is my very brief summary of the aspects of the story he tells relevant to this post.</p><p>The original tectonic forces moving east and west that pushed Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas together, creating Pangea, generated mountain ranges that ran (and run) north/south. As the super continent began to break apart during the Triassic, those forces reversed course, pulling the land apart, creating rifts that paralleled the mountain ranges. In Connecticut’s Central Valley, the developing rift valley acquired sediment from the weathering and eroding metamorphic rock on its eastern and western borders. As expansion continued, magma rose through faults and fractures, intruding into, or extruding over top of, the sedimentary rock in the rift valley. Periods of sedimentary deposit were interspersed with three major extrusive lava flows: Talcott Basalt, Holyoke Basalt, and Hampden Basalt. Of these, the Holyoke Basalt was the largest.</p><p>Let me expand on Lewis and focus on a critical part of the story (critical, at least, to this post). The Connecticut Central Valley lava flows were an extended part of the broader, protracted volcanic event that marked the rending of Pangea: the creation of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP). CAMP is a massive area composed of basaltic magmas that flowed over a 10 million square kilometer area of Pangea. (Marzoli, 2018, p. 91, 101.) The peak CAMP event straddled the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic. As a result, CAMP is directly implicated in the End-Triassic mass extinction. As Marzoli and colleagues write, “There is now general consensus in the scientific community that volcanic gases released by CAMP likely were the trigger mechanisms of the end-Triassic mass extinction and accompanying carbon cycle disruption.” (Marzoli, 2018, p. 114, cited sources omitted.)</p><p>Significantly, though the lava flows creating CAMP were concentrated in a roughly 1-million-year period (at the end of the Triassic), the geologic processes involved probably lasted for a full 10 million years. (Marzoli, 2018, p. 101.) Thus, though my basalt cannot be accused of killing the Triassic, it is, at least, <i>an accessory after the fact</i>.</p><p>I keep coming back to the real smoking gun in this and other mass extinctions, and it’s not the physical damage wrought by these lava flows (bad as it was) that bears the responsibility for ending worlds. Rather, the lethal weapon was “the volcanic gases released during the tectonic mayhem.” (Brannen, 2017, p. 157.) And, foremost among those gases? Carbon dioxide. Seems unsettlingly familiar, given what we’re doing to our current atmosphere. As Brannen observes, of the death of the Triassic world:</p><p></p><blockquote>Though it wasn’t nearly as extreme as the End-Permian, the End-Triassic mass extinction seems to have been a sort of Great Dying Jr., with huge injections of carbon into the atmosphere from volcanoes and a lethal super-greenhouse as the result. <i>But the End-Triassic mass extinction might also serve as a gruesome template of sorts for our next few centuries.</i> (Brannen, 2017, p. 159, emphasis added.)</blockquote><p></p><p>For me, that sobering thought infuses my basalt with its fundamental meaning. What a hellish world had come into being as this basalt was formed, a kind of world we seem to be inexorably recreating and bequeathing to our children’s children.</p><p><b>References</b></p><p>Brannen, Peter, <i>The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions</i>, 2017.</p><p>Brusatte, Steve. <i>The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, From the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us</i>, 2022.</p><p>Lewis, Ralph S., Geology of the Trap Rock Ridges, a chapter in Penelope C. Sharp, et al., <i><a href="http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/arbbulletins/41">Bulletin No. 41: Trap Rock Ridges of Connecticut: Natural History and Land Use</a></i>, Bulletins, Connecticut College Arboretum, 2013.</p><p>Marzoli, Andrea et al., Timing and Duration of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province in the Newark and Culpeper Basins, Eastern U.S.A., <i><a href="https://web.lemoyne.edu/~tannerlh/Marzoli%20Lithos%202011.pdf">Lithos</a></i>, 2011.</p><p>Marzoli, Andrea et al., The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP): A Review, chapter 4 in Tanner, Lawrence H., editor, <i><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-68009-5_4">The Late Triassic World: Earth in a Time of Transition</a></i>, 2018.</p><p>Philpotts, Anthony R., <i><a href="https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2012NE/webprogram/Paper200004.html">The Holyoke Basalt, Its Source and Differentiation in a Thick Flood-Basalt Flow</a></i>, Abstract, Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Section of The Geological Society of America, March 2012.</p><p>Philpotts, Anthony R., The Holyoke Basalt at the Tilcon Traprock Quarry, Chapter II of Peter M. LeTourneau and Margaret A. Thomas, editors, <a href="https://www.geologicalsocietyct.org/uploads/3/0/5/5/30552753/gsc_guidebook1final.pdf">T<i>raprocks, Tracks, and Brownstone: The Geology Paleontology, and History of World-Class Sites in the Connecticut Valley</i></a>,, The Geological Society of Connecticut , Field Trip Guide Book No. 1, 2010.</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-18813756473340071422022-09-27T14:45:00.000-04:002022-09-27T14:45:04.320-04:00Misperception: Women and Science<p><i>Lab Girl</i> (2016), paleobiologist Hope Jahren’s vibrant and compelling memoir chronicles the academic and professional barriers that can impede a woman navigating a career in the sciences. In the process, she brings me face to face with a telling misperception of mine. (More on that later.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FJ6OzJ3QPkJP5w1iOCr1OShd-tyg57p_69rGiE1eFKBvx4ysqUQOS-NcsassvOt9aSepheo_jP2aUfYzMlYfU2cuMEb9u6wdQH5VzJsnGpApBn40dsXZgNnbP3t4gts5HtZS74XROG9Fu0MkRQ5X9q36hXclg1pkKYT3xZRGUrRCvv6J27Pq88adyw/s2382/Jahren%20cover%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2382" data-original-width="1489" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FJ6OzJ3QPkJP5w1iOCr1OShd-tyg57p_69rGiE1eFKBvx4ysqUQOS-NcsassvOt9aSepheo_jP2aUfYzMlYfU2cuMEb9u6wdQH5VzJsnGpApBn40dsXZgNnbP3t4gts5HtZS74XROG9Fu0MkRQ5X9q36hXclg1pkKYT3xZRGUrRCvv6J27Pq88adyw/w400-h640/Jahren%20cover%20for%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Jahren’s father taught science and ran a science laboratory at a community college in a small Minnesota town. Her experiences as a child finding pleasure and solace in her father’s lab provided fertile ground for her desire to study science. It’s a course she’s pursued successfully, but one, she notes, that was largely denied her mother whose initial college stay was brought short because, “in 1951, the university experience was designed for men, usually men with money, or at the very least men who had job options outside of being some family’s live-in nanny.” (p. 15) Hope Jahren has earned an undergraduate degree in geology at the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She taught at Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Hawaii. At each of those institutions, she established and ran a laboratory. She is currently a professor at the University of Oslo.</p><p><i>Lab Girl</i> moves on two related tracks, one describing Jahren’s life in science, the other introducing the reader to the life of plants, particularly trees. At one point, she characterizes her scientific focus as figuring out “what it’s like to be a plant” (p. 76); taken together, the chapters devoted to plants serve as a compelling introduction to that perspective. Jahren makes it abundantly clear that plants in fact <i>do</i> have lives, and she salutes the miracles they perform daily – creating sugar, drawing carbon dioxide from the air, and giving back oxygen – all of which are the <i>sine qua non</i> of our own lives. In this memoir, each of these parallel paths – her life and plants’ lives – informs the other. In both, the challenges are many and the chances of survival often seem staggeringly slight. </p><p>Describing how the first root from a seed risks it all by extending into the ground, she writes,</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The root grows down before the shoot grows up, and so there is no possibility for green tissues to make new food for several days or even weeks. Rooting exhausts the very last reserve of the seed. The gamble is everything and losing means death. The odds are more than a million to one against success. (p. 52, paperback edition)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Later, she observes, “Plants have far more enemies than can be counted. A green leaf is regarded by almost every living thing on Earth as food.” (p. 104)</p><p>When Jahren reflects on her career, she recounts some of the slings and arrows she’s endured as a woman in science. Just a few of them include: feeling the need to avoid certain paleontologists in the field (“knowing that they would never accept me as having a legitimate intellectual claim to the site,” p. 197), overhearing male, academic colleagues gossiping about her sexual orientation and commenting on her appearance (p. 127), and being banished from her own laboratory by a department dean at Johns Hopkins University who, it would appear, was uncomfortable being around a very pregnant woman which she was at the time (p. 216). She sums up the conflicting and damning messages she’s received as a female scientist by observing,</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I have been told that I can’t do what I want to do because I am a woman, and I have been told that I have only been allowed to do what I have done because I am a woman. . . . I have been admonished for being too feminine and I have been distrusted for being too masculine. I have been warned that I am far too sensitive and I have been accused of being heartlessly callous. (p. 277)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>But that struggle to survive has a silver lining. Regarding the sexist messages sent her way explicitly or implicitly, she asserts,</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Such recurrent pronouncements have forced me to accept that because I am a female scientist, nobody know <i>what</i> the hell I am, and it has given me the delicious freedom to make it up as I go along. (p. 277)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>And therein lies the profound allure of the book, accompanying her as she makes it up from childhood to life as a professional scientist, shaping a unique career path. In the process, she establishes multiple laboratories, replicating the comforting and protective environment she enjoyed with her father as a child; she bonds to a colleague, Bill, whose personality and behavior puts off some people, but who is a deep friend and amazingly productive over the years in her laboratories; she struggles with and ultimately takes control of her bipolar disorder; and, through it all, she conducts cutting edge research.</p><p>Jahren's own efforts to reshape her academic environment find a striking (almost metaphorical) parallel in the research question she and Bill pursue in a spur-of-the-moment project they undertake during a trip to Ireland. One day, while getting completely soaked in the rain, they observe that the very green, spongy mosses on the top of a hill seem as abundant and healthy as those living at the foot of the hill where clearly more water is available. How does that happen? She notes that plants have traditionally been considered passive participants in their environment, growing only when all of the requisites (water, sun, warmth) have been assembled. In essence, they are seen to be at the mercy of what the environment offers them and when. But what she and Bill are seeing suggests that these mosses may have taken things into their own hands (so to speak).</p><p></p><blockquote><p>What if this moss had moved into an area, deemed it not wet enough, and proceeded to change this high ground into the soggy mess it preferred, causing what was previously heterogeneous to evolve into a uniformly green expanse? What it the landscape wasn’t setting the stage for plants, but the plants were setting their own stage, green begetting green begetting green? (p. 247)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>It’s profound question and they spend days collecting samples of mosses in a thousand vials from different sites. Sadly, on this occasion their research ends disaster, at least in the short term. The vials fail to make it through security at the airport because she hasn’t arranged for official permits to conduct this research project. (Clearly, governments have no patience with serendipity). I’ll admit that I was disappointed that Jahren left me high and dry at this point because she doesn’t return to this research question either confirming or rejecting the insight that undergirds it.</p><p>As an aside, I have to say that an aspect of this Ireland adventure particularly warmed my heart. As someone who has often failed at the “name that species” test, I appreciated the struggles she and Bill have identifying the moss species they are collecting. She notes, “We settled onto our knees and began to take inventory of the species near us. After two hours, we were pretty sure that we’d found <i>Brachythecium</i> thanks to its furry, leggy appearance up close.” (p. 248) That’s about par for the course. Don’t try to name that species unless you’re willing to invest a lot of time with relatively little to show for it. That they only came up with the genus of this moss and punted as to the actual species makes this even more delightful to me.</p><p>I’m not quite sure where I come down on the title Jahren chose for the book. Is this a bitter, and perhaps sarcastic, jibe at the sexism in sciences? Is this a label she embraces as emblematic of the freedom she’s attained by shattering the expectations for a woman in science? Both? Neither?</p><p>The misperception of mine that Jahren forced me to confront? As I read the book, I mentally outlined the blog post I would write, one that would not only review the book, but also draw attention to a recurrent theme of this blog, that of the highlighting of the role of women doing science, paleontology in particular. Only that recurrent theme turns out not to be real. Yes, there are posts that describe the work and sometimes the lives of women in science, among them are those on <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2020/05/profiles-in-scientific-creativity.html">Barbara McClintock</a>, <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-paleontologist-pens-few-words-for-her.html">Julia Anna Gardner</a>, <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2010/01/paleontologist-mary-anning-deserved.html">Mary Anning</a>, <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2013/10/patrick-principles.html">Ruth Patrick</a>, <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2020/06/transitions-appreciation-of-jennifer.html">Jennifer Clack</a>, <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2010/07/populating-islands-with-dinosaurs.html">Joan Wiffen</a>, and <a href="https://fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/2021/11/mammals-all-way-down.html">Elsa Panciroli</a>. But the small clutch of posts that can be said to have done that is just that, <i>small</i>. Disappointingly small. Not until I really looked back at the 333 posts I’ve written over the past 15 years did I realize how male-dominated they are. True, that reflects the reality of the gender distribution within the sciences, but I had the perception that I was, in some very small way, challenging that status quo. The reality is different; I haven’t actually done anything approaching that.</p><p>Why my misperception? Perhaps the very rarity of such posts meant they stood out and I was more likely to remember them. Perhaps this little group of posts seemed enough to me, an adequate nod in the direction of gender equality, a sufficient salute to women doing science. I certainly hope it isn’t because I subconsciously believe that it’s <i>a rare woman who can do science</i>.</p><p>My reading on the issue of women in science has made me realize that that last possible explanation is, even today, very much a likely root cause of the very skewed gender distribution in the sciences. In her analysis of the question of “Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?”, writer Eileen Pollack, who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Yale in 1978 (one of the first two women ever to do so), disposes of the most malevolent explanation for the paucity of women in the sciences. “That the disparity between men and women’s representation in science and math arises from culture rather than genetics seems beyond dispute.” (<i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html">The New York Times Magazine</a></i>, October 3, 2013.) Indeed, she observes, “The most powerful determinant of whether a woman goes on in science might be whether anyone encourages her to go on.”</p><p>Pollack recounts how, years after she graduated, when she interviewed the Yale math professor who was the supervisor for her senior thesis and who never encouraged her to pursue graduate studies, she challenged him on the continued dearth of women professors in the Yale math department. He paused a bit, then commented, “I guess I just haven’t seen that many women whose work I’m excited about.” But then a realization seemed to dawn on him. “Maybe women are victims of misperception.” Yes, yes, yes. It’s a mindset that seems unable to entertain the idea that more than a few women can do science, that women actually belong in the sciences. How revealing that this math professor is only now fumbling his way to that realization.</p><p>Of course, I probably shouldn’t talk.</p><div><br /></div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-53046103584244940742022-08-28T18:22:00.002-04:002022-08-29T10:08:55.563-04:00The Fate of Islands - Forbidden and Otherwise<p><i>This summer, I introduced my granddaughter to the cooperative board game <b>Forbidden Island</b> (<a href="https://gamewright.com/product/Forbidden-Island">Gamewright Games</a>), an engrossing game in which the players work together to gather certain treasures on an island before it, the players, and the treasures sink into the depths. The island’s geography is different for each game but the peril is constant: randomly, parts of the island will sink and ultimately disappear. She took to it completely, quickly mastering the game’s rules and nuances. The many times I played it over the past month may partly explain the present post. That, and the fact that the population dynamics on islands are of great interest to biologists and figure prominently in evolutionary theory – species finding themselves on islands, isolated from their counterparts elsewhere, have the opportunity to evolve differently.</i></p><p><i>This post is somewhat stream-of-consciousness, segueing as it does from one island to another, leading to no real twist or hook at the end. </i></p><p><i>I</i> was mesmerized by an article in the most recent issue of <i>LivingBird</i> titled Garden of the Gulls and written by Hugh Powell. (Powell, 2022. Full citations and links to references are listed at the end of this post.) His article describes some of the population dynamics of species on the volcanic island of Surtsey which came into being beginning in 1963, rising violently some 10 miles off the coast of Iceland. The three stamps below issued by Iceland in 1965 depict Surtsey at three different stages of its initial development: November 1963, April 1964, and September 1964.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKg_nV1yuwQD5uZmiNpCv1dA3VZm67jTGgvKIHLAtsfhfeBSHI7YUjw6SvU98ab_zzRQU5l25GUr3vH7CQdRblJ9AsBQYPAE5exW4I32ixLoU1nq-3qZxPP5r2fi_wgZDYHiKU5dwp76PVNqlu_mFx1kY0Vcfym-0DgSVhGeh3C5kfe503ADu5iNx8Q/s600/Surtsey%20Iceland%201965%20stamps.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="353" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKg_nV1yuwQD5uZmiNpCv1dA3VZm67jTGgvKIHLAtsfhfeBSHI7YUjw6SvU98ab_zzRQU5l25GUr3vH7CQdRblJ9AsBQYPAE5exW4I32ixLoU1nq-3qZxPP5r2fi_wgZDYHiKU5dwp76PVNqlu_mFx1kY0Vcfym-0DgSVhGeh3C5kfe503ADu5iNx8Q/w376-h640/Surtsey%20Iceland%201965%20stamps.jpg" width="376" /></a></div><p>Not surprisingly, given that <i>LivingBird</i> is a quarterly publication of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Powell’s article highlights the role that birds, particularly seagulls, have played in fostering the diversity of the flora and fauna population on the island. This emphasis is completely justified because birds <i>have</i> been critical to Surtsey. Overall, this is a story of species immigration and the struggle for survival. The trajectory of the island’s floral and faunal species population has been dictated by a complex interplay of biology, geography, and geology.</p><p>The image below of contemporary Surtsey is from Google Maps.</p><p><br />
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</p><p>Scientists took full advantage of the opportunity offered by the island’s birth to study in detail the process by which it, initially completely devoid of life, became populated. Even amid ongoing eruptions, molds, bacteria, and fungi appeared, as did the first vascular plants (1965). In the ensuing decades, new species came to Surtsey via ocean currents, winds, and birds. The document prepared in 2007 as part of the successful effort to add Surtsey to UNESCO’s World Heritage List (Baldursson, 2007) identified three periods in the populating of the island: an initial decade with a burst of new species appearing and some, but not all, becoming established, followed by a decade of “stagnation” with little growth in diversity, followed by a plant and animal population boom, fueled largely by a large community of breeding seagulls. As Hugh Powell writes in his <i>LivingBird</i> article: </p><p></p><blockquote><p>Plant diversity had plateaued by the 1970s with fewer than 20 species established, and it didn’t take off again until a gull colony developed in 1986. The gulls, mostly Lesser Black-backed along with Great Black-based, Herring, and Glaucous – carried with them not just new kinds of seeds but also fertilizer in the form of nitrogen-rich guano. (Powell, 2022, p. 44.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>The guano nurtured a “lush green meadow” that, by 2013, according to Powell, covered roughly 30 acres on the island, “supporting twice as much plant diversity and five times more biomass than the rest of the island.” (Powell, 2022, p. 44.)</p><p>Where have the species found on Surtsey come from? Those established on the island reflect those on nearby islands in the Westman archipelago of which it is a part and on mainland Iceland. The UNESCO nomination document notes that the vascular plant species on the island are mostly ones common in the archipelago, supporting the notion that those islands are the primary source of colonizing species. Further, all of the Surtsey plant species are found on the Icelandic mainland, and “there has been no indication of species colonising the island from distant sources.” (Baldursson, 2007, p. 28.)</p><p>The history of other islands in the archipelago are a window to Surtsey’s future. Geologically, Surtsey has spent six decades being eroded by wind and water. In its first forty years, the island shrank by half. At its maximum size in 1967, the island was approximately 1 square mile in area; by 2004, it was down to just 0.5 square mile. Powell describes the fate that awaits Surtsey. Erosion will continue to eat away at the island:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>the low-lying plains will disappear (including the present gull colony), and the hard crater walls will become steep-sided seacliffs where murres and Razorbills will nest alongside the fulmars and kittiwakes already present. Atop the island, a thick turf will develop dominated by just a few grass species. (Powell, 2022, p. 46.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>As he reports, the plant population boom has already ended and a downward trajectory has taken hold. The UNESCO nomination document notes that the shrinking of the island’s above-sea landmass has followed a relatively steady pattern. As a result, the authors conclude the island will come to resemble, in particular, two other islands in the archipelago formed in a similar fashion some 6,000 years ago and long since eroded to the core of the volcanos which created them. They predict that Surtsey in that form “will survive for a long time, probably for thousands of years.” (Baldursson, 2007, p. 56.) </p><p>The Surtsey article dredged up from the deep recesses of my memory a different, but very much related, island story, one focused on an experiment conducted in the 1960s by the renowned naturalist Edward O. Wilson and his student Daniel S. Simberloff. I certainly wasn’t aware of the experiment when it was ongoing or when the initial research articles were published in 1969. (Simberloff, 1969a; Simberloff, 1969b.) Rather, it was Wilson’s excellent memoir published a quarter of a century later (Wilson, 1994) that handled that introduction.</p><p>As Wilson recounts it, in the early 1960s, he and ecologist Robert MacArthur had developed a mathematically-based hypothesis of island biogeography. He writes in his memoir,</p><p></p><blockquote>We had conjured a plausible image of the dynamic equilibrium of species, with new colonists balancing the old residents that become extinct, but we could offer very little direct evidence. There are few places in the world where biologists can study the approach to equilibrium on a large scale. (Wilson, 1994, p. 260.)</blockquote><p></p><p>A recent assessment of the continuing importance of island-based biological research defines MacArthur and Wilson’s “equilibrium theory of island biogeography” as</p><p></p><blockquote>a theoretical model . . . that postulates that the number of species present on an island will be determined by the dynamic relationship between immigration and extinction rates. In turn, immigration rates depend greatly on the island isolation, while extinction rates are mainly associated with island area. (Santos, 2016, p. 753.)</blockquote><p></p><p>That same assessment considers the MacArthur/Wilson theory to have been highly significant, shifting the paradigm of island research and fostering development of conservation theory.</p><p>That lack of “direct evidence” prompted Wilson and Simberloff to fashion in the early 1960s an experiment that could generate data to test the equilibrium theory of island biogeography. Persuaded that natural experiments in which islands were denuded of species – such as through volcanic explosions or devastating hurricane hits – offered little prospect of generating the necessary data in a reasonable length of time (Wilson suggested 10 years) showing how life returned to such areas, Wilson and Simberloff elect to <i>fumigate</i> six small mangrove islands in the Florida keys, eliminating all insect life on those islands. In addition to the total mortality of all insects on this tiny islands, some of mangrove trees suffered damage from which, Wilson and Simberloff report, they mostly recovered. The authors don’t note that any vertebrate animals were adversely affected by the fumigation.</p><p>Of the results of this experiment, Wilson writes that “the cruder predictions of the theory had been met.” (Wilson, 1994, p. 280.) In the paper on the initial results, Simberloff and Wilson posit that the strongest evidence from this experiment that a specific dynamic equilibrium of species exists for any island was that the number of species on each island post-fumigation returned “approximately” to its pre-fumigation number with a “rough oscillation about this number.” (Simberloff, 1969b, p. 285.) Species turnover was speedy as the theory posited it would be on small islands.</p><p>I remember my initial reaction to reading Wilson’s account of the experiment – dismay. It seemed to be going down the slippery slope of the ends justifying the means, distressed as I was by rendering each of these mangrove islands into a killing field. Admittedly, I had no idea of the importance of the experiment and, even now, I still don’t. How critical were these data to the significant role subsequently played by the MacArthur/Wilson theory in island research and conservation? I do suspect that “permission to wipe out animal populations on federally protected land” wouldn’t be granted today. Back then, permission was readily forthcoming. (Wilson, 1994, p. 269.)</p><p>It's striking that, at the time when Wilson and MacArthur were fashioning and publishing their theory, Surtsey was being born. What did Wilson think of the role that research on Surtsey might play? In the methodology paper that he and Simberloff published in 1969, they acknowledge the emergence of this new island and the research then underway to track its population, but immediately discount its utility because of “the infrequent natural occurrence of such events . . . .” (Simberloff, 1969a, p. 268.) Rather than taking advantage of such a natural experiment, the authors consider two alternatives. The first was, in my opinion, a straw man – “produc[e] new islands similar to natural ones.” The second was the only viable option in their eyes – “sterilizing preexisting islands.”</p><p>I would have voted for natural experiments, but I think I’ll stick to <i>Forbidden Island</i> where I understand the dynamics of the game and there’s not much at stake even as the island disappears under my feet.</p><p><b>References</b></p><p>Baldursson, Snorri, and Álfheiður Ingadóttir, <i><a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1267/documents/">Nomination of Surtsey for the UNESCO World Heritage List</a></i>, 2007.</p><p>Powell, Hugh, Garden of the Gulls, <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/garden-gulls-surtsey-iceland/"><i>LivingBird</i>,</a> Summer 2022, Volume 41, Number 3.</p><p>Santos, Ana M.C., et al., New Directions in Island Biogeography, <i><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43871665">Global Ecology and Biogeography</a></i>, Volume 25, Number 7/8, 2016.</p><p>Simberloff, Daniel S. and Edward O. Wilson, Experimental zoogeography of Islands: Defaunation and Monitoring Techniques, <i><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1934855">Ecology</a></i>, Volume 50, Number 2, 1969a.</p><p>Simberloff, Daniel S. and Edward O. Wilson, Experimental Zoogeography of Islands: The Colonization of Empty Islands, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1934856"><i>Ecolog</i>y</a>, Volume 50, Number 2, 1969b. []</p><p>Wilson, Edward O., <i>Naturalist</i>, 1994.</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-81417115289278916592022-07-24T12:40:00.004-04:002022-07-24T13:47:26.167-04:00Plants at the Center<p>This post is nothing like I planned. When I retreated to my rundown summer cottage on the North Fork of Long Island, I took along paleontologist Steve Brusatte’s new book, <i>The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History From the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us</i> (2022). Brusatte’s a wonderful writer of popular science, offering graceful prose and clear exposition. His previous book, <i>The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs</i> (2018), is one of the best I’ve read in that genre (meriting a review of its own). </p><p>But, no review here, and, mostly, no mammals either, not even mice (which comfortably, if messily, overwintered in a couple of dressers). Instead, flora are at the center of this unplanned post (quite unplanned and it shows).</p><p>My intentions were deflected by three things. The first two, ironically enough, came directly from Brusatte’s own book in which he makes a couple of startling and important points regarding plants, observations that for me were point-of-view shifting.</p><p>The first comes when he describes how, in the late Carboniferous Period, amniotes found themselves favored over amphibians by dramatic changes in the environment, changes that precipitated the so-called Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse (roughly 307 to 303 million years ago). (Amniotes are those animals whose embryonic development occurs inside amnion tissue either within eggs or the uterus.) A much drier climate upended the rainforests whose flora were replaced by more drought tolerant plants. The overall impact on plants was devastating. It’s what Brusatte writes about the context of this plant extinction that was eye-opening for me. </p><p></p><blockquote><p>All told, about half of the Pennsylvanian plant families were extinguished. <i>This is one of only two mass extinctions recognized in the plant fossil record</i>. (p. 15, emphasis added)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Wait, what? Plants have only been through two mass extinctions while animals, I know, have five on their resume? This Carboniferous one for plants does not coincide with one for animals while the second plant mass extinction does, coming at the end of the Permian Period, one of the big five for animals. This difference between the experiences of plants and animals was news to me. It also immediately raised the question, why have plants come relatively unscathed through events that devastated animal life, events like the end-Cretaceous extinction that did in the non-avian dinosaurs?</p><p>Brusatte cites a fascinating 2014 study by Borja Cascales-Miñana and Christopher J. Cleal in support of this assertion about plant extinctions (The Plant Fossil Record Reflects Just Two Great Extinction Events, <i><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ter.12086">Terra Nova</a></i>, Vol. 26, Number 3, 2014). These authors suggest that plant taxa have proven, based on the fossil record, to be</p><p></p><blockquote><p>far more resilient than animal taxa to many types of major ecological disturbance such as pollution caused by igneous province eruptions or bollide [asteroid or meteor] impact. (p. 198)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>They posit that plants may be able to survive relatively short-lived environmental disturbances, that greatly affect animals, if plants’ seeds and spores have a viability that exceeds the duration of the disturbance.</p><p>This puts plants in a whole new light.</p><p>As if that weren’t enough, a second plant-related point Brusatte makes was also quite striking, ensuring that mammals would be displaced in this post. He describes the roles that plants have played in the evolution of animals. Yes, it’s a dance with all parties affected in some way, but Brusatte gives certain plants the lead. I was (to put it mildly) gob smacked when he calls the widespread appearance of angiosperms (flowering plants) “<i>the</i> driving force of Cretaceous evolution.” (p. 135, Brusatte’s emphasis)</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Like a maestro furiously sweeping her baton, the angiosperms steered the bugs, dinosaurs, mammals, and other animals in unanticipated new directions, leading an evolutionary movement that reshaped the earth. As a result, today angiosperms are dominant; they are, by far, the most abundant plant type in nearly every terrestrial landscape on the planet. (p. 135)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>The flowering plants wielded their evolutionary power, first as a food source which animals evolved to better take advantage of. Second, the angiosperms' impact on insect evolution was profound; pollinators evolved to derive energy from the flowers. These pollinators, in turn, served as a new, important food source for animals, which (in this interconnected dance) evolved in new ways.</p><p>When Brusatte writes that angiosperms are “the most abundant plant type in nearly every terrestrial landscape on the planet,” he isn’t specifically referring to the woodlands which nestle my summer cottage, but he could have. It’s this setting into which I retreated to write about mammals, a setting that has whispered, "Skip the mammals, embrace the plants."</p><p>After a wet spring and early summer, this area is awash in vegetation. Though old gnarled oaks tower over the woods, the deep, cool, green shadows here are cast by myriad maples – from the Norway maples with their almost translucent leaves when the sun is behind them to the broad- and dense-leafed sycamore maples. These are trees that, under most circumstances, draw my eyes, demanding attention as they reach for open spaces in the canopy. This year, though, it's the small floral denizens of the woodland edges and the overgrown strip along the nearby railroad tracks that have really captured me.</p><p>For more than a decade now, during my summer visits here, I’ve noted in my copy of <i>Peterson First Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-Central North America</i> (1986), by Roger Tory Peterson, the species I’ve found along the same expanse of the wood’s edge and a bit of the land abutting the railroad tracks. My sole requirement for being listed is that the plant be in bloom. I recognize that this <i>First Guide</i> is very incomplete; Peterson called it “smaller” and “simpler” than even a guide for the novice. Still, it’s been a helpful place to start and I’ve added, on the inside of the back cover, the names of a few missing species that I’ve found. My overall count of species now exceeds 30. Not unexpectedly, after awhile, new additions have become very few and far between, and my interest has waned. Except this year I discovered two species (new to me) that have appeared in robust numbers; neither can be found in the <i>Peterson First Guide</i>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCkagnd91zN75mOL3nK2E5devFiXpPo6HIvXZSGKZYLmCIpHFczu-hh5MpYE0Zjq0qSohKdVkA9MZ3lYmGcpp59APbPayZiHjNGoLj1FQ-PaAUuxyw7kBD6iyZKdZRAzjnSj5K8h3_SFy9MWwX2hxr6gyUQn7nZb1KQ4xLidfdisUmoNimfXc7cKwSfQ/s600/snakecotton%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCkagnd91zN75mOL3nK2E5devFiXpPo6HIvXZSGKZYLmCIpHFczu-hh5MpYE0Zjq0qSohKdVkA9MZ3lYmGcpp59APbPayZiHjNGoLj1FQ-PaAUuxyw7kBD6iyZKdZRAzjnSj5K8h3_SFy9MWwX2hxr6gyUQn7nZb1KQ4xLidfdisUmoNimfXc7cKwSfQ/w400-h200/snakecotton%20for%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>This small flower I’ve confidently identified only as to genus, <i>Froelichia</i>, whose common name is snakecotton. The genesis of that common name is fairly obvious. From a distance, an expanse of these white flowers waving on their extended stems do appear cottony (though not so up close). I suspect this is actually the species <i>Froelichia gracilis</i>, also known as slender snakecotton. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s <a href="https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=FRGR3"><i>Plant Databas</i>e</a> shows this species present on all of Long Island and the picture provided seems to match mine.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7mcKFkMSqDzqabZwUmHAHi93Q8pmjpTuQa9eLlzg4O6HU-kTdeKANRFCyjeyU3HPLzVGJKpPOFCBdiLihlO_TjsGzp1ONUiQTbBVhUerO0Q8uEqswZKyySh8m0f1I-6df5AFhQSSObbt3vo03N8J7j-hUSfqP01dd84g6mqOEj2DStRTnVp16s5IM1Q/s600/hoary%20alyssum%20for%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7mcKFkMSqDzqabZwUmHAHi93Q8pmjpTuQa9eLlzg4O6HU-kTdeKANRFCyjeyU3HPLzVGJKpPOFCBdiLihlO_TjsGzp1ONUiQTbBVhUerO0Q8uEqswZKyySh8m0f1I-6df5AFhQSSObbt3vo03N8J7j-hUSfqP01dd84g6mqOEj2DStRTnVp16s5IM1Q/w300-h400/hoary%20alyssum%20for%20blog.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p>This is <i>Berteroa incana</i>, called hoary alyssum which the USDA <i><a href="https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=BEIN2">Plant Database</a> </i>records as found on Long Island. I turned to the <i>Compact Oxford English Dictionary</i> for an explanation of the common name which didn’t seem all that common. Something hoary is greyish white (or, and I didn’t know this, something “old and trite”). Alyssum is the (non-scientific) name for this kind of plant, coming from the Greek word alusson, which, in turn, means “without” (a) “rabies” (lussa). This harkens back to herbalists’ use of the plant. That said, there’s a large red warning flag attached to hoary alyssum because it is <a href="https://extension.umn.edu/horse-pastures-and-facilities/hoary-alyssum">poisonous to horses</a>.</p><p>And, so, what was planned as a paean to mammals is, instead, a salute to my new knowledge about plants: plants as survivors of many catastrophic events that decimated animal ranks, and flowering plants as drivers of animal evolution. Given those attributes, and the striking beauty (and bit of danger) of the wildflowers I discovered this summer, it seems quite appropriate to put plants at the center.</p><p><br /></p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-84104862539065730942022-06-15T13:12:00.003-04:002022-06-15T17:28:47.029-04:00Leopold Bloom, An Everyman Seduced by Science<p>For a century, Leopold Bloom and young Stephen Dedalus have woven intersecting paths through Dublin during Thursday, June 16, 1904, and into the wee hours of the next day. Their peregrinations, traced in the densely rich pages of James Joyce’s <i>Ulysses</i>, first saw the light of day for us to enjoy with the publication of the novel in 1922. Pictured below is number 302 of the 1000 numbered first edition copies published by Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company. (This image was taken by Geoffrey Barker. Available from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Joyce_Ulysses_1st_Edition_1922_GB.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, it is reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRDH7QepVxR8vILXsvvdYD3l8FrLL2GVScnaykyNDsySzMxIlr0rulGzJfOuEecOCAFzvKwRq3kyAUfB_XPj2S7rZ8SnPJAENlbMNOyDJZUsG7Et3g93QOsubvOchZhnLLP1CyUgELGPeiRX5InIfjltWzKfvqx7pZTAEVaEB1CaBHTD0jHc-dZyeFcg/s800/James_Joyce_Ulysses_1st_Edition_1922_GB.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="800" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRDH7QepVxR8vILXsvvdYD3l8FrLL2GVScnaykyNDsySzMxIlr0rulGzJfOuEecOCAFzvKwRq3kyAUfB_XPj2S7rZ8SnPJAENlbMNOyDJZUsG7Et3g93QOsubvOchZhnLLP1CyUgELGPeiRX5InIfjltWzKfvqx7pZTAEVaEB1CaBHTD0jHc-dZyeFcg/w640-h438/James_Joyce_Ulysses_1st_Edition_1922_GB.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The scaffolding of the novel is Homer’s <i>Odyssey</i>; its episodes track with those experienced by Ulysses in his quest to return from Troy to his home in Ithaca and to his wife Penelope. Beyond the title, our knowledge of the embedded road signs to the Homeric structure are the product of Joyce's own schema and the extensive scholarship that the novel has supported for a hundred years. Joyce would have had it no other way, having said his masterwork would “keep the professors busy for centuries.” [Later edit: I rewrote this paragraph after posting it because I misstated things in a way worthy of Bloom.]</p><p>I made several failed attempts over the years to read the novel’s nearly 800 pages, but, this year, I succeeded, prompted by the occasion of the centenary of its publication and by my decision to follow a particular approach to tackling this masterpiece: go with the flow, read primarily for the plot, and don’t sweat all the myriad details. This approach was inspired by JoAnn Greco’s article Unlocking Ulysses (<i><a href="https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2022/spring/james-joyce-ulysses-100-anniversary/">Johns Hopkins Magazine</a></i>, Volume 74, Number 1, Spring 2022). In it she quotes Douglas Mao, chair of Johns Hopkins University's English department, "I think basic comprehension is what first-time readers want." And so, in his classes, he focuses on "sticking to the text and understanding what is happening in the story." Of Greco's own first reading, she admits "I slogged and skimmed when things got tedious." Mao posits that a first reading is just preliminary to re-immersing for the second and third readings. Well, maybe later.</p><p>I came to this foray equipped with the complete edition of the novel published in 1961 by Random House, an edition tied page-by-page to an excellent guide to the book’s obscurest references, <i>Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysse</i>s, by Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman (1988). I was helped by Edward A. Kopper, Jr.’s <i>Cliffs Notes on Joyce’s Ulysse</i>s, (1981) which well defines the broad contours of the events of the novel.</p><p><i>Ulysses</i>’ “hero” Leopold Bloom is a complex character and, as my companion for experiencing the events of June 16th and early June 17th, I found him:</p><blockquote><p>gentle, often charitable, generally well meaning, loquacious, opinionated (about everything and often wrong), unintentionally comic, very sensitive of being an outsider, frustratingly passive, furtive, and sexually driven.</p></blockquote><p>What a wonderful creation.</p><p>Connection of Bloom to this blog? With this reading, it came clear how much Bloom seeks to demonstrate to himself and those he encounters in his travels that he is privy to the mysteries of science (writ large). He wants to don the mantle of the scientific cognoscenti, despite having only a limited and fragmented understanding of what he propounds. It’s hard not to laugh at him as he remembers and misremembers scientific principles, misapplies them, attempts to expound some scientific explanation only to lose the thread. In finding this amusing, I’m laughing at myself and my own bumbling aspiration to scientific mastery.</p><p>In episode 17 (<i>Ithaca</i>), a fascinating section featuring a series of questions with answers about Bloom and Dedalus, one stood out for me:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>What two temperaments did they individually represent?</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>The scientific. The artistic. (p. 683)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Bloom’s is the “scientific” temperament. I should note that it doesn’t take until this late point in the narrative to recognize that Bloom and Dedalus are like chalk and cheese, and to appreciate the nature of Bloom’s scientific temperament.</p><p>Here’s a telling example of how Bloom manifests that temperament. Very early in the novel, he sets out walking from his house en route to Paddy Dignam’s funeral. He pauses before the window of the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company store. Its display leads him to think about, among other subjects, Ceylon, tropical heat, lethargy; his mind comes to rest on a mental image of someone floating on his back in the Dead Sea reading a book. Bloom thinks:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal of the weight? It’s a law something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of falling bodies: per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of the earth is the weight. (p. 72, "fingerjoints" and "Thirtytwo" are as Joyce penned them.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>How funny, how real, how familiar.</p><p>In episode 16 (<i>Eumaeus</i>), late at night, Bloom and Dedalus walk to a cabman’s shelter (a structure where the cab drivers can get hot food and tea). Among the topics of their conversation (in which they talk past each other) is the human soul. Dedalus says that others call it a “simple substance and therefore incorruptible.” (p. 633) Bloom (Joyce notes he is “a bit out of his sublunary depth”) is compelled to respond, focusing on the adjective “simple”:</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>—Simple? I shouldn’t think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for instance to invent those rays Röntgen did, or the telescope like Edison, though I believe it was before his time, Galileo was the man I mean. The same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as electricity but it’s a horse of quite another colour to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God. (p. 634, "farreaching" - sic)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Bloom so wants to be able to interact with Dedalus on the latter’s artistic and intellectual level, but he cannot. He’s out of his depth regarding nearly everything under the moon on that June night. But he cannot <i>not</i> engage Dedalus in conversation, regardless of how little of substance he has to offer.</p><p>Bloom, a decidedly social creature, must offer, whatever the situation, an opinion or an explanation, even if he only has only the barest inkling of what’s relevant or what’s wanted. The people around him recognize this and, in the course of the novel, comment on it. For instance, earlier in the day (episode 12 (<i>Cyclops</i>)), as Bloom goes in and out of Barney Kiernan’s pub, he is clearly not welcome. Still he feels the need to engage in the discussions of a group of raucous, angry, disgruntled men, led by the anti-Semitic, Irish nationalist character identified as "Citizen." At one point, the conversation turns to record distances of shot put throws. The narrator of this episode (quite acerbic in his comments) observes:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>So off they started about Irish sport and shoneen games the like of the lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and building up a nation once again and all of that. And of course Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower’s heart violent exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: <i>Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That’s a straw.</i> Declare to my aunt he’d talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady. (p. 316, Gifford in <i>Ulysses Annotated</i> notes that a shoneen is a “would-be gentleman.”)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>This need to engage and expound, coupled with a faulty grasp of the science, is a recipe for disaster, as it would be for any avocational science lover. Bloom, a comic hero, is human to a fault, and, in his mangling of science, proves he is truly an Everyman seduced by, but not master of, science. I can relate to that, having been there more often than I care to admit (and certainly, at times, in the posts of this blog).</p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-27386374742932740512022-05-27T10:55:00.002-04:002022-05-27T17:27:01.870-04:00The Serrations of the Teeth of the Tiger Shark Galeocerdo cuvier – Beautiful, Another Adjective to Apply<p><span style="font-size: large;">The teeth of the extant tiger shark <i>Galeocerdo cuvier</i> are among my favorite shark teeth for two primary reasons: their overall shape (shared by others, all extinct, in this genus) and their serrations, wonderfully abundant in this particular species. This post has gone through myriad permutations, beginning with an attempt to capture my confusion over the scientific literature on this species' serrations (difficult to write and uninteresting to read). I have decided, instead to write briefly about what I think I know about the serrations of the <i>G. cuvier</i> which includes a discussion of the descriptive terminology applied to them, as well as a short review of what I understand about their function.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>G. cuvier,</i> the sole living member of this species, is a large, dangerous denizen of the world’s oceans. It dates back to the Pliocene Epoch (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago) (some research may push the shark’s origins into the mid-Miocene Epoch, perhaps 13.8 million years ago). (For the earlier date, see Türtscher, 2021. All references are presented at the end of this post.) <i>G. cuvier</i> teeth have a striking morphology, often and appropriately described as cockscomb-shaped. It is quite distinctive and, so, it's hard to confuse these teeth with those from other species. The illustration below captures that recognizable shape. Three key aspects of that shape are marked: the mesial cutting edge, the distal cutting edge, and distal heel. The front of the mouth is at the left in this image. (This image is based on one appearing in Türtscher, 2022.) </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8y4KIlgcbLoRCw2CzmkGqOycXU2eVzYFbgryeOA_7lGTiik2ZqHn-0zlLDbbGhhSE-K_dvwqkWpWpYU4o3Co62rsPAj19yWZMOACovHdlJIG5T7l1ubVp_gTKwWEUJYBJa1arUcARAbGt99HXBAzUMdJSaN0gYhi8PzqBS2pEAMIPrNGUlrh8YObHmw/s773/Outline%20and%20labeled%20G%20cuvier.tiff" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="773" height="542" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8y4KIlgcbLoRCw2CzmkGqOycXU2eVzYFbgryeOA_7lGTiik2ZqHn-0zlLDbbGhhSE-K_dvwqkWpWpYU4o3Co62rsPAj19yWZMOACovHdlJIG5T7l1ubVp_gTKwWEUJYBJa1arUcARAbGt99HXBAzUMdJSaN0gYhi8PzqBS2pEAMIPrNGUlrh8YObHmw/w640-h542/Outline%20and%20labeled%20G%20cuvier.tiff" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: large;">That each (extant and extinct) species in the <i>Galeocerdo</i> genus features some array of serrations renders them irresistible. But <i>G. cuvier</i> teeth are very special in that regard: not only is the entire outer edge of their crown serrated, but the serrations on both its mesial cutting edge and distal heel are themselves serrated. <i>Serrated serrations</i>! What’s not to like?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The first picture below shows the lingual (tongue) side of a tooth from a modern adult <i>G. cuvier</i>. The distance from edge to edge of the very bottom of the tooth is 25 mm. The second picture shows the labial (lip) side of an adult <i>G. cuvier</i> from the Yorktown Formation at the Lee Creek Mine. The measurement across the bottom is the same as for the first tooth. This particular specimen dates from the Pliocene Epoch.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNkj0RxpCHN6P8mpL7vs_Dr3SSRZxBD_MFDGhk8AeEKHDwXsmnelLcHkAUr1y86faBJe6BlN86xUrperlsQlXz2vu1MG9E9KHPE0GkNLvNtM059prpIQnnHBBdQIAA7BybwWZg9DpGPaFWFKUeL1gYhFDgZ5F-vDc9M3HFb5MDUIbaa1F1dvgw_cdwA/s600/G%20cuvier%20lingual%20view.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="600" height="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNkj0RxpCHN6P8mpL7vs_Dr3SSRZxBD_MFDGhk8AeEKHDwXsmnelLcHkAUr1y86faBJe6BlN86xUrperlsQlXz2vu1MG9E9KHPE0GkNLvNtM059prpIQnnHBBdQIAA7BybwWZg9DpGPaFWFKUeL1gYhFDgZ5F-vDc9M3HFb5MDUIbaa1F1dvgw_cdwA/w640-h532/G%20cuvier%20lingual%20view.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6zBPxF5HbAbJVcsQKdNskR7TSypZXIIO9Z1rY0pmtKRyiIEKSA_n7XWB2ZYPYSkZRqR3n4_A3NGs4V8-Xka4dC_asxW8lLZLGI5kNq4THe7MJwexod799M-bGdkwWwCIx98r-M1cDJ92I2sLMF9sOGRWZ18eeXDx6sQHUxNAHhY7aL7AWT-FHPXL5XQ/s600/G%20cuvier%20labial%20view.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="600" height="546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6zBPxF5HbAbJVcsQKdNskR7TSypZXIIO9Z1rY0pmtKRyiIEKSA_n7XWB2ZYPYSkZRqR3n4_A3NGs4V8-Xka4dC_asxW8lLZLGI5kNq4THe7MJwexod799M-bGdkwWwCIx98r-M1cDJ92I2sLMF9sOGRWZ18eeXDx6sQHUxNAHhY7aL7AWT-FHPXL5XQ/w640-h546/G%20cuvier%20labial%20view.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Serration Terminology</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The scientific terms used to distinguish among the general characteristics of shark dentition are challenging, very specialized, and quite alien. To wit, polphyodonty (teeth are continuously replaced throughout the life of the shark), homodonty (teeth are all the same shape), heterodonty (there are different tooth shapes in the same individual), monognathic heterodonty (tooth shape changes moving from front to back along the jaw), dignathic heterodonty (different shapes in the upper jaw compared to the lower jaw), and gynandric heterodonty (teeth of the same species differ in shape by sex). (Türtscher, 2022.) Some of these characteristics vary in the same species depending upon such factors as age or mating season. Not surprisingly, these are terms that I come to this literature prepared to decipher (a cheat sheet helps).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The <i>G. cuvier</i> dentition is largely the same morphologically from front to rear and top jaw to bottom jaw. They do vary by ontogenetic stage of development, particularly with regard to the extent and robustness of the serrations. (Türtscher, 2022, p. 10.) </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though these scientific terms present a hurdle to the casual reader of this literature, my attention is drawn repeatedly to the various (and sometimes inconsistent) uses of adjectives to describe the serrations on these teeth.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Primary</i> and <i>secondary</i> are the most precisely applied adjectives. Indeed, a key distinction for serrations on <i>G. cuvier</i> teeth is between two types: primary serrations and secondary serrations. The large serrations that occur on the mesial cutting edge and the distal heel of these teeth are primary serrations. The smaller serrations that line the distal cutting edge and also appear on the edges of (and between) the primary serrations on the mesial cutting edge and distal heel are called secondary serrations. These different types of serrations are marked below in the closeup of the distal cutting edge and part of the distal heel of the specimen shown in the first picture above.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiICCtp8Dr5FiYuwqSFhlf0nDI_OkPgQJbNLAzOfroT_oNb2hUAT2z7iP6FVgOM71JrtMRIK9vy5fLXFE3eBUxAMfruA3y2N6bTIMqL9-RaRi99hIs_o9g7KteCbeJ1jvLdNatmU61jV8OBXDTTLO95YSHkEtUD8SpK4ujRJ6Kol-cj-OGJ52BIuV2Ilw/s916/G%20cuvier%20lingual%20view%20cropped%20to%20distal%20heel%20primary%20and%20secondary%20marked.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="916" data-original-width="672" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiICCtp8Dr5FiYuwqSFhlf0nDI_OkPgQJbNLAzOfroT_oNb2hUAT2z7iP6FVgOM71JrtMRIK9vy5fLXFE3eBUxAMfruA3y2N6bTIMqL9-RaRi99hIs_o9g7KteCbeJ1jvLdNatmU61jV8OBXDTTLO95YSHkEtUD8SpK4ujRJ6Kol-cj-OGJ52BIuV2Ilw/w470-h640/G%20cuvier%20lingual%20view%20cropped%20to%20distal%20heel%20primary%20and%20secondary%20marked.jpg" width="470" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: large;">In their study of serrated shark teeth (blue shark, white shark, and tiger shark), Moyer and Bemis name and distinguish these two types of <i>G. cuvier</i> serrations. Significantly, their analysis shows an underlying histological difference between them. Primary serrations consist of three layers of enameloid with a partial internal filling of dentine; secondary serration generally have only two of the three enameloid layers and no infilling dentine. (Moyer and Bemis, 2017, p. 105.) I will outline later what Moyer and Bemis posit regarding the function of these secondary serrations.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Once I move beyond that central distinction in the kinds of serrations on the <i>G. cuvier</i> adult teeth, there’s no consistency in the terms used but in most cases context suggests intended meaning.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><i>Serrations with serrations.</i> These have been described as <i>compound</i> (Kent, 2018, p. 108), <i>complex</i> (Kent, 1994, p. 96; </span><span>Türtscher, 2022, p.12</span><span>), and </span><i>double</i><span> (Cappetta, 1987, p. 17; Türtscher, 2022, p. 2).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Serrations without serrations.</i> These have been called <i>simple</i> (Kent, 1994, p. 96) and <i>singly serrated</i> (Türtscher, 2021, p. 584).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A bit more problematic is that these various adjectives are mixed and matched in different ways. For instance, Cappetta distinguishes between <i>simple</i> and <i>double</i> serrations. (Cappetta, 187, p. 17.) Then there’s the application of the adjective <i>compound</i> to describe the overall configuration of all serrations on the <i>G. cuvier</i>, which are a combination of different types of serrations. Türtscher and her colleagues do this in the following description of adult <i>G. cuvier</i> teeth:</span></p><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">The crown is completely serrated with compound serrations, whereby large primary serrations are located on the mesial cutting edge and the distal heel, while secondary serrations are situated on and between primary serrations as well as on the distal cutting edge. (Türtscher, 2022, p. 3.)</span></p><p></p></blockquote><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Function of <i>G. cuvier </i>Serrations</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Why serrations and why serrated serrations?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The teeth of <i>G. cuvier</i> are characterized as cutting type teeth, a category of tooth that includes broad and relatively flat teeth with a cusp that often is curved toward the rear of the mouth. Moyer and Bemis argue that stress on the <i>G. cuvier</i> tooth concentrates on the large notch where the distal cutting edge meets the distal heel (see outline of the <i>G. cuvie</i>r tooth above). This, they suggest, may help the tooth cut through tough prey. (Moyer and Bemis, 2017, p. 107.) That’s quite relevant given that the adult diet does focus on tough prey, such as mammals, other sharks, rays, and sea turtles. (Türtscher, 2022, p. 12.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Adding serrations to these teeth boosts their effectiveness. (Cappetta, 1987, p. 16-17.) Frazzetta concludes: “Serrated teeth can make greater use of the available biting forces, and they have greater cutting effect than do smooth-edged teeth.” (Frazzetta, 1988, p. 93.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But serrated serrations apparently are a rarity, so, to what end did they appear in the <i>Galeocerdo</i> lineage? The secondary serrations on the edges of the primary serrations may make the cutting edges more efficient when the tiger shark engages in its typical vigorous head shaking when attacking prey. The notches marking the juncture of secondary and primary serrations may also serve as points at which stress is concentrated, reducing the wear on the primary serrations, helping to keep them functional longer. (Moyer and Bemis, 2017, p. 107-108.) Ultimately, for the <i>G. cuvier</i>, secondary serrations “are probably linked to the prominence of hard-shelled prey in its diet, specifically sea turtles, whose shells are composites of bone and keratin, presenting a unique challenge to predators.” (Moyer and Bemis, 2017, p. 109; see, also, Türtscher, 2022, p. 12.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I think the importance of secondary serrations, including those that run along the edges of the primary serrations on the <i>G. cuvier</i>’s mesial cutting edge and distal heel, requires a bit of elaboration. The <i>Galeocerdo</i>, like all sharks, is polyphyodont, that is, it is constantly replacing its teeth. As a result, the protective role that secondary serrations may play for primary serrations need last only until the tooth is replaced. That’s actually quite efficient considering its prey.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Closing with reference to the <i>G. cuvier</i>’s diet is appropriate, I think. Yes, its teeth are wonderfully structured for the role they play in enabling this fish to consume its prey, but this shark is not picky. In addition to its living prey, it adds carrion and a very wide variety of trash to what it swallows, thereby living up to its sobriquet: “A garbage can with fins.” (Compagno, 2005, p. 308.)</span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">References</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Cappetta, H., <i>Handbook of Paleoichthyology: Chondrichthyes II: Mesozoic and Cenozoic Elasmobranchii</i>, 1987.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Compagno, Leonard, et al., <i>Sharks of the World</i>, Princeton Field Guide, 2005.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Frazzetta, T.H., The Mechanics of Cutting and the Form of Shark Teeth (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii), <i><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00539785">Zoomorphology</a></i>, Volume 108, 1988.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Kent, Bretton W. <i>Fossil Sharks of the Chesapeake Bay Region</i>, 1994.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Kent, Bretton W. The Cartilaginous Fishes (Chimaeras, Sharks, and Rays) of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, USA, chapter 2 in <i><a href="https://smithsonian.figshare.com/articles/book/The_Geology_and_Vertebrate_Paleontology_of_Calvert_Cliffs_Maryland_USA/9761762">The Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, USA</a></i>, edited by Stephen J. Godfrey, Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, Number 100, 2018.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Moyer, Joshua K., and Bemis, William E., Shark Teeth as Edged Weapons: Serrated Teeth of Three Species of Selachians, <i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0944200616300320">Zoology</a></i>, Volume 120, 2017.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Türtscher, Julia, et al., Evolution, Diversity and Disparity of the Tiger Shark Lineage Galeocerdo in Deep Time, <i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350343303_Evolution_diversity_and_disparity_of_the_tiger_shark_lineage_Galeocerdo_in_deep_time">Paleobiology</a></i>, Volume 47, Number 4, 2021.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Türtscher, Julia, et al., Heterodonty and Ontogenetic Shift Dynamics in the Dentition of the Tiger Shark <i>Galeocerdo cuvier</i> (Chondrichthyes, Galeocerdidae), <i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359992493_Heterodonty_and_ontogenetic_shift_dynamics_in_the_dentition_of_the_tiger_shark_Galeocerdo_cuvier_Chondrichthyes_Galeocerdidae">Journal of Anatomy</a></i>, April, 2022.</span></p><p><br /></p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-90099341136269784712022-04-26T17:22:00.001-04:002022-04-26T17:29:19.097-04:00Concrete Sidewalk Impressions: What's A Fossil?<p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>In which I, once again, may be accused of obsessing about issues involving trees while missing the spirit of the forest.</i></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For a reason that now escapes me, I ended up on the Nova Scotia Museum’s website <a href="https://museum.novascotia.ca/fr/blog/urban-geology">blog</a>, specifically on the post for March 25, 2020, the one titled Urban Geology. The post deals with the impressions captured by chance in concrete sidewalks, specifically, those imprints left by plants (mostly leaves) and animals (often birds or humans) in the concrete when it was still wet. The author (Tim Fedak, I think) labels these as <i>urban fossils</i> with no explanation as to why they are fossils. The post includes photographs of sidewalks showing interesting random traces of the passing natural scene. Since I am easily sidetracked and entertained, I spent the next few of my local outings in search of these delicate and evocative sidewalk impressions. Here are a few of my finds discovered while I, once again, spent time staring at the ground where the paleontologist’s gaze is so often fixed. I provide no identifications for the images of leaves, given no likely suspects standing in the immediate vicinity or, at least, not ones I could identify.</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzShnfKjqSQKkVlBGZXUF8waajI7Lr21n5rAmWY94GM2FkaPENyLRE2hx5mWBGWSrOSZCE_WekFI9W-BrOFIV-TpycvP7SAlL-sRHq7MT7z1SxGl7MrVdFE0Ik21UvgKriPq8D-9Hes2hAKS84nkXskB2if9ppcEtlFqWTQ5LrTCjNe9delzCYG4YkQ/s600/leaf%20dale%20-%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="600" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzShnfKjqSQKkVlBGZXUF8waajI7Lr21n5rAmWY94GM2FkaPENyLRE2hx5mWBGWSrOSZCE_WekFI9W-BrOFIV-TpycvP7SAlL-sRHq7MT7z1SxGl7MrVdFE0Ik21UvgKriPq8D-9Hes2hAKS84nkXskB2if9ppcEtlFqWTQ5LrTCjNe9delzCYG4YkQ/w640-h472/leaf%20dale%20-%20blog.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JQFGGBo69vgIPCOgIsiTv_rfFfnziBOOl30jR6J9joQMTvLqXlSPGAjq8B-DalxRVddSlyGPBnhhrLv7lqSBpM3cKBP5pt-KV62BXY7cv2xmfW05jGSTMIoylhw9oraZ02ifzcDJvAiVZDzg2CJ-i68g1CLOIwszkUCPTGhY0WDUtK_yZT-EBjWfdg/s600/foggy%20bottom%20leaf%20-%20blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JQFGGBo69vgIPCOgIsiTv_rfFfnziBOOl30jR6J9joQMTvLqXlSPGAjq8B-DalxRVddSlyGPBnhhrLv7lqSBpM3cKBP5pt-KV62BXY7cv2xmfW05jGSTMIoylhw9oraZ02ifzcDJvAiVZDzg2CJ-i68g1CLOIwszkUCPTGhY0WDUtK_yZT-EBjWfdg/w640-h480/foggy%20bottom%20leaf%20-%20blog.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyKF3q02dbiQb4U2AkpWAvPxu7ymq4o7aGP2_-lTRllpQELiRV_lP6IE-dUONUcz_QN3Y0AAhyzeXPPxF_jYaM9N1clvy_NWbgHRmG3SBlO9I0kP6KxsS4Dch1LhBLUHPnXfqqKrspcEg3nDM2DIyFjDBB5ogR9mG7xsAjeZhahFHgddvFYItFT0dd3w/s600/maple%20seed%20-%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="600" height="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyKF3q02dbiQb4U2AkpWAvPxu7ymq4o7aGP2_-lTRllpQELiRV_lP6IE-dUONUcz_QN3Y0AAhyzeXPPxF_jYaM9N1clvy_NWbgHRmG3SBlO9I0kP6KxsS4Dch1LhBLUHPnXfqqKrspcEg3nDM2DIyFjDBB5ogR9mG7xsAjeZhahFHgddvFYItFT0dd3w/w640-h570/maple%20seed%20-%20blog.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3p1FysDUtfVnie4gIEyQp1aOt4S0DXm9X2NZI1jr1_lBRIobwcWNBIgeCwbIh3pxF9TOcpGun3XbEj4DbVuctmyXLAKzkyx9XiU5ITN-OGVouTciXyWm3Lrr0exJyPtgwLf_38rdaeBZkfF5uFsGokDtg1xe0KJJNEpkEU_yeSdtVltmMWOVl4p8dIQ/s537/paw%20print%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="462" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3p1FysDUtfVnie4gIEyQp1aOt4S0DXm9X2NZI1jr1_lBRIobwcWNBIgeCwbIh3pxF9TOcpGun3XbEj4DbVuctmyXLAKzkyx9XiU5ITN-OGVouTciXyWm3Lrr0exJyPtgwLf_38rdaeBZkfF5uFsGokDtg1xe0KJJNEpkEU_yeSdtVltmMWOVl4p8dIQ/w550-h640/paw%20print%201.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGfi7urlCbLzWAlSOZzikAQpmnne8ZCBlZJTuxXjP58PPkdB9zIGJXSCKCJLELjzqDANQY28y-kxooVmP0-Yv59oN5hGjLn_ziRxhM1vK5wDiw8Atgri07VzCdn4oPD7OidodeyES8a7sj-JOfZuFZc3VlS5j1ahz7idcawdIqgeAasiI4SeR4w2BvTw/s449/paw%20print%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="449" height="578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGfi7urlCbLzWAlSOZzikAQpmnne8ZCBlZJTuxXjP58PPkdB9zIGJXSCKCJLELjzqDANQY28y-kxooVmP0-Yv59oN5hGjLn_ziRxhM1vK5wDiw8Atgri07VzCdn4oPD7OidodeyES8a7sj-JOfZuFZc3VlS5j1ahz7idcawdIqgeAasiI4SeR4w2BvTw/w640-h578/paw%20print%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmjgeZ1YBA-j2d1C_J2TZq0-tf_sD3Itf_L4-xfh6px7e_dajAl9x9H0S_4ZSYuE9t5N4-wbNvcI_H6Pald8QGAnNud1aKGOUjMgFbBI-Pia64NrzKz4oINZyKtMNy-pYm5jlty3AtwPD7zXQxLVQQKGkaE2GWrxZ_A5DOe1KvJyQ-T14tx1CeyCFUgA/s600/array%20of%20footprints%20-%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="600" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmjgeZ1YBA-j2d1C_J2TZq0-tf_sD3Itf_L4-xfh6px7e_dajAl9x9H0S_4ZSYuE9t5N4-wbNvcI_H6Pald8QGAnNud1aKGOUjMgFbBI-Pia64NrzKz4oINZyKtMNy-pYm5jlty3AtwPD7zXQxLVQQKGkaE2GWrxZ_A5DOe1KvJyQ-T14tx1CeyCFUgA/w640-h333/array%20of%20footprints%20-%20blog.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>It was an enjoyable time fritter. By the way, the last picture shows various impressions of the treads of running shoes.</p><p>The Nova Scotia Museum’s blog post steered me to retired middle school science teacher Kenneth Fuller and his <a href="http://learn-science.20m.com/index.htm">Science Can Be Fun! website</a>. Here Fuller lays out various science activities for students and their teachers, including a <a href="http://learn-science.20m.com/student_project_ideas.html">paleontology unit</a> that focuses on these sidewalk impressions, which he calls <i>Sidewalk Fossils</i>. These are potentially engaging activities that, as he structures them, might instill some worthy habits in student participants, ranging from close observation of phenomena to recording what is observed to fashioning hypotheses about the origins of these phenomena.</p><p>Significantly, though, he asserts that concrete impressions in sidewalks are <i>actually</i> fossils. He writes:</p><blockquote><p>By definition a fossil is any remains or trace of a living thing preserved in rock.</p></blockquote><p>He then states that the concrete impressions of leaves and animal tracks meet that definition:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The concrete of which a sidewalk is made is rock. . . . Since the concrete is rock, remains or traces of living things preserved in the concrete are fossils. Since such fossils are most often seen in the concrete of sidewalks, we refer to them as "sidewalk fossils" wherever we find them.</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Posit an erroneous definition and all sorts of mischief can ensue. The central error of his definition is made clear below. Further, there is an unsettling note of authority in this. Who’s the “we” calling them sidewalk fossils? “Scientists” is the implication, I think. He later distinguishes these fossils from <i>natural fossil</i>s with no attempt to explain the differences. I also don’t know what to make of his suggestion on another <a href="http://learn-science.20m.com/Sidewalk_fossils.html">page</a> of his website that, when teachers fashion a definition of fossil with their students, that they have “some real fossils to show [which] would help at this time.” <i>Real</i>? As opposed to what? Sidewalk fossils? More than a bit confused.</p><p>Later I read an entertaining piece by science writer Jessica Leigh Hester on the <i><a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/concrete-tracks">Atlas Obscura</a></i> website titled Fresh Concrete Turns Paw Prints and Bird Tracks Into Urban Fossils (September 18, 2020). At times she refers to them as <i>fossils</i>, <i>modern trace fossils</i>, and <i>concrete impressions</i>, and notes they have “prehistoric counterparts.” The article profiles Carl Mehling, a specialist in paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, who has had a longstanding interest in these sidewalk impressions, amassing a collection of several hundred photographs of them, particularly, of animal tracks. The photographs included in Hester’s piece are quite beautiful. Of the origins of his interest, Mehling says that, as a second-grader, he came upon a leaf impression in a sidewalk. “I regarded it as a fossil, and was scheming about getting a hammer and busting it out.” </p><p>Hester posits that animal trackways preserved in concrete pose questions of interpretation like those that bedevil paleontologists working with trace fossils (ichnofossils) of dinosaurs and other ancient animals. Among the questions raised by both kinds of trackways are: What animal made these marks? What was it doing? How many were involved? Were all of these marks made at the same time? She writes, “It’s a slippery task to try and draw too many conclusions from the trackways – which actually makes them similar to prehistoric prints, Mehling says.” </p><p>Though pursuit of concrete sidewalk impressions makes for an enjoyable hunt, the literature I've cited clearly troubles me. Do these authors believe these are <i>actually</i> fossils or am I missing the gentle joke here? Is the label <i>fossil</i> in these texts applied with a touch of whimsy or poetry and a gentle wink to let the reader know quotation marks surrounding the word are implied? I would have let slide their use of <i>fossil</i> in this context had any one of them explained that the trace fossils studied by paleontologists are somewhat similar to, but critically different from, say, a bird’s trackway captured in wet concrete. They don't.</p><p>Hester's article is the one that puzzles me the most. With a paleontology professional at hand, she never once quotes Mehling weighing in on whether the label <i>fossil</i> is appropriate for the concrete trackways whose pictures he has amassed. I’m sure he could have opined knowledgeably on the subject.</p><p>A discussion of what the common or scientific definitions are of <i>fossil </i>seems appropriate at this juncture. Regarding common usage, my <i>Compact Oxford English Dictionary</i> (revised 2003) provides, as its first definition: </p><p></p><blockquote><p>the remains or impression of a prehistoric plant or animal embedded in rock and preserved in petrified form.</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Certainly of no help to the Nova Scotia Museum, Fuller (despite the emphasis on rock), or Hester. The use of the adjective “prehistoric” categorically disqualifies concrete impressions. (The second definition is “an antiquated person or thing” which also doesn’t come to their aid.)</p><p>Turning to how the word is defined in the science devoted to the study of fossils, I will cite paleontologist Richard Fortey whose definition is more succinct and broader than the <i>OED'</i>s:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Fossils are the remains of prehistoric animals or plants.</p></blockquote><p>He immediately adds: </p><blockquote><p>Usually they are some hard part of an extinct organism, resistant to decay, that has been preserved enclosed in sediment – past life that has been buried in the rocks and entombed inside them. Fossils could equally be the record record of activity of animals: fossil footprints, perhaps, or the tubes and trails of soft-bodied worms that otherwise leave no trace. (<i>Fossils: The History of Life</i>, 4th edition, 2009, p. 8.)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Fortey’s definition starts with that succinct statement and then acknowledges the complexity of what is embraced in that terse phrasing. Of most importance for my purposes is that telling adjective “prehistoric.” Again, this precludes these sidewalk markings and trackways as being fossils.</p><p>Anyone who has had the briefest exposure to paleontological literature will realize that the challenge in defining what is a fossil lies in the many ways in which science explains that animals and plants (and traces of their activity) become fossils, that is, are fossilized. Fortey covers all of the outlier processes with the adverb <i>usually</i>. Indeed, several of those ways do not involve being "preserved in rock." Sorry, Mr. Fuller.</p><p>Although I could rustle up other contemporary paleontologists’ definitions of fossil and see if concrete impressions might fit into one of those definitions, it would mostly be a fool’s errand.</p><p>Mehling himself makes that abundantly clear in an essay he wrote for <i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320233594_Collecting_My_Thoughts_A_Paleontologist_Ruminates_on_What_Makes_a_Fossil_a_Fossil">Fossil News: The Journal of Avocational Paleontology</a></i> titled Collecting My Thoughts: A Paleontologist Ruminates on What Makes a Fossil a Fossil (Volume 20, Number 1, Spring 2017). This is a fascinating, albeit meandering and very long, exploration of the various definitions of fossil that have been employed over time. In the course of this essay, Mehling describes a host of different ways in which animals and plants generate fossils, and suggests that any satisfactory definition should embrace as many of these fossilizing processes as possible. He acknowledges that a fixed, rigid, “bullet-proof” definition is likely to be counterproductive and certainly not universally embraced. Besides, our understanding of what is a fossil has evolved over the past several centuries as our knowledge has grown. As a result, definitions have changed.</p><p>Mehling takes the reader through many definitions and the multitude of things that have at one time or another been called fossils (of note, sidewalk impressions are not among them). He highlights the utility and, more importantly, the deficiencies of these definitions, and finally comes to rest (well, mostly) on a definition satisfying many of his concerns:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>For now, here’s a useful definition: “fossils are evidence of life that is at least 10,000 years old.” That conforms reasonably well to a hazy intuition, leaving a few loose ends and poetic traps. While increased qualifications may fortify definitions, they may also merely dilute the intent of the word into oblivion. (p. 38)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>He notes that a definition resting on an age distinction (such as “prehistoric” or “at least 10,000 years old”) “incorporates more of what are most commonly considered fossils and excludes those that make most paleontologists grimace and shake their heads.” (p. 34)</p><p>Certainly, Mehling would dismiss the notion that sidewalk impressions are real fossils. <i>They fail the age test.</i> Still, he would understand the impulse to attach the word <i>fossil</i> to them, an impulse reflected in how often the word has been co-opted in the past.</p><p>In closing, I must cite the clearest definition Mehling considers, one nestled in the last footnote of the essay:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>My sister Ellen offers the following definition: “Old bones and shit like they have in the museum. You know, dinosaur bones! You know what I mean.” I guess I should’ve checked with her first and saved myself all of this trouble. (p. 38)</p></blockquote><br />Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-18114913188494527892022-03-28T17:09:00.000-04:002022-03-28T17:09:50.016-04:00Clearly Uncertainty Abounds<p>I have a hand-sized piece of gray rock (limestone, possibly) in my collection from a Devonian Period formation in western Ukraine. (This post goes deep in time and, so, avoids that country’s horrific present and uncertain future.) The rock is covered with many small fossils, all from the same animal, an animal about which paleontologists have a surfeit of unanswered questions. Of this particular chunk of rock, I not only share the paleontologists’ questions, but, at the end of the post, admit to a fundamental one of just my own.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZacKur0djU1wTd4n2Znt5ORatUCKAvyk2Bk5Z1JZM3MfbBvYEFV6xTFsfzBmjK5L48sXYRVKAYS_w8f1ECnGWnrFmUE5qw3fYG02TU9QwksFMyxxct1b1gpRwKeqH8tnpJo-YSnqG16ibsHB-rqqKbplAFBrJrwyxzqP-bnld0S6KSVct5PXs5XIVIw/s600/slab%20for%20blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="600" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZacKur0djU1wTd4n2Znt5ORatUCKAvyk2Bk5Z1JZM3MfbBvYEFV6xTFsfzBmjK5L48sXYRVKAYS_w8f1ECnGWnrFmUE5qw3fYG02TU9QwksFMyxxct1b1gpRwKeqH8tnpJo-YSnqG16ibsHB-rqqKbplAFBrJrwyxzqP-bnld0S6KSVct5PXs5XIVIw/w531-h520/slab%20for%20blog.jpg" width="531" /></a></div><p>In his excellent introduction to fossils, paleontologist Richard Fortey wrote of paleontological “enigmas:”</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Every now and then the fossil record throws up fossils which are palaeontological puzzles. They are obviously the remains of some kind of animal, but the problem is to decide what kind. They tend to be rather rare and preserved in a special way. Like so many palaeontological matters, they stir up arguments between specialists who think they have a way of solving the enigmas. (<i>Fossils: The History of Life</i>, 2009 edition, p. 156)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Well, in this case, yes and no. The subject of this post is among those puzzling fossils that don’t fit the general case Fortey outlined. This particular one is an enigma that is actually incredibly well represented in the fossil record, so much so, one would think any questions about it would have been answered long ago. Further, I don’t think there’s anything special about the ways in which it was preserved (I return to this at the end of the post). Still, the basic problem – deciding what kind of animal it was – remains.</p><p>(I should note that I don’t believe just because something is commonplace that it necessarily comes without questions, only that the opportunities to study it would be manifestly greater than those attending something truly rare.)</p><p>The fossils on my rock are the remains of a genus of marine animals, <i>Tentaculites</i>, that lived within calcareous shells, and are considered members of a class of animals known as the Tentaculitoidea. This class existed probably from the beginning of the Ordovician Period (some 485 million years ago) through until possibly the end of the Carboniferous Period (perhaps as late as 299 mya). In many ways, these fossils are so common as to be ordinary. Hervey Woodburn Shimer and Robert Rakes Shrock in <i>Index Fossils of North America</i> (1944) characterized the presence of Tentaculites as “extremely abundant” in Silurian and Devonian strata. (p. 526) These fossils are found worldwide and, indeed, have served as index fossils (useful for the identification and dating of different geologic formations).</p><p>As Paul D. Taylor and David N. Lewis observed (<i>Fossil Invertebrates</i>, 2005), tentaculitid shells are typically straight and small, ranging in size from 4 to 30 mm in length, tapering from a close end to an open end (typically 1 mm in diameter).</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The outer surface is marked by transverse annulations, comprising prominent rings with gentler ridges called annulets in between, as well as a more subdued ornament of longitudinal ridges called lirae. (p. 133)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Closeups below of some of the <i>Tentaculites</i> specimens in the Ukrainian rock reveal some of the features Taylor and Lewis described.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyslE0_cV1oven4OnuGxrzmeLXR2UXJ8Dq1H-zW2apsnLjpgS2ero5WA-7nNttIXwsenqKGm4QN45gyGQhR0tKNWEFWunCqciIaK2GoSnX4M45aRGoDrKowqozGrnwszD22h6IE3OuVLCcE17o1T_QjdbeSAZXe1xmNazjH8F2aCpBwJ_4X4_Zsk4tA/s600/Tentaculites%2010x%20for%20blog.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="532" height="530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyslE0_cV1oven4OnuGxrzmeLXR2UXJ8Dq1H-zW2apsnLjpgS2ero5WA-7nNttIXwsenqKGm4QN45gyGQhR0tKNWEFWunCqciIaK2GoSnX4M45aRGoDrKowqozGrnwszD22h6IE3OuVLCcE17o1T_QjdbeSAZXe1xmNazjH8F2aCpBwJ_4X4_Zsk4tA/w470-h530/Tentaculites%2010x%20for%20blog.tiff" width="470" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqV5DDi7zW2mWHAycXT9LVcfOeb6M--SCEwZZQZGUUrP4EKd6pvxIVNDoOFjOV48XnnwhV_RvBfot3YMJ74JnJxoac7EM8MjE_r5QyMTeXnX_H2jR1wN12T0f7yn_LDSqVjGL-BLeqvwPQ6RPlx5t9nzpa1nBTe5MV4s8rgtQdkV4rlIypXtnFz5Ppw/s600/Tentaculites%2030x%20for%20blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqV5DDi7zW2mWHAycXT9LVcfOeb6M--SCEwZZQZGUUrP4EKd6pvxIVNDoOFjOV48XnnwhV_RvBfot3YMJ74JnJxoac7EM8MjE_r5QyMTeXnX_H2jR1wN12T0f7yn_LDSqVjGL-BLeqvwPQ6RPlx5t9nzpa1nBTe5MV4s8rgtQdkV4rlIypXtnFz5Ppw/w495-h372/Tentaculites%2030x%20for%20blog.jpg" width="495" /></a></div><p>Familiarity from their sheer abundance has not bred contempt for these animals. Rather, they have been the source of endless speculation and subject of many questions with no consensus answers as yet. The title of an oft-quoted piece on these organisms by paleontologist D.W. Fisher nicely captures what was known, or, rather, not known, 60 years ago: “Small Conoidal Shells of Uncertain Affinities.” (Appears in <i>Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology</i>, Part W, R.C. Moore, ed., 1962.) The intervening years since Fisher’s work haven’t cleared things up very much. Paleontologist Eberhard Schindler delineated the breadth and depth of our continuing ignorance about the tentaculitids in a recent publication. I summarize below several of the open questions and unknowns about this life form which he described:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>its taxonomic position in the animal kingdom is unclear with no agreement even as to its common name, much less as to which animals should be grouped with it;</li><li>there are many hypotheses about the kind of animal tentaculitids were, including crinoids or parts of crinoids (a filter-feeding marine invertebrate that’s been around for hundred of millions of years, often called “sea lilies”), parts of trilobites, mollusks, or lophophorates (any of a broad group of marine worms with a spiral feeding structure on its head, the group has included brachiopods);</li><li>despite being used as index fossils, there is ambiguity about precisely when the tentaculitids originated and, even more in doubt is when they actually went completely extinct; and</li><li>the fundamental questions of where these animals lived, what their lifecycle was, and how they secured food remain unanswered, with some members of the group likely to have lived in the water column while others probably lived rooted to the ocean floor.</li></ul><p></p><p>Schindler’s work is a chapter aptly titled Tentaculitoids – An Enigmatic Group of Palaeozoic Fossils in <i><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-90-481-3428-1_14">Earth and Life</a></i> (edited by John A. Talent, 2012). If another appropriate adjective for these creatures is needed, geologist Mark Wilson on the <a href="https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2017/03/03/wooster%E2%80%99s-fossil-of-the-week-mysterious-tentaculitids-devonian-of-maryland/"><i>Wooster Geologists</i> blog</a> (March 3, 2017) labeled them “mysterious.”</p><p>Perhaps the holy grail for addressing some of these fundamental questions is the discovery of preserved soft tissue. Until then, the questions remain and the debate continues.</p><p><b>One Last Uncertainty</b></p><p>Perhaps the first order question I had to deal with regarding the death assemblage of <i>Tentaculites</i> pictured at the outset of this post, and one for which I have a tentative answer, is: how were these specific fossils created? That is, what do I have in hand? External casts of <i>Tentaculites </i>where all of the original material dissolved, creating voids that were infilled with new minerals? Or, instead, products of chemical change as the original material was infiltrated with precipitating new minerals (permineralization)? Or the results of neither of those processes and of something else?</p><p>I am currently inclined to believe permineralization accounts for the fossils on this piece of rock. My reasoning isn’t very deep and focuses on the absence of evidence for casting and molding as the process by which these fossils were preserved. Were these external casts, so my thinking goes, there should also be some molds, that is, depressions retaining the patterns of the external surfaces of the shells, on this rock. I don’t think one (casts) comes without the other (molds).</p><p>Clearly, there is little clear about these fossils. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-38407310570670334362022-02-22T14:22:00.004-05:002022-02-23T09:52:01.787-05:00Are Mineral Specimens Without Labels Fewtrils?<p>Are mineral specimens without labels <i>fewtrils</i>? In the initial attempt at this post, I asserted as much.</p><p>According to the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i>, the noun <i>fewtrils</i> (always in the plural) means: “Small or trivial things; knick-knacks.” It’s a lovely word and I first learned of it during the 2021 National Spelling Bee. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/us/spelling-bee-words.html">New York Times reporter Alan Yuhas</a> offered it and several others from the 2021 contest as evidence to argue that the National Spelling Bee words “weren’t always this hard.” The recent contest featured words that were hard, obscure, and seldom encountered. The <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> places <i>fewtrils</i> in Frequency Band 1 which “contains extremely rare words unlikely ever to appear in modern text.”</p><p>The origin of the word is uncertain, though the<i> OE</i>D suggests it might be an “alteration” of <i>fattrels</i>, a Frequency Band 1 noun used in Scotland meaning “ribbon-ends.” <i>Fattrel</i>s comes from the French <i>fatraill</i>e defined as “trash” or “things of no value.”</p><p>I wrestled with whether it was fair to apply <i>fewtrils</i> to a gift of several dozen minerals I recently received on behalf of a fossil and mineral club. This generous donation, from the widow of a man whose father had collected them, will support the club financially through our auctions or generate good will via giveaways. What has come to me in the past few days are the specimens the donor’s husband held back when he gave away his father’s collection many years ago. I have no idea what prompted him to retain these, whether they held some special meaning for him, whether he felt these were particularly attractive specimens, or whether these were the dregs that he couldn’t give away.</p><p>There is one thing that binds nearly all of these items together: a lack of any identifying label and, so, there is no information as to what the minerals were believed to be, where they were found, or when they were collected.</p><p>I fear this post will be taken as showing a lack of gratitude for this gift, the undercutting of an act of generosity by a bit of petty criticism. That’s not what I intend. I acknowledge and salute the gift, but lament that I know so very little about these specimens. And, though they still have value, there’s a lesson to be learned for today’s and tomorrow’s collectors, one that is painful given how striking many of the donated minerals are, as the pictures that follow attest.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMfdYofmy1hS5ujmkyGj2CWrbqY_XFw4RYIrQKx_AGRr96OIGTuYuadtT37xsx283eH1M1NGaiHxrF_bXMGAx1Zb9aS5v_1qw94EiBTl_4Y9u8IsqpkqwjwQDENz54IsB_Lh8U_do25mSZ8j0pIJnMAIMF--2vWAbA3kzhyFXu83d4hW9sQdlRjxyU1A=s600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="600" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMfdYofmy1hS5ujmkyGj2CWrbqY_XFw4RYIrQKx_AGRr96OIGTuYuadtT37xsx283eH1M1NGaiHxrF_bXMGAx1Zb9aS5v_1qw94EiBTl_4Y9u8IsqpkqwjwQDENz54IsB_Lh8U_do25mSZ8j0pIJnMAIMF--2vWAbA3kzhyFXu83d4hW9sQdlRjxyU1A=w400-h375" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj-C_NJ7E2yX4t5wdYNildCIj7GFv_KCKVRl7mc2S-fWineX86m7sC4NXVZUFtgrO8jtkjkev8QVOjTGZrV2I9gZMs6dpHbxzCYeiclskjf7KMfEDNj5pSgW8S_CiLAlFqyni6myXTAA1fwNfY3N3fX3GRKGkad_yKSdtQng0vk2_eGu6Vtf6ezVW5tQ=s600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="600" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj-C_NJ7E2yX4t5wdYNildCIj7GFv_KCKVRl7mc2S-fWineX86m7sC4NXVZUFtgrO8jtkjkev8QVOjTGZrV2I9gZMs6dpHbxzCYeiclskjf7KMfEDNj5pSgW8S_CiLAlFqyni6myXTAA1fwNfY3N3fX3GRKGkad_yKSdtQng0vk2_eGu6Vtf6ezVW5tQ=w400-h369" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifECQaIe31HP9H-9rYqbybUqHw7enBpE8D56GiMc7QzoTYPh1MHM9Xx5ILI7zKnuxwjF-xlzVHQ2UKHvoM4YijXhQGsP92MrSdjpWRgUP_T5xegeT0745PxFld4rJCI0dRTpfIVYGfX-5vEYW93O7i49xQFdxXIMxnY7mR49p1Sses62S4P4SuGVUz8Q=s600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifECQaIe31HP9H-9rYqbybUqHw7enBpE8D56GiMc7QzoTYPh1MHM9Xx5ILI7zKnuxwjF-xlzVHQ2UKHvoM4YijXhQGsP92MrSdjpWRgUP_T5xegeT0745PxFld4rJCI0dRTpfIVYGfX-5vEYW93O7i49xQFdxXIMxnY7mR49p1Sses62S4P4SuGVUz8Q=w400-h265" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgs279LUfL8fQ0Tkgk_MUpAysyz-ZflMK9GI8zo2pyUgs_IzzbYtfY55rf4aoSD7AqIarxK3EFQVe3CXXBeDhnzutGLcgBzE3eaaKWyAUAVHgPcHpN-BLZXSxqZ_nVCWzlxDfDczSP9mZnImqTFBTwa97jUSb1SKQPATd4MsIuoTibaJ5Al40Sr85C4qA=s600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="547" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgs279LUfL8fQ0Tkgk_MUpAysyz-ZflMK9GI8zo2pyUgs_IzzbYtfY55rf4aoSD7AqIarxK3EFQVe3CXXBeDhnzutGLcgBzE3eaaKWyAUAVHgPcHpN-BLZXSxqZ_nVCWzlxDfDczSP9mZnImqTFBTwa97jUSb1SKQPATd4MsIuoTibaJ5Al40Sr85C4qA=w388-h425" width="388" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsSxT5HEkXCybeyo36LbyLBXv8Ew3ELRTwLbIYmbSHM-dAqFBiawaZfZy1pojmuCVaZMM7SHtjoh1BW_nxh3F_JJMLYCdm7vgwTLTIRzL7uCeobEuW6GjCIITO8NayEwhBgHzg1x2yWTpBW3yMHNtTLlO1KVepwloDOcIdgVmfKd7ok0URoaNGuB0lSw=s600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="600" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsSxT5HEkXCybeyo36LbyLBXv8Ew3ELRTwLbIYmbSHM-dAqFBiawaZfZy1pojmuCVaZMM7SHtjoh1BW_nxh3F_JJMLYCdm7vgwTLTIRzL7uCeobEuW6GjCIITO8NayEwhBgHzg1x2yWTpBW3yMHNtTLlO1KVepwloDOcIdgVmfKd7ok0URoaNGuB0lSw=w400-h279" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEik3uKNgT8YAHnMwyleDMfZfJ5OFc1JLugB7pJOrSjC3oYQzdudnS2RBZ7qoPaArR30x9sH-jT1l7JfGZ7tJyVOHAmHpQy4JzjIGGIaj1Y-L6sVYcHgiibytgmnBWJASpm5H1vFEV5kSCVcKvqXDtp4VekfnwsSCN8cAcu650AgeRFBm0HAFEEPWhMDqA=s600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEik3uKNgT8YAHnMwyleDMfZfJ5OFc1JLugB7pJOrSjC3oYQzdudnS2RBZ7qoPaArR30x9sH-jT1l7JfGZ7tJyVOHAmHpQy4JzjIGGIaj1Y-L6sVYcHgiibytgmnBWJASpm5H1vFEV5kSCVcKvqXDtp4VekfnwsSCN8cAcu650AgeRFBm0HAFEEPWhMDqA=w400-h320" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8WvNKMrp5vMHqnihmJQdEQaznDdmdwQu57N2VwH7C62-eVZcqS5PnvSnZisA6alZOdNaypnx-aS4KqByw7V9inJAZHfkj3hSEquWTLmczfBTwN5ZA6eFQpWSwARLHhOQRYTtqYevMAZ65YbAfYBWmIJy3kGYZ3XHvmEugwOcKCRPuvyTcBRHt_Q9GhQ=s600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="520" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8WvNKMrp5vMHqnihmJQdEQaznDdmdwQu57N2VwH7C62-eVZcqS5PnvSnZisA6alZOdNaypnx-aS4KqByw7V9inJAZHfkj3hSEquWTLmczfBTwN5ZA6eFQpWSwARLHhOQRYTtqYevMAZ65YbAfYBWmIJy3kGYZ3XHvmEugwOcKCRPuvyTcBRHt_Q9GhQ=w390-h451" width="390" /></a></div><br /><p>Only the fifth image from the top shows a specimen that sports a label: "Quartz crystals, Ark."</p><p>The absence of an identifying label is a big deal. Ronald Louis Bonewitz in <i>Rock and Gem: The Definitive Guide to Rocks, Minerals, Gems, and Fossils</i> (Smithsonian, 2008) wrote:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>In the beginning, all of this [note taking and labelling] may not seem so important, but as a collection grows, so does the likelihood of mixing up specimens and forgetting the localities where they were found. Precise information enhances both the financial value of specimens and their scientific interest. (p. 23)</p><p></p></blockquote><p>In his interesting, self-published, slim volume titled <i>The Collecting Bug: A Rock Collector’s Philosophy of Life </i>(2020), amateur rock, mineral, and fossil collector Bob Farrar, devotes a chapter to the labelling of specimens. His position is clear: the chapter is titled “Label, Label, LABEL!” He asserted:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>[P]roperly labeled mineral and fossil specimens constitute knowledge, i.e., the knowledge that that particular mineral or fossil occurs at a particular place. . . . A specimen can always be identified later, but missing locality information is often gone forever. A specimen of, say, calcite, with no locality information does not constitute knowledge that calcite occurs at a particular place. That calcite specimen may still be useful for education purposes, such as demonstrating double refraction, or as a decorative piece to sit on a shelf somewhere. But, it does not constitute knowledge. (p. 34) </p></blockquote><p></p><p>So, are minerals without labels really <i>fewtrils</i>? I don’t think so. Though Bonewitz posited that such specimens are certainly less valuable financially and scientifically, they are not without <i>some</i> value. Even some that border on being nearly worthless (knick-knacks) may have some beauty which may turn each of them, in Farrar’s words, into “a decorative piece to sit on a shelf somewhere.”</p><p>This line of reasoning isn't unique to minerals. I and many others have argued that fossils without labels are just rocks, but perhaps they're actually a bit more than that.</p><p>Is there a noun for objects worth less than they could have been?</p><p>[Later edit: <i>Disappointments </i>is, I think, entirely too negative, bordering on <i>fewtrils</i>.]</p><div><br /></div>Tony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.com0