051519b

Looking for ideas about the affinities of this microfossil (two different views of one specimen):

 5 mm wide field of view

6 mm wide field of view (two different views of a single specimen)

We are thinking either a sponge or an alga (or a microproblematicum often considered to be an alga). Lower Carboniferous of Alabama, thin section photomicrographs.

Any ideas will be gratefully received!

                                                                           Update

An educated opinion has been offered, that the mystery critter is a blue-green alga (cyanobacterium), probably related to Pseudohedstroemia. Cyanobacteria were important co-constructors of mounds and reefs throughout the Paleozoic and beyond.

080417c

APS Monograph No. 2

Pennsylvanian Footprints in the Black Warrior Basin of Alabama.

Vol. 2: The Ichnology of Multiple Walker County Tracksites

A CALL FOR PAPERS

In 2005, the Alabama Paleontological Society (APS) published a comprehensive monograph on the trace and body fossils of the world’s most prolific Carboniferous (Coal Age) tracksite, the Union Chapel Mine (now the Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site) located in north-central Alabama. More than 2500 specimens of trackways have been collected from this site, a discontinued surface coal mine in Walker County.

APS Monograph No. 1, Pennsylvanian Footprints in the Black Warrior Basin of Alabama, known informally as the “Blue Book,” was a citizen scientist-professional collaboration that stood as the first major attempt to research Coal Age vertebrate trackways in Alabama since Museum Paper No. 9, Footprints from the Coal Measures of Alabama, published in 1930 by the Alabama Museum of Natural History and written by Truman H. Aldrich, Sr. and Walter B. Jones. The entire book can be accessed online at

kudzu.astr.ua.edu/monograph/monofiles/monofiles.html

Although the Blue Book is still of great value, it was not long before its interpretations needed to be revised and updated. For example, the taxonomy and attribution of vertebrate trackways is still in flux, while some “horseshoe crab” trackways are now thought to have been made by wingless monuran insects. Other traces in the Blue Book are still being debated and likely need further work. But in addition, many more specimens have been collected from Walker County since 2005 that have not yet been examined by any professional ichnologist. An example is the large database of new material from the Crescent Valley Mine near Carbon Hill, 23 miles west and a little north of the Minkin Site. Other sites include the Sugartown and Fern Springs Road mines, which have been visited many times by APS members.

We are calling for papers to be part of a second monograph prepared under the auspices of the APS to accomplish the following:

• illustrate new and interesting specimens collected from multiple tracksites since 2005
• arrange for thorough expert examination of the new vertebrate and invertebrate trace fossil specimens, treating both kinds as having the same level of scientific value
• revise the interpretations in the Blue Book accordingly
• cover all the known tracksites in Alabama
• include analysis and illustration of important specimens of plant fossils found at these same sites
• provide a global view of life during the coal age in Alabama, with the idea of connecting the Alabama tracks to other sites in the US and Canada
• provide a venue for several new studies of UCM and CVM material that are already underway or planned

EDITORS:

Dr. Ronald J. Buta, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, rbuta@ua.edu

Dr. David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Geological Survey of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, davidkm@gsa.state.al.us

Dr. Andrew K. Rindsberg, University of West Alabama, Livingston, arindsberg@uwa.edu

We encourage scientists with a strong interest and experience in Carboniferous trace fossils to contribute papers to this volume. A significant number of Walker County trace fossils collected by local amateurs and citizen scientists are housed in museums in Alabama, including the Alabama Museum of Natural History, the McWane Science Center, and the Anniston Museum of Natural History. The database has continued to expand since the first “Track Meet” (gathering of collectors to document and often donate their specimens) held nearly 17 years ago at the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The story behind the discovery and re-discovery of vertebrate trace fossils in Alabama is told in “Footprints in Stone: Fossil Traces of Coal-Age Tetrapods,” by Ronald J. Buta and David C. Kopaska-Merkel, published in mid-2016 by the University of Alabama Press. The book is available through both amazon.com and the UA Press.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

• If you are interested in contributing a paper to the proposed volume, please send the editors a letter of intent indicating the topic you would like to focus on. This letter should be submitted by NOVEMBER 1, 2017.

• If accepted by the editors as a possible paper for the volume, the formal deadline for submitting the completed manuscript is DECEMBER 31, 2018. All papers should be submitted in Microsoft Word with illustrations in separate jpeg or tiff format. Line graphs should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Halftones should be well-focused and sharp.

Speaking of paleontology

Thin-walled tubular fossils

Here are a couple of thin-section photomicrographs, with scales, of some encrusting and possibly boring fossils. The thin and irregular white walls are made of calcite. These look sort of like worm tubes, except they are smaller than most worm tubes and have a much simpler structure than most worm tubes. If you know anything about them, please let me know.

What is this tiny fossil?

This is a paleontological question. The object that fills most of the image is an ooid, a concentrically laminated carbonate particle. This one is 1.4 mm in the long dimension. The inner part of the ooid is a fossil, which consists of hollow calcite objects of variable shape. The calcite consists of crystals normal to the surface of each particular object. Given the shapes visible in this cross-section through the object, they must be roughly equant. The question is, what organism made this fossil?

The rock is Mississippian in age.

Geology photo

Meniscus cement, ooid grainstone, Monteagle Limestone, Mississippian (lower Carboniferous), north Alabama. Photo by Doug Haywick.

Doug and I are working together on a study of carbonate mounds, but when we came across this beautiful example of meniscus cement, we both knew we had to photograph it.

Invitation to a book signing and reception

Minkin site photos

Attenosaurus subulensis, the footprint of a top predator, and raindrop impressions, both 313 million years old, much older than dinosaurs. Raindrop impressions are very rare at the site, because the muddy tidal flat rarely dried out. The maker of A. subulensis looked a bit like an alligator, and far outweighed any other land animals found in the area.

New book about the site, Footprints in Stone:

https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469578003&sr=8-1&keywords=kopaska-merkel

A Mississippian carbonate mound thin section

What is it? Suggestions include a tubular calcimicrobe or encrusting foraminifer.

122915

the dogs are all I've got
nothing native to the coal age
can be trained or friendly
they love the lizards
salamanders, no
especially the big ones
and the ones with the weird heads
wish I could get back
to Darlene and the rest of the future
it's hot but days are short
no biting bugs
stars so bright I could read a book
I'm waiting for a supernova
meanwhile, naming constellations
in these alien skies

named one for Callie
mother of the first litter
I'll have dogs, at least
though Jimmy and Sally are gone
eaten or run off
and just now Big Head Charlie
ran behind one of these
green pole trees and disappeared
can't have gone far

hey! where's my legs?!
can't have stepped on a butterfly
there are none yet
oh shi-

Footprints in Stone update

The book is scheduled to be published in just over a year. Here is a web page about the trackway site. http://eoa.duc.auburn.edu/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1371

My latest geological publication

Kopaska-Merkel, David C., and Haywick, Douglas W., 2014, Small carbonate buildups in the Bangor Limestone (Chesterian) in and near Alabama, in, Puckett, T. Markham, and Rindsberg, Andrew K., eds., Stratigraphy and depositional systems in the Mississippian strata of the Appalachian Plateau, northwest Alabama, A guidebook for the 51st annual field trip, Alabama Geological Society, Tuscaloosa, p. 111-138.

Abstract

Carbonate mounds in the Mississippian of Alabama are small, unobtrusive, and sparsely distributed. Of eight known mounds, six are in the Bangor Limestone (Chesterian), one is in the Pennington Formation (late Chesterian), and one is in the Tuscumbia Limestone (Meramecian), in the subsurface. Nine other small mounds are known from the Bangor in southeastern Tennessee. A small Bangor mound in Blount County, first described as a rugose coral colony by Andronaco (1986), is here reinterpreted as a composite of coral colonies and muddy domains held up by a consortium of microbes, sponges, and fenestrate bryozoans. This is the first such mound reported from the Bangor.

Video about "Footprints in Stone"

Here is the link to a 16-minute video about trace fossils. In particular, about 300 million-year-old footprints from North Alabama. Prof. Ron Buta and I wrote a book called Footprints in Stone. It is about the discovery of the site by amateur fossil collectors, their successful efforts to get it preserved by the state of Alabama, and thousands upon thousands of tracks and trails made by reptiles, amphibians, horseshoe crabs, and many other creatures on a mud flat so long ago.

http://vimeo.com/114215060

"Footprints in Stone"

Things are moving along with the book. It is funny that, after more than a year of looking for funding, it seems within weeks we might have the minimum amount we need. When we get to that point the book will go into the queue for printing. I think we started writing the book more than three years ago.

"Footprints in Stone" update

This is the book that I wrote with a colleague of mine about an important fossil trackway site in Alabama. Thousands of specimens of trace fossils including footprints of some of the earliest reptiles, fin traces made by fish, jumping and walking traces of insects, and many more have been collected here.

We have a publisher, but the publisher needs to raise some money for the first printing. We have now finally gotten past the halfway point on committed funds. We are working on a Kickstarter project to raise the part we still need. Students from a local documentary film class are putting that together for us. I am starting to believe this might really come to pass.

Call for papers about Carboniferous tracksites

Look up from the slab: The context of Carboniferous tracksites

Proposal for an issue of the
Alabama Museum of Natural History Bulletin
(Editor: Dana Ehret)
to be published in 2016

Andrew K. Rindsberg and David C. Kopaska-Merkel are editing a bulletin devoted to the paleoecological context of Carboniferous tracksites such as the Union Chapel Mine (Alabama, USA) and Joggins (Nova Scotia, Canada). Appropriate topics include research on the plant and invertebrate communities associated with vertebrate trackways; associated invertebrate trace fossils; paleogeography and taphonomy of vertebrate tracksites; and other aspects of the frame in which vertebrate trackways occur. Studies that illuminate animal interactions or behavior within a sedimentary context will also be considered. Manuscripts must consist of original research; they may review the paleoecology of whole sites if this has not been done before.

We plan to publish about 10 to 20 papers of 10 to 20 printed pages each (about 40-80 doublespaced manuscript pages). However, no page limit has been set and both shorter and longer manuscripts will be considered. The bulletin will contain about 200 to 250 printed pages.

Please email proposals to:

Dr. David C. Kopaska-Merkel
dkm@gsa.state.al.us

Schedule

October 1, 2014. Deadline for authors’ proposals, including title and ideas.

October 15. Editors respond to authors’ proposals.

May 1, 2015. Deadline for submission of complete manuscripts by authors.

June 1. Reviewers submit their responses.

October 1. Deadline for authors’ corrections to be submitted to editors.

Spring 2016. Formatting of issue by Dana Ehret (Editor, AMHN Bulletin).

Review of proofs by editors and authors.
Final adjustments to manuscripts.
Publication.






EDITORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Guest Editor DAVID C. KOPASKA-MERKEL has a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and a B.S. from the College of William and Mary. He is Chief of the Petroleum Systems and Technology Section, Geological Survey of Alabama. He is a member of the Evolution Working Group (University of Alabama), President of the SE Section, National Association of Geoscience Teachers, and is active in regional scientific organizations. Current research ranges from sedimentology of gas shales to ichnology of the Minkin Site lagerstätte.

Guest Editor ANDREW K. RINDSBERG studied under John Warme at the Colorado of School of Mines (Ph.D.) and Robert W. Frey at the University of Georgia (M.S.) after graduating from Stanford University (B.S.). He is currently Associate Professor of Environmental Geology and Paleontology at the University of West Alabama, and coordinating author, along with Dirk Knaust, of the ongoing revision of the Trace Fossils volume of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Current research focuses on the ichnotaxonomy of shallow-marine invertebrate ichnotaxa, and the relationship between ichnology and sequence stratigraphy of the Silurian Red Mountain Formation of Alabama.

Editor DANA EHRET Ehret is the Curator of Paleontology at the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Dr. Ehret attended the University of Florida for both his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees. His Ph.D. work focused on the evolution of the white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, and the macroevolution of large body size in the megatoothed sharks including Carcharocles megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived. His field work in Peru in 2007 and 2010 and South Africa in 2009 has led to the description of a 6.5 million-year-old fossil white shark species, Carcharodon hubbelli, which has been the subject of featured articles in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and Palaeontology. His other published work includes manuscripts on a Megalodon nursery area (PLOS One) and other fossil sharks of Panama (Journal of Paleontology), and fossil turtles, including a new species of map turtle from the Pleistocene of Florida, Graptemys kerneri (Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology).

Two new scientific publications

RONALD J. BUTA, JACK C. PASHIN, NICHOLAS J. MINTER, and DAVID C. KOPASKA-MERKEL, 2013, ICHNOLOGY AND STRATIGRAPHY OF THE CRESCENT VALLEY MINE: EVIDENCE FOR A CARBONIFEROUS MEGATRACKSITE IN WALKER COUNTY, ALABAMA, in Lucas, S. G. et al., eds, Carboniferous-Permian transition, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 60. p. 42-56.

Kopaska-Merkel, D. C., and Buta, R. J., 2013, Field-Trip Guidebook to the Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint site, Walker County, Alabama, in Lucas, S. G. et al., eds, Carboniferous-Permian transition, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 60, 30 p.

maybe an interview about my writing

So yesterday I made a four-hour round-trip expedition to help do a 15-minute radio show about somebody else's book. And fossils. The book was "Time" by Roger Reid, and I think I have mentioned it here before. It's a good young-adult mystery set in the most important fossil site in Alabama, the Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site. the geology connection was, of course, why I was invited to participate. The show is Carolyn Hutcheson's community show (I am embarrassed to admit I don't remember the exact name of the show). The show airs at noon on Troy University's public radio station, and is heard in southeast Alabama, southwestern Georgia, and western Florida. While I was there we taped a show about geology, which will probably air in May or June. We also talked about doing a show about my fiction and poetry; I don't know if that will happen. But it would be really cool. Actually, being interviewed on the radio was cool and I had never done it before. It was much easier and a lot more fun than I expected, mostly because Carolyn is a very good interviewer.