I have been given an unbound pre-publication, copy of
Footprints in Stone, the book I co-authored with Ron Buta about the Minkin footprint site in Walker County, Alabama. The cover looks really wonderful, and so do the interior illustrations. The publisher expects the book to be available at the end of May, which is sooner than they originally told us. You can preorder the book from Amazon right now:
http://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460989262&sr=1-1&keywords=%22footprints+in+stone%22
The trace-fossil fauna at the Minkin site is more diverse than at most Pennsylvanian sites. Vertebrates: 6 spp made by tetrapods & fish. Insects: at least 4 spp. Other arthropods: at least 4 spp. Other critters: at least 2 spp. There are also arthropod body fossils and diverse plant fossils.
The Minkin site is the best trace fossil site of its age in the world. It is one of the few world-class sites that you can visit, accompanied by knowledgeable guides from the Alabama Paleontological Society, and keep most of the specimens you find. If you find anything unusual it will have to be donated to a Museum, but so many specimens have been collected (well over 5000 so far) it is pretty rare to find something you can't keep.
Talk to me if you want to arrange a visit to the site.
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
