051420d

I and three other geologists just finished a livestreamed conversation about the fantastic Pennsylvanian trace fossils of North Alabama. These include the most important trace fossil site of its age, a story that stretches back to 1929, and the oldest known evidence of schooling in fish (with evidence for group behavior of tetrapods and invertebrates as well).

Links to the video:


YouTube: https://youtu.be/dR8TzWTJ5RY

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ALMNH/videos/714247095991609/


Books on the subject:

Pennsylvanian Footprints in the Black Warrior Basin of Alabama (free download) http://kudzu.astr.ua.edu/monograph/monofiles/monofiles.html

Footprints in Stone https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OVXWDLW284XM&dchild=1&keywords=footprints+in+stone&qid=1589477787&sprefix=footprints+in+st%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1

022520b

Undichna, a trace fossil made by a fish swimming in water so shallow that its ventral fans cut grooves in the mud. Indicates the former presence of a tide pool on a  Pennsylvanian mud flat in Walker County Alabama, 313 million years ago. Collected by Prescott Atkinson. More information here: https://www.alabamapaleosoc.org/

053118b

Steven C Minkin Paleozoic Footprint site

The most important trace-fossil site of its age in the world (Pennsylvanian, Westphalian A)

Millipede trackway

Horseshoe crab trarkway 

Jumping flightless insect trarkway 

Reptilian trarkway 

Amphibian trackway

Fish-fin trace (two of them) 

Insect wing impression

These trace fossils (the impression of wings is actually a body fossil), and thousands of others,  were preserved in a 313 million year old tidal flat in central Alabama..


The site and related subjects are described in this book:

 

Which you can buy from indie bookstores

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780817358440

Or from other places

https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469797628&sr=1-1&keywords=%22footprints+in+stone%22#nav-top

011918c

313 million-year-old trace fossils. Attenosaurs were reptile-like amphibians.  This footprint is about the size  of an adult human hand. The amphibian trackway is called Nanopus reidiae. Its maker would have looked like a salamander. There is a third trace fossil on the slab. Can you find it?

Read a lot more about this in our book "Footprints in Stone."

https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469797628&sr=1-1&keywords=%22footprints+in+stone%22

This book helped the American museum solve an 87 year old mystery:

https://www.ua.edu/news/2018/01/ua-book-helps-solve-87-year-old-fossil-mystery/

Mystery at the American Museum solved

Press Release
January 2, 2018 

87-Year-Old Fossil Mystery Solved 

In the world of paleontology, mysteries abound. Apart from questions about 

their makers, sometimes fossils create their own mysteries after they are 

collected. The book, “Footprints in Stone: Fossil Traces of Coal-Age 

Tetrapods,” by Ronald J. Buta and David C. Kopaska-Merkel, helped solve 

a mystery at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 

Senior Museum Specialist Carl Mehling had been working to identify some 

unknown specimens from an unlabeled crate. His only clue was the 

newspaper used to cushion the specimens. He explained in an email to 

Buta and Kopaska-Merkel on October 11, 2017:

“I have to thank you guys for something unexpected. I got a copy of Footprints in Stone about a month ago. In the Intro, I read that G.G. Simpson collected trackways down there in January 1930. I was immediately thrilled because this promised to help solve a mystery I first became aware of in 2005.”

The newspapers were from the time of initial discovery, which inspired Mehling to continue digging. He found documentation that proved at least three of the specimens were associated with the Galloway No. 11 underground coal mine near Carbon Hill, Alabama – the location in Buta and Kopaska-Merkel’s book.

In the 1920s, workers at the Galloway No. 11 Mine reported seeing fossil animal footprints (trace fossils) preserved in the rock layers above the coal seam they were mining.

The animals that left the footprints were a mystery because no skeletal remains were found, making it difficult to know what they might have looked like. Nevertheless, the discovery was considered significant enough that the mining company contacted not only professionals in Alabama, but also the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, where the footprints attracted attention of paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984), who worked at AMNH for three decades . Simpson selected 14 large slabs of tracks, now thought to be 310-315 million years old, to be shipped to New York.

Alabama trace fossils received little study until 1999, when tracks were re-discovered by amateur fossil collectors in the spoil piles of an active surface coal mine, the Union Chapel Mine, near Jasper, Alabama, 23 miles east of Carbon Hill. Renewed interest in the ancient Walker County footprints brought them back to the forefront of Alabama paleontology. This led to the publication of “Footprints in Stone: Fossil Traces of Coal-Age Tetrapods” by Buta and Kopaska-Merkel. The book tells the story of the discovery of the site of fossil tracks at the Union Chapel Mine and its preservation by the State of Alabama as the Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint site. The book also recounts the discovery in 2011 of a second prolific fossil trackway site, the Crescent Valley Mine, located only a quarter of a mile from the former entrance to the Galloway No. 11 Mine.

Mehling closed his email:

“I am absolutely thrilled to have reunited these specimens with their data. And I love the serendipitous path that took me there.”

The retrieval of Simpson's slabs after so many years is a thrilling development in the history of fossil collecting in Alabama. The Simpson slabs are an important part of Alabama's heritage, and their re-discovery provides a remarkable story of paleontological sleuthing.

Footprints in Stone: Fossil Traces of Coal-Age Tetrapods, by Ronald J. Buta and David C. Kopaska-Merkel, is available through the University of Alabama Press.

For more information:

Dr. Ronald J. Buta
Professor of Astronomy
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Alabama
Box 870324
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
email: rbuta@ua.edu
cell phone number: 205-310-9062

Dr. David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Section Chief, Petroleum Systems and Technology
Geological Survey of Alabama
Box 869999
Tuscaloosa, AL 35486-6999
205-247-3695
email: davidkm@gsa.state.al.us

Carl Mehling
Senior Museum Specialist
Fossil Amphibian, Reptile, and Bird Collections
Division of Paleontology
American Museum of Natural History
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024
email: cosm@amnh.org

101917d

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 Blue 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 January 1, 2018.

If accepted by the editors as a possible paper for the volume, the formal deadline for submitting the completed manuscript is January 1, 2019. 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.

101117c

Back in 1930, George Gaylord Simpson, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, collected some rare and fantastic reptile trackways in Alabama. The tracks were more than 300 million years old, but they disappeared, and were never seen again. Never, that is, until a present curator of the museum, Carl Mehling, looked at the book that Ron Buta and I wrote about the Alabama tracks, entitled "Footprints in Stone." He realized that the unlabeled crate of tracks he had found in a storeroom were the missing set from almost 90 years ago. A mystery from the last millennium: solved! I must confess that my contribution to this discovery was minimal: Ron did the historical research that went into the book.

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.

"Footprints in Stone" — 30% discount with coupon code

"Footprints in Stone," the book I wrote with Ron Buta about trace fossils in Alabama, is on sale from the publisher. Either print out the coupon below and mail it in, or call your order in and give them the discount code.

Trace fossils are any marks made by ancient animals that are not actually parts of their bodies. Footprints, burrows, borings, tail drag marks, and so on. It just so happens that a coal mine in Alabama turned into the most important trace-fossil site of its age in the world. This book is about the discovery and preservation of the site and about all the marvelous fossils that have been found there.

We wrote the book for the general public. It would be a great gift for any kid who likes fossils.

If you live in or near Alabama, it is not difficult to get permission to visit the Steven C Minkin Paleozoic Footprint site. The book should be interesting and useful to anybody interested in trace fossils, even if they don't live anywhere near Alabama.

Footprints in Stone update

Reading and signing at the UA Press book sale and fair yesterday. They have the book at a 40% discount today and tomorrow ($30). Older titles priced as low as $2. You can still get the book, signed, from me, any time.

https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469797628&sr=1-1&keywords=%22footprints+in+stone%22

Order a signed copy from me for $43 postpaid.

Interview about Footprints in Stone

A half-hour interview about the Pennsylvanian trace fossils from Walker County, Alabama, and about the recently published book on the subject, called Footprints in Stone

http://www.specialpeopleandplaces.com/

The interview took place at a book signing at the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa

101116b

Spoke about Pennsylvanian trace fossils to another group of retirees today. They really enjoyed it and had a lot of questions. Tomorrow night is national fossil day, and we will be there with a bunch of trace fossils to show kids and I hope many will be there. Today I'm also reviewing part of a master's thesis on cave geochemistry.

Signing Saturday

So, this Saturday, I will be signing "footprints in stone," along with my co-author Ron Buta, in the Barnes & Noble in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We will be there from 1 until 5 PM and we are going to have some actual trace fossil specimens for people to look at

091016

For our anniversary we went to a new restaurant, River. Perhaps you can guess where it is located. It was reported to be very good but somewhat pricey. On the plus side, I didn't think it was more expensive than half a dozen other places around town (We spent $55). The food was good, but not great. Specifically, I had shrimp and grits. The shrimp were wonderful and the grits were too mooshy. The special Parmesan chips tasted good but they were kind of crumbled and it was hard to pick up the smaller pieces. The decor was nice and the staff pleasant, and you can eat outside on the river. Of course, it was dark, and we couldn't see the river. It is located in an upscale strip mall, but once you get to the actual restaurant, that is not apparent. I give it a B.

The Jerusalem artichokes are blooming. The flowers look remarkably like sunflowers. We had a lot more rain this summer than we usually do. Normally a third to half of the Jerusalem artichoke stalks wither away, because they really need a lot of water. Even in years when we don't find the time to dig them to eat them, at least they brighten up the late summer garden.In addition, we have three kinds of roses blooming, cosmos, hyssop, zinnias, day lilies blooming again, mock orange blooming again, Turks hat, red honeysuckle blooming again, Kyria blooming again, rose of sharon, clematis, obedience plant, crepe myrtles, gardenias again. Climate change is really messed with the flowers' annual reproductive cycle.

The book signing for footprints in stone last night went very well. About 70 people showed up, and I think about two thirds of them bought books. Some were friends who just came out of solidarity. The Alabama Museum of Natural History went all out. There was an unusually large variety of snack food for such an event, and they really made a nice display of trace fossils from the Minkin site. Actual fossils, poster size reproductions of the color paintings from the book, and the video that film students made when they interviewed us about the project is playing on a miniature screen of a type I haven't seen before. The exhibit will stay up through Christmas, so there will be plenty of time for people to see it.

It was funny, because when we arrived, there were a whole bunch of people from the Press, including several I have corresponded with but never met. I also met a new geology professor at the University and some friends I hadn't seen in about a decade.

Each of us spoke for about 10 minutes and all in all we had a great time. The Press is trying to arrange some similar events elsewhere and whatever comes to pass I will definitely let you know.

Book signing today

So, the second signing for Footprints in Stone is tonight, at the Alabama Museum of Natural History at 6 PM. Come, if you can. I'm a little concerned because it is on the same weekend as the first home football game, and at the University of Alabama, football is the most important academic department there is. They close all the parking lots at  5 PM. They are going to let us and our millions of fans into one small parking lot behind the museum, but it will fill up fast. If anybody comes at all. So, if the good turnout I hope for comes to pass, people will have to hike over from a parking garage several blocks away. Maybe some of them will appreciate the opportunity for some exercise.

Invitation to a book signing and reception

Fossil insect trackway

A small fossil insect trackway from the Minkin site in central Alabama. This is the ventral side of the slab, so footprints have positive relief. On the left, you see a shallow undertrack on a layer close to the original sediment surface. On the right, you see a deeper layer, on which the trackway was more shallowly impressed. Same trackway, same insect, but preserved slightly differently on different layers.

Want to know more about this kind of stuff? Here is a new book:

https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469797628&sr=1-1&keywords=%22footprints+in+stone%22

Signed copies are in the Barnes and Noble in Tuscaloosa. Order a signed copy from me for $43 postpaid.

And you can learn a lot on this website:

http://alabamapaleo.org/Alabama_Paleontological_Society.html

Attenosaurus subulensis

Top of the food chain on the Westphalian tidal flat in north Alabama. Note burrows of fly larvae in lower image.

Read the book:

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

Resources online:

Alabama Paleo. Soc. http://alabamapaleo.org/Alabama_Paleontological_Society.html
2005 book about the site http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/monograph/monofiles/monofiles.html
Online photographic database http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/scm/scm.pl

Yet more Pennsylvanian traces from the Minkin site

Fish fin traces

Millipede trackways

Book cover

More Pennsylvanian traces, Minkin site

Barnes and Noble in Tuscaloosa has signed copies of "Footprints in Stone," my book (with Ron Buta) about this great trace-fossil site.

Amphibian trackways (small, four-toed, forefeet)

Reptile trackways

Gas bubbles, large trackway (right), small trackway (middle)

New book about the site:

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