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https://museums.ua.edu/museumsfromyourhome/

Alabama Museum of Natural History -- Museums From Your Home

Today, 10 AM Central: Pennsylvanian trace fossils from the most important site of its age in the world

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The Encyclopedia of Alabama includes about two dozen short articles about the geology of the state. Including this one, about the Steven C Minkin Paleozoic Footprint site, in Walker County. This site is one of the best in the world for its abundance and diversity of trace fossils:

http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1371

The encyclopedia is written for the general public.

Here are photographs of some of the fantastically preserved trace fossils found at the site:

 Insect jumping traces.

Horseshoe crab trackway.

Two crossing millipede trackways.

 Amphibian trackway.

Reptile trackway.

Giant amphibian footprint next to a small trackway of a different amphibian.

 Fish fin trails.

Insect wing impressions.

Trigonotarbid, an ancient spider relative.

A new book about these exciting Pennsylvanian trace fossils describes their discovery, their makers, and the environment in which they lived:

https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

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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/

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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.

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Curiosity photographs a trackway
footprints in the sands of Mars
back home, ichnologists measure
pace and stride, weight and width
something puts its forelegs on the rover
starts rocking, stays out of the field of view
over she goes
curiosity goes both ways
or nowhere at all, in this case

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

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

Footprints in Stone

This weekend I will be working on the Kickstarter to fund this book about fossil trackways from Walker County Alabama. Specifically, I'm going to come up with some draft text for the Kickstarter page and continue to brainstorm ideas about what to offer as premiums. So far, my favorite is some limited edition T-shirts.

Dragonfly food?

Amphibian walks in from the left, trackway ends in disturbed area to right. Tell me no one ate this little guy!

Early Pennsylvanian (313 My) shale, Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site, Alabama. Photo by Ron Buta.

perhaps a better one

A larger critter, moving from left to right.

A stroll in the marsh

Trail of footprints, from right to left (and seen from the underside). 313 million B.C., Alabama. Photo by Ron Buta.