Comments on: Rock and life: Trace fossils

By: jim mcp

jim mcp — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:48:32 +0000

Hello Brian,

I was putting together a ppt for a Paleo class and came upon your work. I’d like to include some of your shots and comments into the ppt. But, at the end, I’d like to give you credit and also let the students know if you got your degree(s)/doctorate/MSc and what it is you are doing now.

Many thanks for having posted these. They are quite good. Much appreciated.

Jim
Brockville.

By: Abhijit Bejalwar

Abhijit Bejalwar — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:02:19 +0000

Thanks for reply, i will try to contact them.

By: BrianR

BrianR — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:39:15 +0000

Abhi … search for papers/books by George Pemberton of University of Alberta in Canada … he has worked on and taught classes about trace fossils for many decades.

By: Abhijit Bejalwar

Abhijit Bejalwar — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:53:12 +0000

hi,

I am Abhi form India and trying to some work on trace fossils which is well preserved in my study area like Ophiomorpha,Thalassinoides. i am very much intrested doing some creative work on that so plz help me regarding this. plz send some infmormation or any new topic related to trace fossil on which i can work.

thanks,

regards

Abhi

email Id: geoabhi@rediffmail.com

By: The Accretionary Wedge #3: Between Rock and a Squishy Face, Geology and Life « The Accretionary Wedge

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:32:52 +0000

[...] pay very well, or at all… But he was kind enough to take a break and submit an article on trace fossils he has found while doing his research. Check out the monster [...]

By: BrianR

BrianR — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 16:40:48 +0000

dmonte…good luck to you as well…for now, to see some photos and posts about sed structures, just click on that category title towards the bottom of the sidebar on right

perhaps someday I will organize a separate page on here about that

By: dmonte

dmonte — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 16:03:32 +0000

I’d love to see your sedimentary structure pictures as I am always looking for good photographic examples.

Good luck with your dissertation by the way. I will defend mine on Tuesday. Older, part time student and it took way too much time.

By: BrianR

BrianR — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:30:40 +0000

Andrew…I have tons more of fundamental sed structures. Someday I’ll take the time to upload them :)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:07:12 +0000

Love your photos, here and on Flickr. It stands to reason that you’d have good shots of all the sedimentary structures. I have a copy of Ricci Lucchi’s “Sedimentographica” that I keep meaning to study so I can start recognizing these things in the field.

By: BrianR

BrianR — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:31:03 +0000

KevinZ…one of the characteristics of the Ophiomorpha trace fossil is that it has a ‘lining’ (usually a finer grain-sized) on the interior walls of the burrow and sometimes an internal structure. The second photo from top shows this nicely…there’s almost a spiral pattern. So, the thought is that animals smaller than the resulting burrow make their way down and line the burrow w/ their fecal matter to give it some structural integrity.

In the modern, studies have shown burrows similar to these (and in similar depositional environments) made almost exclusively by a type of shrimp (callianassid shrimp [see here]). But, the problem we always face is just because that’s what we see now, is that how it was then?

Could it be a worm burrow? Possibly.

When it comes to traces, since they are merely recording behavior, you can have one organism make multiple traces, and you can have one trace made by multiple organisms. There are certainly some common patterns, but there is not a one-to-one correlation between animal and trace.