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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Paleobiology
Observations On Late Cretaceous Micrampulla (Corethrales, Bacillariophyceae) From The Campbell Plateau (Zealandia), Southwest Pacific Ocean, Kenta Abe, David M. Harwood, Richard W. Jordan
Observations On Late Cretaceous Micrampulla (Corethrales, Bacillariophyceae) From The Campbell Plateau (Zealandia), Southwest Pacific Ocean, Kenta Abe, David M. Harwood, Richard W. Jordan
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications
Late Cretaceous (late Campanian) diatom assemblages from the Campbell Plateau (Zealandia), southwest Pacific Ocean, obtained from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Leg 29 Site 275, contain well-preserved specimens of two enigmatic diatom species currently assigned to the genus Ktenodiscus; Micrampulla parvula originally described from the Maastrichtian-age Moreno Shale, California, and Pterotheca cretacea from DSDP Site 275. In general, the two species share a number of common features with modern Corethron (domed valves, probable heterovalvate frustules, T-shaped serrated articulated spines, marginal sockets), but differ in the location of the sockets (i.e. vertically at the base of the valve dome and …
Crossed Tracks: Mesolimulus, Archaeopteryx, And The Nature Of Fossils, Leonard Finkelman
Crossed Tracks: Mesolimulus, Archaeopteryx, And The Nature Of Fossils, Leonard Finkelman
Faculty Publications
Organisms leave a variety of traces in the fossil record. Among these traces, vertebrate and invertebrate paleontologists conventionally recognize a distinction between the remains of an organism’s phenotype (body fossils) and the remains of an organism’s life activities (trace fossils). The same convention recognizes body fossils as biological structures and trace fossils as geological objects. This convention explains some curious practices in the classification, as with the distinction between taxa for trace fossils and for tracemakers. I consider the distinction between “parallel taxonomies,” or parataxonomies, which privileges some kinds of fossil taxa as “natural” and others as “artificial.” The motivations …
Betting & Hierarchy In Paleontology, Leonard Finkelman
Betting & Hierarchy In Paleontology, Leonard Finkelman
Faculty Publications
In his Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences, Adrian Currie argues that historical scientists should be optimistic about success in reconstructing the past on the basis of future research. This optimism follows in part from examples of success in paleontology. I argue that paleontologists’ success in these cases is underwritten by the hierarchical nature of biological information: extinct organisms have extant analogues at various levels of taxonomic, ecological, and physiological hierarchies, and paleontologists are adept at exploiting analogies within one informational hierarchy to infer information in another. On this account, fossils serve the role …
A Quantitative Analysis Of Intermediate Forms Within Astarte From The Atlantic Coastal Plain, Philip Roberson
A Quantitative Analysis Of Intermediate Forms Within Astarte From The Atlantic Coastal Plain, Philip Roberson
Murray State Theses and Dissertations
The Atlantic Coastal Plain has long been recognized as a natural laboratory useful for testing hypotheses about various environmental and ecological effects on marine fauna. For studies such as these to continue being conducted in a rigorous and easily repeatable manner, a reliable taxonomy must be established for genera within this physiographic province. The bivalve genus, Astarte, is a cosmopolitan genus that is commonly found within the Atlantic Coastal Plain. This genus has many formally recognized species, even though it lacks many features that would encourage diversification, marking it as a taxonomic group in need of potential revision. The …
Evolution Of The Cretaceous Calcareous Nanofossil Genus Eiffellithus And Its Biostratigraphic Significance, Jamie L. Shamrock, David K. Watkins
Evolution Of The Cretaceous Calcareous Nanofossil Genus Eiffellithus And Its Biostratigraphic Significance, Jamie L. Shamrock, David K. Watkins
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications
The calcareous nanofossil genus Eiffellithus is an important taxon of mid- to Upper Cretaceous marine sediments in biostratigraphy and paleoceanography. The definition of species within Eiffellithus have been both broadly interpreted and variably applied by nanofossil workers. This is particularly true for the Eiffellithus eximius plexus. While the taxonomy of mid-Cretaceous Eiffellithus species has recently been well-defined, the remaining 35 m.y. history of the genus has not been closely examined. Our investigation of Cenomanian to Maastrichtian sediments from the Western Interior Seaway, Gulf of Mexico, and Western Atlantic gives rise to six new species of Eiffellithus that can be reliably …
Body Mass Of Late Quaternary Mammals (Data Set), Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, S.K. Morgan Ernest, Kate E. Jones, Kansas State University, Tamar Dayan, Pablo A. Marquet, James H. Brown, John P. Haskell
Body Mass Of Late Quaternary Mammals (Data Set), Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, S.K. Morgan Ernest, Kate E. Jones, Kansas State University, Tamar Dayan, Pablo A. Marquet, James H. Brown, John P. Haskell
School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications
The purpose of this data set was to compile body mass information for all mammals on Earth so that we could investigate the patterns of body mass seen across geographic and taxonomic space and evolutionary time. We were interested in the heritability of body size across taxonomic groups (How conserved is body mass within a genus, family, and order?), in the overall pattern of body mass across continents (Do the moments and other descriptive statistics remain the same across geographic space?), and over evolutionary time (How quickly did body mass patterns iterate on the patterns seen today? Were the Pleistocene …