The Rocky Road of Vertebrate Paleontology

Abstract

I was thrilled when, in 1986, the first issue of PALAIOS rolled off the presses and found its way into my mailbox. Here, I thought, is finally the long-awaited yang to Paleobiology's yin. Paleobiology had transcended hoary specimen bays and parochial taxonomies, moving into something approximating the main stream of post-World War II science. Unfortunately, fifty years (or more) of field sedimentology (not to mention traditional taxonomic skills) were sometimes abandoned as paleobiologists rejoiced in the mantra, “My field area is the Treatise.” In the mean time, was the geological side of paleontology dead, or was it just resting? Apparently (and thankfully) it was the latter, because despite a strong trend within paleobiology to eschew serious field work (one of its most famous and accomplished practitioners once told a student of mine—in front of me—that “You can learn everything you need to know about sedimentology by reading a book.”), PALAIOS somehow came into being. As I say, I was thrilled. I imagined geobiologists and biogeologists (to coin yet more jargon) contrapuntally toddling off like Hope and Crosby into a rosy future. Whether or not geology has found its way back into paleontology sensu lato is arguable, but it seems to me that it has not yet completely found its way to my own field of vertebrate paleontology. There are a number of indicators of this. An informal census of the membership directory of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology suggests that about twice as many members of the Society are housed within biology departments as within geology departments. More tellingly, a perusal of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology—the Society's scientific organ and presumably an indicator of what is of interest1 to vertebrate paleontologists—reveals that almost no sedimentary geology of significance is contained within its pages. In JVP, sedimentary geology is …