Significance Of Fossils Research Articles

Assumptions of authority: the story of Sue the T-rex and controversy over access to fossils

Although the buying, selling, and trading of fossils has been a principle part of paleontological practice over the centuries, the commercial collection of fossils today has re-emerged into a pervasive and lucrative industry. In the United States, the number of commercial companies driving the legal, and sometimes illegal, selling of fossils is estimated to have doubled since the 1980s, and worries from academic paleontologists over this issue has increased accordingly. Indeed, some view the commercialization of fossils as one of the greatest threats to paleontology today. In this article, I address the story of “Sue”—the largest, most complete, and most expensive Tyrannosaurus rex ever excavated—whose discovery incited a series of high-profile legal battles throughout the 1990s over the question of “Who owns Sue?” Over the course of a decade, various stakeholders from academic paleontologists and fossil dealers to Native Americans, private citizens, and government officials all laid claim to Sue. In exploring this case, I argue that assumptions of authority are responsible for initiating and sustaining debates over fossil access. Here, assumptions of authority are understood as assumptions of ownership, or expertise, or in some cases both. Viewing the story from this perspective illuminates the significance of fossils as boundary objects. It also highlights the process of boundary-work by which individuals and groups constructed or deconstructed borders around Sue (specifically) and fossil access (more generally) to establish their own authority. I draw on science studies scholarship as well as literature in the professionalization, commercialization, and valuation of science to examine how assumptions of authority facilitated one of the most divisive episodes in recent paleontological history and the broader debate on the commercial collection of vertebrate fossil material in the United Sates.

Taphonomy

Although the nature and significance of fossils has long been understood, palaeontologists have shown surprisingly little interest in the nature of the processes by which they are formed. Only comparatively recently has taphonomy emerged as a specialised study of the fossilisation process. As part of this new development it has become clear that the preservation of soft tissue is much more prevalent than had been supposed.

Importance for Phylogeny of Single and Multiple Stem-group Fossil Species with Examples from Freshwater Fishes

The phylogenetic significance of fossils is limited in many groups, such as freshwater fishes, by the sparse fossil record that is available. Nevertheless, even these fossils have a role in phylogenetic analysis. Fossils can be a source of new species, characters, and character states. Fossils can also suggest different character polarities. They often clarify the order in which synapomorphies were acquired and demonstrate convergence in the apparent synapomorphies of living species. In extreme cases, they can change estimated phylogenies based only on living species. Species that diverged early in the history of their group usually have more primitive features than younger species, but these early forms tend to be removed from the fauna by extinction

Highlights in the geological Research of central East Africa

The present paper offers a general view of the geological history of central East Africa. It is meant to inform persons involved in all kinds of African research about the physical background of this enormous continent. As the text is intended for people with no specific training in the earth sciences, an extensive introductory part has been dedicated to the general principles and methods of historical geology. The principle of superposition and the meaning of a major unconformity are shortly explained. Also the significance of fossils and of radiometric dating is elucidated with respect to the reconstruction of geological history. Further on a general outline is given of the great mountain belts of the African continent dating back from thé earliest geological times (Precambrian), followed by a more detailed discussion of these belts in central East Africa. As to the younger structures of this region, attention has been focused on the large elongated furrow known as the East African rift. The major characteristics of this important feature in the earth's crust are described and its genesis is briefly discussed. KEYWORDS : Central East Africa, geological structure, Precambrian, rift.

Branopunten in Het Geologisch Onoerzoek van Oostelijk Centraal-Afrika

Highlights in the geological research of central East Africa. The present paper offers a general view of the geological history of central East Africa. It is meant to inform persons involved in all kinds of African research about the physical background of this enormous continent. As the text is intended for people with no specific training in the earth sciences, an extensive introductory part has been dedicated to the general principles and methods of historical geology. The principle of superposition and the meaning of a major unconformity are shortly explained. Also the significance of fossils and of radiometric dating is elucidated with respect to the reconstruction of geological history. Further on a general outline is given of the great mountain belts of the African continent dating back from the earliest geological times (Precambrian), followed by a more detailed discussion of these belts in central East Africa. As to the younger structures of this region, attention has been focused on the large elongated furrow known as the East African rift. The major characteristics of this important feature in the earth's crust are described and its genesis is briefly discussed.

Changing Concepts of the Nature and Significance of Fossils

Plant and animal fossils have been observed and collected since prehistoric times. Greek and Chinese writers 2000 years ago interpreted marine shells in mountains far from the sea as evidence of former extension of the sea over land. The stony nature of petrified teeth, shells, and wood led other observers to attribute their growth to the same forces which produce the geometrical forms of mineral crystals. From the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, scholars debated their organic or mineral origin, their emplacement in rocks by the Biblical Deluge or growth in situ, and whether some were extinct or merely unknown because they lived in the unexplored depths of the sea. Cuvier showed that bones and teeth of large land animals, especially mammoths, mastodons, and the Eocene mammals from gypsum quarries near Paris demonstrate that animals unlike any living and too conspicuous not to have been observed by explorers had lived in the past. William Smith in England and Cuvier and Brongniart in France demonstrated...

John Farey's mineral survey of South-East Sutherland and the age of the Brora Coalfield

Summary Re-examination of the manuscript of John Farey's unpublished mineral survey of south-east Sutherland, together with his published opinions on the significance of fossils from the Brora Coalfield and his interpretation of the stratigraphy of that coalfield, leaves no doubt that, contrary to the accepted view, Farey did not recognise the Mesozoic age of the Brora Coalfield but thought of it as Carboniferous. Farey was a Smithian geologist, and the difficulty he had in interpreting unfamiliar evidence from Brora illustrates the difficulties experienced by bio-stratigraphers in the 1810s when fossil ranges were imperfectly understood. Evidence is presented which suggests that the first geologist to recognise the Mesozoic age of the Brora beds may have been John MacCulloch.

Significance of Fossils in Determining Evolutionary Relationships

Fifteen years ago, I think it inconceivable that editors should have offered, or a reviewer accepted, a title such as mine. After all, evolution is a theory about the history of life; evolutionary relationships are historical relationships; fossils are the only concrete historical evidence of life; therefore fossils must be the arbiters of evolutionary relationships. Such an argument is implicit in most discussions of relationships during the last 120 years. As one recent example, Nash et al (65) write that The evolutionary origins and relationships of elasmobranchs are something of a mystery, due mostly to the lack of fossils. These authors are biochemists, presenting the myoglobin sequence of a shark, but readers will recall similar statements in their own fields. Such beliefs epitomize the tradition in which I was educated, and influenced my decision to take up vertebrate paleontology. After ten years work in that field, I read Brundin (10), and still recall the excitement with which I realized that there is a logical basis to evolutionary relationships which I had never seen discussed. Brundin was developing Hennig's thought (41-43), and in my view it is the dissemination and development of those ideas that have called the role of fossils into question, and necessitated this review. If received wisdom-that fossils are the truest guides to relationshipswere valid, it should be easy to compile instances. But instances of what? How can one recognize a valid contribution from the fossil record? First, I suggest that the problem of relationships solved, or illuminated, must concern living species, or groups with Recent members. For to find that relationships within or between extinct groups have been determined by fossils is of no interest here. After all, what else could be brought to bear on groups that contain nothing but fossils? Second, in order to recognize