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A publ icat ion of the Rochester Academy of Science FOSSIL SECTION

The FOSSILETTER

VOL. 34 Number 2 October 2016

October Meeting The October section meeting is on Tuesday,

October 4, at 7:30 PM at the Brighton Town Hall.

SUNY Brockport Professor Dr. Judy Massare,

Mesozoic marine reptile specialist, will speak on

working with historic collections and the problem

of composite specimens. "The challenges of

research on historic collections: Lower Jurassic

ichthyosaurs from England".

Judy has provided us with the following

summary of her talk: "Large private collections of

Lower Jurassic ichthyosaurs were amassed in the

19th century, and many of those specimens made

their way to museums throughout Britain and

elsewhere. Historic specimens make up most of

the Lower Jurassic collections of ichthyosaurs and

plesiosaurs at the Natural History Museum,

London, Oxford University Museum of Natural

History, and the Sedgwick Museum, University of

Cambridge, especially the ‘slab-mount’ skeletons.

The inland quarries from which the ichthyosaurs

were collected are no longer accessible, making

these specimens even more valuable scientific-

ally. A major problem is that stratigraphic data

were not recorded at the time of collection. A

second issue is that some collectors (or perhaps

some quarrymen) were more concerned with

preparing complete specimens for display than

maintaining their authenticity. Composite speci-

mens can be found in many museums, where

hindfins, forefins, or distal parts of the vertebral

column were added to make a specimen more

complete. Unrecognized composites have led

previous workers to conclude that some species

and genera are more variable than they actually

are. Protoichthyosaurus had been considered a

synonym of Ichthyosaurus because of this

problem, but recognition of composites has made

it clear that both genera are valid."

A specimen of Ichthyosaurus on display at the

Natural History Museum, London. It is behind glass,

so the image is not the best.

President's Report by Dan Krisher

A few weeks ago I sent out an email to Section

members concerning the 2017 Geological Society

of American joint meeting of the Northeast and

North-central Sections and the opportunity to

attend this gathering. In an effort to ensure this

information reaches the widest audience possi-

ble, the information concerning this meeting is

being repeated here:

The Geological Society of America will hold a

joint meeting of the Northeastern and North-

Central Section on March 19 to 21, 2017 in Pitts-

burgh, Pennsylvania. FOSSIL will be hosting a

session at this meeting entitled "FOSSIL Collabor-

ation: Enhancing Paleontology through Profess-

ional and Amateur Partnerships" with the session

consisting of both short talks and posters. Please

give consideration to contributing a talk or poster

to this session as either a group and/or as an

individual. The subject should of course be

paleontology related and can deal with but is not

limited to public outreach efforts, collaborative

research with local professionals or on-going

personal research conducted by individual

members. Those wishing to participate must

submit an abstract with 2000 characters or less

no later than January 3, 2017.

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The FOSSIL group understands that funds for

clubs or individuals can be an issue so to help

address this, FOSSIL will be funding presenters as

follows:

(1) meeting registration fee (2) hotel cost for up to three nights (3) parking for up to three days (4) travel expenses up to $250 (5) a group luncheon or dinner on the day of the

theme session

The meeting website can be found at

http://www.geosociety.org/Sections/ne/2017mt

g/ and contains information as to meeting

location, lodging and abstract submission with

additional information to be added as meeting

time approaches. To better familiarize yourself

with what is needed as far as abstracts potential

participants can visit:

https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2016SE/webprogr

am/meeting2016-03-31.html

to see abstracts from the 2016 SEGSA "Synergistic

Paleontology" session. I will be co-chairing the

session and am planning on presenting a poster

detailing a database of New York Devonian fossils

and their stratigraphic ranges I am currently

building. If you have any questions please feel

free to contact me.

Last Field Trip by Dan Krisher

On October 8th the Section will have a field-

trip to the area southeast of Syracuse. We will be

visiting the Pompey Road cut famous for its

Middle Devonian bivalves and gastropods and the

Swamp Road site known for its variety of gastro-

pods. Depending on time and weather we may

also visit the Sheds site which exposes a sandier

facies of the Middle Devonian Windom Shale. If

you are interested in attending please email me

no later than October 6. Dan Krisher

<dlkfossil@gmail.com>.

National Fossil Day Outreach Program

at SUNY Geneseo by Dan Krisher

As we noted in our September issue, in 2009

the National Park Service designated October 12

as National Fossil Day and over the past 7 years

this event has grown in scope with events being

held in many national parks and other venues

across the country. This year SUNY Geneseo will

be hosting an event on campus and the Fossil

Section has been asked to participate. The exact

details of the event are still being worked out but

Fossil will be staffing a table with its usual dis-

plays and handouts. Details of this event will be

shared with Section members via email over the

next couple of weeks. If you are free on that day

be sure to stop by and checked out the activities.

If you are interested in helping out drop me any

email.

Tiny Pictures A couple of members have commented that

the pictures in the newsletter are really tiny, and

that details are often difficult to discern. This is

true, but there is a solution. In the first place, the

pictures are generally quite large to begin with,

and I will happily send the originals to anyone

who wants the better view. Alternatively, I can

send you the MSWord version of the newsletter

(instead of the *.pdf file) from which the pictures

can be downloaded in full size. The Adobe

Acrobat (*.pdf) version you get is because not

everyone has MSWord and not everyone has the

bandwidth for a larger size newsletter file. Let

me know if you want to subscribe to the MSWord

version. mgrenier@frontiernet.net

Summer Field Trips Report: Little

Beard's Creek and Rickard Hill Road by Dan Krisher

The Section annual fieldtrip to the Middle

Devonian strata of Little Beard's Creek took place

on 6/25 with Richard Lochner, George Wonder,

Mike Potter, Joe Sullivan, Bob Simpson and Dan

Krisher attending. The drought dried up the creek

to just a slow trickle and once the site was in the

sun it proved to be a hot day. The site produced

the usual abundance of corals and brachiopods as

well as a few snails and trilobite parts. Towards

the end of the visit a blastoid was found which is

a relatively uncommon fossil to find in the New

York Devonian.

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On 7/9 the Section held a joint fieldtrip with

the Wayne County Gem and Mineral Club to the

Rickard Hill Road site in Schoharie New York. The

Lower Devonian site produced many different

species of brachiopods as well as some corals,

sponges and fragments of trilobites. The weather

was problematic with rain falling when we first

arrived and again as we left. We did have a 5

hour window where the weather was perfect.

Bob Simpson, Joe Sullivan, Gerry Kloc, and Dan

Krisher attended from RAS and Fred Haynes also

a RAS member lead the crew from WCGM.

Rickard Hill Road site (photo by Fred Haynes)

Rickard Hill Fossils (photo by Fred Haynes)

RAS Summer Field Trips to Greens

Landing and Jaycox Creek By Jerry Bastedo

There were two excellent fossil collecting field

trips, arranged by Dan Krisher, RAS Fossil Club

President, in August that I was fortunate to

attend. Both sites are on private property and

permission was secured in advance.

The August 7th trip was to Green’s Landing on

the east side of Canandaigua Lake in a mostly dry

stream bed filled with cobbles and water worn

rocks. Steve Mayer provided an introduction to

the site with Middle Devonian, Ludlowville Form-

ation, Jaycox Run Shale member is exposed.

Greens Landing site (photo by Fred Haynes)

Everyone had an enjoyable collecting day at Greens

Landing (author's photo)

Approximately 14 members attended, with

Brian Bade and Gary Rudolph from Ohio and

Rochelle Zabarkes from New York City, traveling

the furthest. The creek bed was mostly dry and

mostly shaded by trees, which helped as the

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temperatures were very warm. Steve had indi-

cated that it was only about a 1,000 ft. from the

roadway, but as I walked out, my Samsung phone

indicated it was closer to a mile each way. Every-

one had a great time collecting a variety of corals,

brachiopods, crinoid stems, trilobite parts, snails,

and other invertebrates. I was pleased to find a

very nice Pleurodictyum sp. It was a great col-

lecting day with a great group of RAS members.

The RAS Fossil Group went to Jaycox Creek,

near Geneseo, on August 20, which I have not

been to since my undergraduate days in the

1960s. The creek bed was dry and it appeared

that no one had been to the site recently. Per-

mission was secured for entrance and collecting.

Before we even left the cars to walk in, a neigh-

bor stopped and asked if we had secured permis-

sion to be there. Fortunately, Dan had taken care

of that and the neighbor was satisfied. We then

walked across the field to Jaycox Creek which

exposed the Type Section for the Jaycox Shale

member. This site had excellent exposures of the

Menteth Limestone, the Deep Run Shale, the

Tichenor Limestone, the Jaycox Shale, the

Stafford Shale, and the older Wanakah Shale.

Steve Mayer provided us information on the

better collecting horizons. Our group of nine,

including Brian Bade and Gary Rudolph from

Ohio, focused most of our efforts on the Jaycox

Shale focusing on the nicely exposed Heliophyll-

um confluens, brachiopods, trilobite parts, other

rugose and tabulate corals, crinoid stems, snails,

clams, cephalopods, and other invertebrates.

Jaycox Shale collecting (author's photo)

The larger Favosites specimens in the Tichenor

Limestone were too difficult to extract and

remain there for others to view when they visit.

This was another excellent collecting day, even

though the temperatures increased as the day

progressed. Thank you to Dan Krisher for setting

these trips up for us to all visit. The photo below

was taken from the top of the Tichenor Lime-

stone viewing the some of the collectors digging

in the Jaycox Shale. I am looking forward to the

next field trip and hope you can join us.

Jaycox Creek Field Trip by Gary Rudolph

Brian Bade and I have been collecting Middle

Devonian fossils together throughout the Mid-

west for more than 25 years. During that time

we have often visited New York with friends and

as members of several clubs. On August 20th, I

returned to Jaycox Creek for the fifth time. This

is a great collecting site . . . especially for those of

us with a fondness for fossil corals. Here the

Green's Landing Member of the Jaycox Shale is

exposed. Among the prized Greens Landing

corals is Heliophyllum halli confluens. In discuss-

ions with RAS member Steve Mayer, it has been

noted that this is the only horizon in which

confluens can be found. It has been my goal for

some time to find one.

This particular Saturday at Jaycox Creek was

unlike any of my previous visits with tempera-

tures in the 90's and with the stream channel

completely dry. I planned to collect in portions of

the stream bed that were normally under water.

For the first half hour I crawled along. Corals

were abundant but I gathered very few. Then I

took a water break. While sitting on a large block

of Tichenor Limestone, I noticed what appeared

to be two Heliophyllum barely above the surface

of the stream bed. As I scratched away at these,

more corallites appeared. After about an hour,

the boundary of the coral mass was established

(approximately 16" X 14"). For the next two

hours, I excavated deep enough to get a pry bar

beneath the mass.

"The coral, much of it still encased in shale,

was removed in four large pieces. Many loose

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fragments were also gathered up. Right now,

more than 15 corallites are visible. It seems

additional corallites are still encased in the

matrix. As many pointed out, reconstruction will

surely be a "long winter's project". For sure, I'll

never again complain that "I do not do well in the

heat."

Kathleen Cappon was also at Jaycox and adds

the following: "This was an interesting field trip

to Jaycox creek.!! I have never seen such dry

conditions. I found some wonderful horn corals,

crinoid stems with some protruding hornlike

structures, Pleurodictyum tubular coral clusters

and some good size Favosites clusters. There was

one gas-tropod the size of my thumb, and several

portions of trilobites. My favorite was the skele-

tal carapace of the common Snapperus

turtleus!!! I found this specimen at the lower

part of the creek bed. I seem to have the most

fun finding stuff in the wash outs. It was a HOT

but productive day!!"

Fossil News Most of us have trilobite fossils in our

collections and the best ones show excellent

preservation of the outer shell covering the body.

Unlike most arthropods which rarely fossilize

because the outer shell is compose of readily

decomposed (or scavenged) proteinaceous chitin,

the trilobite exoskeleton is composed of relative-

ly easily preserved calcite and calcium phosphate

minerals in a lattice of chitin that covers the

dorsal (upper) surface of the trilobite's cephalon

(head), thorax (body), and pygidium (tail). Our

fossils generally lack the legs, gills, and other

structures that were made of the softer chitin

alone. However, there are Lagerstätten in which

soft body (nonbiomineralized) preservation

occurs wherein we can learn much about the

anatomy of the trilobites. The Burgess Shale is a

well-known example, but there are scores of

others, which brings us to the following study.

Resolving Details of the Nonbiomineralized

Anatomy of Trilobites Using Computed

Tomographic Imaging Techniques

This MS Thesis by Jennifer Peteya at Ohio

State University (2013) resulted from her study of

several hundred exceptionally preserved trilobite

specimens from various localities. These were

examined for evidence of possible preserved

nonbiomineralized internal anatomy and nine

likely candidates for detailed analysis with com-

puted tomographic (CT) imaging were selected.

Non-invasive, non-destructive CT scans enabled

her to identify three specimens (to be reposited

at the PRI) that appeared to preserve the trilobite

alimentary canal. These were two specimens of

Elrathia kingie from the Wheeler Formation, UT

(Cambrian) and one partially enrolled specimen

of Cornuproetus cornutus of theHamar Laghdad

Fm, Alnif, Morocco (Middle Devonian).

Exceptionally preserved specimens represent

a relatively small number of taxa and nonbiomin-

eralized remains have been described for only

about 40 trilobite species (out of about 17,000

described species).

E. kingii, specimen A, Scale bars: 5 mm.

E. kingii, specimen B

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E. kingii, specimen A has a few pyrite frambo-

ids that may have been associated with bacterial

preservation of soft tissues. E. kingii specimen B

has many pyrite framboids replicating inferred

soft tissues in the axial lobe below the exoskele-

ton. Framboidal pyrite is interpreted as having a

microbial origin, and it is likely that pyrite lining

cracks in the glabella of specimen A and the

pyrite mass in the glabella of specimen B resulted

from the early diagenesis of a microbial biofilm.

C. cornutus, specimen C, from front

C. cornutus, specimen C, from rear

CT and micro-CT images have revealed intern-

al structures in both E. kingii specimens. Bright,

high density masses occur in the glabellas of both

specimens, which correspond to the pyrite visible

on the surface. In specimen B, the center of the

glabellar mass is ventrally convex. The convex

area increases in width toward the center and

tapers slightly posteriorly, although not to a

point. Two thin lateral structures occur on both

sides of the central mass and also gradually

decrease in width toward the posterior. Another

high density structure extends from the posterior

glabella through the axial lobe and gradually

tapers in width to the tip of the axis of the

pygidium of specimen A.

E. kingii, specimen A, CT dorsal view

Left: E. kingii, specimen A, Micro-CT MIP image,

high density internal structures visible. Right:

Sagittal slice through the axial lobe of the

specimen. Dorsal toward the left and anterior

toward the top.

Pyritized material in the glabella of specimens

A and B is inferred to be the result of early

diagenetic mineralization of a biofilm-coated

hypostome and presumed stomach material. In

specimen A, pyrite is thickest in the cracks of the

glabella, suggesting that pyritization occurred

shortly after the glabella and underlying stomach

were crushed by the weight of overlying sedi-

ment. Pyritization evidently continued after this

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time, perhaps stimulated in part by fluid from the

stomach that seeped into the cracks. The pyritiz-

ed mass in the anterior glabella of specimen B

includes the hypostome in its original position.

The mass is convex in the center on the ventral

side. The thin, lateral, high density structures on

either side of the convex mass are not similar in

size and appear to be connected to it anteriorly

and ventrally rather than projecting laterally from

a single point, as would be expected if they were

foregut glands. It is possible that these structures

are a pyritized biofilm covering the hypostome.

The thoracic and pygidial axis of specimen A is

lined with pyrite, which appears to connect to the

pyrite in the glabella, suggesting that both the

intestine and parts of the stomach are preserved

in this specimen. Neither the stomach material

preserved in specimen B nor the digestive tract

preserved in specimen A contain sediment or

evidence of skeletal material. There is also no

evidence of midgut glands and it is probable that

the stomach, when inflated, was large and sac-

like.

Based on nonbiomineralized anatomical

evidence (namely gut tracts preserved through

early diagenetic mineralization), Elrathia kingii

and Cornuproetus cornutus are here considered

to have been predators that did not ingest the

hard parts (sclerites) of their prey. E. kingii was

previously interpreted as a particle-feeder be-

cause of its box-like hypostome. However, many

articulated specimens with attached librigenae

(cheeks), including specimen A, have crushed

glabellas, suggesting that the gut was fluid-filled

rather than sediment-filled at the time of death.

The lack of mud infill indicates that mud did not

enter the gut tract after death nor was it ingested

during life.

The mineralization of the alimentary tract of

these trilobites may be associated with a fluid-

filled gut, possibly resulting from a predatory

habit similar to that of some modern chelicerate

arthropods, in which prey is liquefied and then

consumed. Alternatively, these ancient arthro-

pods may have separated sclerite pieces from

digestible food before swallowing it.

I have the original 38-page thesis paper

available for anyone who would like to read

about this in more detail.

RAS Fall Scientific Paper Session Don't forget to save the date of Saturday,

November 12, 2016 from 8:30AM to 2PM to

attend the 43rd Annual Rochester Academy of

Science Fall Scientific Papers Session at Roberts

Wesleyan College. Registration begins at 8:30 AM

with coffee and snacks, and oral presentations

start at 9:30 AM. The luncheon will begin at

12:30pm in Garlock Dining Hall, followed immedi-

ately by the Larry King Memorial Lecture. The

luncheon will include a variety of wraps, vegeta-

ble trays, dessert, and drinks. Only a limited

amount of tickets will be available for purchase

on the day of the conference, so please register

for the luncheon prior to the event. Use this link

to register and pay the luncheon and presentaion

fee. https://www.roberts.edu/department-of-

biological-and-chemical-sciences/rochester-

academy-of-sciences-presentation-and-luncheon-

payments.aspx\. Or, you can opt to complete the

long form registration & lunch order form in the

"RAS 2016 Second Call for Abstracts," attached

with this newsletter.

Featured presenters will be RAS members,

area scientists, and students, who will share their

investigations and interests about scientific

topics. The Larry King Memorial Lecture will be

given by Jacob Berv of Cornell University, who

will speak on bird evolution after the Cretaceous

mass extinction event.

Roberts Wesleyan College is located at 2301

Westside Drive, Rochester NY 14624. A campus

map can be found on:

https://www.roberts.edu/about/visiting-

roberts.aspx

PRI News Changing the "Dating" Game . . . at the

Paleontological Research Institute's AAR

Laboratory (reprinted from PRI material)

Have you ever discovered a shell on the beach

and wondered about its history and journey to

that spot? Maybe you were curious as to how old

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that same shell might be. Perhaps that shell

traveled mere inches, or more likely over hund-

reds, even thousands of miles of shorelines, or

across vast oceans for centuries. Scientists can

answer these questions using host of methods for

dating rocks, shells, and sediments, including an

innovative method called amino acid racemiza-

tion (AAR) geochronology.

The exciting new research capability AAR

offers PRI students and professional scientists is

an uncommon opportunity. PRI's laboratory is the

only AAR dating facility on the east coast of North

America, and the only lab in the world conducting

gas chromatography AAR.

PRI used a crowdfunding campaign which

outlined in detail AAR's role in addressing major

scientific challenges in geochronology and the

geosciences in general, as well as the importance

of AAR for future generations of scientists.

Although the crowdfunding has ended, you can

still visit the site to get more information on AAR:

https://walacea.com/campaigns/telling-time-

from-seashells-please-support-the-only-amino-

acid-racemization-geochronology-lab-in-eastern-

north-america/

PRI Quetzalcoatlus Named (reprinted from PRI

material)

Following a public contest, a new resident of

the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca finally has a

name. Museum staffers announced the compete-

tion last week to give a name to a model of

Quetzalcoatlus, a winged reptile from the age of

the dinosaurs, which was transferred to them

from the Smithsonian over a year ago. They say

they wanted to get the public invested in the

addition, which is believed to be one of the

largest flying animals that ever lived.

Exhibits director Beth Stricker revealed the

winning submission. “Our Quetzalcoatlus’s new

name is Amelia,” she said. “We can only imagine

that these nominators submitted the name in

honor of the fierce flier Amelia Earthart.”

Paleontological Research Institute Director

Warren Allmon says Amelia has special historical

and educational significance, and was taken in

after the Smithsonian no longer had a place for it.

“Those objects were not something they wanted

to just throw in a dumpster because they’re all

historic works of art, essentially,” he said. “They

are an artist’s attempt to show what fossilized

creatures looked like in the past. Some of these

objects are classics and have appeared in text-

books over many decades.”

New PRI Quetzalcoatlus display

Amelia now shares a corner of the dinosaur

exhibit with a Stegosaurus named Steggy, also

from the Smithsonian.

Book Review & Fund-Raising Raffle!! Normally, the books reviewed here are

available to be borrowed. Not this time. I have a

brand new copy of this gorgeous book, which I

am donating to the section to be raffled off at the

December holiday meeting. The book will be at

the next two meeting for members to look at.

Visions of a Vanished World: The

Extraordinary Fossils of the Hunsrück Slate, By

Gabriele Kühl, Christoph Bartels, Derek E. G.

Briggs, and Jes Rust; Foreword by Richard Fortey.

New Haven (Connecticut): Yale University Press.

$40.00. 128 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-0-300-18460-

0. [Originally published as Fossilien im Hunsrück-

Schiefer: Einzigartige Funde aus einer

einzigartigen Region, published by Quelle &

Meyer Verlag.] 2012

As a shell collector walks along the tropical

beach, she is able to pick up the shells of clams,

scallops, and snails, and chunks of broken coral.

Only the hard parts remain, the animals them-

selves having been eaten by predators or scaven-

gers before the shells were tossed up on the

shore. If you could walk along the Devonian

beach, you could fill your basket with shells of

bivalves and gastropods, as well as brachiopods

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and nautiloids, corals of different types, and bits

of crinoids, blastoids, and trilobites. If you saw a

recently dead critter corpse. It would not be

there for long before being scavenged, while the

hard parts accumulate on the shore. If you could

dive in that long-ago sea, you would see the same

sort of shells and hard parts of the dead lying

on the bottom among the living creatures. These

hard parts, when buried , and perhaps leaving

only their molds and casts, become the fossils

that we find today here in New York. The actual

bodies of the animals, the soft parts, are not

preserved at all. But there have been rare places

and times in the world when the animals died in

places where neither scavengers or bacteria

could reach them. They were not eaten or

decomposed, but were preserved in some

fashion. We can find those fossils and understand

what the animal itself was like, not just its outer

shell. These were first described by German

paleontologists and we still use their word for

it—Lagerstätten, from lager 'storage' or 'lair' and

stätte 'place' (stätten being the plural). Some of

the best examples of soft-body fossilization are

the famous Cambrian period Burgess Shale and

its Chinese counterpart the Maotianshan shales,

the Jurassic Solnhofen limestone with

Archeopteryx, and the Carboniferous Mazon

Creek fossil beds that give us over 400 different

kinds of plants, and hundreds of jellyfish, worms,

arthropods, fish, and the Tully Monster. The

Cretaceous Yixian formation in China exquisitely

preserved the Jehol biota of birds with feathers,

pterosaurs, fish, mammals, dinosaurs, and

arthropods. Among the earliest known were the

Hunsrück Slates, which have been mined for

roofing materials since at least the 1300s. Most

of the fine fossils exhibited in museums today

were originally found by slate miners. The first

scientific publication of Hunsrück Slates fossils

was the description of crinoid and starfish by

Ferdinand von Roemer in 1862. In many cases,

the soft parts of these lower Devonian fossils

(~400MYA) have been replaced by minute pyrite

crystals, giving near perfect preservation. This

book is a collection of 110 beautiful photographs

and x-ray radiographs of these fossils,many of

them full-page in size, together with other useful

illustrations and explanatory text. As Dr. William

Ausich, Professor Emeritus of Earth Science at

Ohio State University has written in a review1,

"Today, development of new preparation

techniques for extracting fine-scale morphology

of lightly pyritized soft tissues has revealed setae

on polychaete worms, antennae and appendages

on arthropods, and the epider-mis of ophiuroids,

all illustrated in Visions of a Vanished World. The

book begins with short explanations of the

history of study, geologic occurrence,

preservation, preparation, and other aspects of

Hunsrück fossils. The illustrations are organized

by major fossil groups, and short descriptions of

these groups with explanations of the signifi-

Three fossils from Hunsrück Slate, not from book.

Above, a Chotecops trilobite underside, showing

legs and gills. Next page, a crinoid (Taxocrinus) and

a brittle star (Furcaster paleozoicus)

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cance of illustrated fossils enhance the

understanding of Early Devonian life."

"Time is the dimension traversed in paleon-

tology. Visions of a Vanished World takes one

back to the Early Devonian where blastoid

brachioles and crinoid arms waved in ocean

currents, pycnodonts walked among brachiopods,

trilobite gills breathed, and anomalocarids were

feared predators that roamed the Hunsrück Sea.

This volume portrays marvelously the unique

fauna of the Hunsrück Slate; it is a must for the

bookshelf of anyone interested in natural history

and in the history of life on Earth."

Many of the phylla found in New York are in

the Hunsrück—Pleurodyctium, Favosites, Pane-

nka, Acathocrinus, Eldrigeops, and others. Any

collector of Devonian fossils should have this

book on her or his bookshelf and frequently have

it open in their hands and enjoy it.

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CALENDER OF EVENTS

October

Tuesday October 4, FOSSIL MEETING 7:30 PM Brighton Town Hall Downstairs Meeting Room 2300

Elmwood Ave. Speaker Dr. Judy Massare, "Recognizing composite specimens in historic collections and

the return of Protoichthyosaurus". Visitors welcome.

November

Tuesday November 1, FOSSIL MEETING 7:30 PM Brighton Town Hall Downstairs Meeting Room 2300

Elmwood Ave. Visitors welcome.

Visitors are welcome to all Fossil Section meetings! Refreshments are served. For more information

and the latest updates check the RAS Website (www.RASNY.org). You can also contact Dan Krisher at

DLKFossil@gmail.com or John Handley at jhandley@rochester.rr.com for further information.

ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE FOSSIL SECTION

Monthly meetings are held the first Tuesday of each month from October to December and

from February to May at 7:30 pm at the Brighton Town Hall, Community Meeting Room, 2300

Elmwood Avenue, Rochester, NY unless otherwise listed.

OFFICERS PHONE E-MAIL President: Dan Krisher 585-698-3147 DLKFossil@gmail.com

Vice President/Program Chair: Open

Secretary: Dan Krisher 585-698-3147 DLKFossil@gmail.com

Treasurer: John Handley 585-802-8567 jhandley@rochester.rr.com

Director (three-year-term): Open

Director (two-year-term): Open

Director (one-year-term): Michael Grenier 585-671-8738 mgrenier@frontiernet.net

APPOINTED POSITIONS

Field Trip Coordinator: Dan Krisher 585-293-9033 DLKFossil@gmail.com

FossiLetter Editor: Michael Grenier 585-671-8738 mgrenier@frontiernet.net

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The FossiLetter is published during each

meeting month of the year. Please send

submissions to Michael Grenier preferably

via e-mail at mgrenier@frontiernet.net or

by U.S. Postal Service mail to 692 Maple

Drive, Webster, NY 14580 (585) 671-8738.

Deadline date for submissions to the

Fossiletter is the 15th of the month.

For scheduling changes and the latest

updates please check the RAS Website

(www.rasny.org) and click on the Fossil

Section link. Last minute updates can also be

found on the General Announcements page

of the Academy Website.

Cartoon from PRI on their AAR facility