Adolf Seilacher Trace Fossil Analysis Adolf Seilacher Trace Fossil Analysis With 75 Plates and 43 Photos Autor Prof. Dr. Adolf Seilacher Yale Geology Dept. P.O. Box 208109 New Haven, CT 06520-8109 USA and Engelfriedshalde 25 72076 Tübingen Germany E-mail: [email protected] Library of Congress Control Number: 2006935138 ISBN-13 978-3-540-47225-4 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitations, broad- casting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer is a part of Springer Science+Business Media springer.com © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007 The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the rel- evant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: Erich Kirchner, Heidelberg Petrophaga lorioti: Copyright © Loriot Typesetting: Stasch · Bayreuth ([email protected]) Production: Christine Adolph, Heidelberg Printed on acid-free paper 32/2132/CA – 5 4 3 2 1 0 Preface This is a course book – meaning that it intends to confer not knowledge, but skill. The need for this skill becomes obvious if we look at the changing role of trace fossils during the last decades. From objects that were treated in standard paleontology text- books, at best, under “Miscellanea”, together with problematica, coprolites and pseudofossils useless as index fossils, they have become subject of a special field, paleoichnology. A journal (ICHNOS), Ichnological Newsletters and regular workshops have been established, symposia are held, and the literature has increased exponen- tially. This success stems mainly from the intimate connection of ichnology with sedi- mentology and the importance that both fields have for paleoenvironmental and ba- sin analysis, which becomes more and more important in petroleum exploration. This useful connection, however, also had its price. In the hands of biogeologists, trace fossils easily loose their significance as unique biological documents. They are commonly treated summarily as “bioturbation”, a term that was originally meant to describe the biogenic destruction of primary depositional structures and the lack of distinctive trace morphologies. In a more quantitative form, “ichnofabrics”, this ap- proach has had considerable success. On the taxonomic side, paleoichnology is all too often considered as a field, in which there is no limit to coining new names and taxa without affiliations. If some- body would take the effort today to revise Walter Häntzschel’s trace fossil volume of the “Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology”, it would probably double in size. Still a large proportion of the ichnogenera described in the meantime would probably fall under “unrecognized” or “synonyms”. The situation being as it is, this book bypasses the necessary job of taxonomic revision (the divergence between lumpers and splitters is extremely wide in this field). Rather it concentrates on the more distinctive and representative ichnogenera. It is also focussed on structures left by invertebrate animals in soft sediments, treating vertebrate tracks only marginally and leaving out hard substrate borings, bite marks on body fossils, eggs, nests, and coprolites altogether. Not that such documents would not merit attention; but by their very nature they require a different approach and should better be treated, together with the respective body fossils, by systematic pa- leontologists. A word is also necessary about how this book originated and how it should be used. It grew out of courses I gave in Tübingen and many other places with the aid of representative specimens and plaster casts. In the printed version, the plates remain the core, to which the text is added in the form of extended captions. It remains to be seen, how far the style of this course can be detached from my own personal interac- tion and how far colleagues with different views and experiences are willing to adopt it – if only to develop alternative and possibly more adequate ideas. In no case, how- ever, should it be done without real material, because it is the inquisitive observation that should be trained. In my own experience, drawing specimens with an old-fash- ioned camera lucida is still the most adequate method. If a form appears to be too complicated, more often than not it will become understandable after our brain has absorbed it through the pencil. Many of my drawings are new, others repeated from VI Preface earlier publications; but all of them have been arranged in such a way that they make a story and wait for the addition of your own colorful scribblings. This also means that you should devote more than a glimpse to these illustrations. After all, early illiterate periods conveyed whole world views through pictures. For the student that wants to delve further into a subject, relevant papers are ar- ranged by plates and annotated. A glossary explains the terminology. There follow the apologies: for not covering all ichnogenera (which can be found in the “Treatise”); for covering too much in a too condensed style (objection of my wife); and for unrealistically assuming that the time of fifteen two-hour courses could be spared for trace fossils in the curriculum of any school. But again, it is not the knowledge of forms and names that we aim at, but a method of morphological think- ing in terms of processes that could easily be transferred to any other subject matter. So let us follow the motto of my Tübingen University: ATTEMPTO (Let us try!). Acknowledgements I collected my first trace fossils 68 years ago. Listing acknowledgements over such a long timespan amounts to writing one’s own biography. My tutors in highschool times were a local physician , Dr. R. Stierlin, and a devoted forester, Dr. h.c. Otto Linck. Back at Tübingen University for the first post-war semester, the famous vertebrate paleon- tologist Prof. F. von Huene taught me to use the camera lucida, which has since re- mained my most important aid. Nevertheless it was the broader-minded Prof. Otto H. Schindewolf, who encouraged me to do the doctoral thesis on Mesozoic trace fos- sils. This brought me in contact with the Senckenberg Institute in Wilhelmshaven, where I was introduced to actuo-paleontology by Prof. Wilhelm Schäfer, who also influenced my drafting style, and with Prof. Walter Häntzschel, who then compiled the Treatise volume on “Trace Fossils and Problematica”. Equally important was a first trip to Italy, where the rich university collections in Pisa and Florence made me familiar with the strange flysch ichnocoenoses and with the new ideas of Prof. C. I. Migliorini about sand being imported into deepsea basins. Later, the recogni- tion of the Nereites ichnofacies lent strong support to his and P. H. Kuenen’s turbidite theory, as well as to the new paradigm of plate tectonics. Right after promotion (1951), I had the priviledge to join my teacher on his expe- dition to the Salt Range of Pakistan. Although our original target had been the end- Permian mass extinction, this trip introduced me to Cambrian shallow-marine ichnocoenoses, in which the various activities of trilobites play a dominant role. Later field work in Spain, in which the advise of Prof. F. Lotze has been crucial, led to the scheme of Cruziana ichnostratigraphy. During the following years it was successfully applied to the dating of otherwise non-fossiliferous sandstones in the deserts of North Africa, where E. Klitzsch and his team were of invaluable help. It also stood the test in a memorable excursion to the Tassili arranged by the Algerian Geological Survey in order to study the effects and the dating of the newly discovered end-Ordovician glaciation. Ichnostratigraphy was further refined in the symposia of the National Oil Company of Libya organized by M. Salem, trips to Jordan arranged by F. Bender, and to Saudi Arabia with M. Senalp. On the American side, the interest of oil companies was more in facies relation- ships of trace fossils. Consulting for Jersey Research Company by the initiative of J. Campbell gave me a chance to study a broad range of ichnocoenoses through the south-western part of the country. The idea to compound this book came with the invitation by X. T. WU to hold a course in Jao Zuo (Henan, China) with more than hundred participants. It gradually matured during similar courses throughout the world; but only when presenting it with Derek Briggs at Yale University (where I am teaching since retirement from Tübingen University ), he gave me the ultimate kick to finish the manuscript. Several people have been involved in its completion. Our son Peter Seilacher cleaned the illustrations with the computer, Gabriela Mangano, Luis Buatois (University of Saskatchewan) and Andrew Rindsberg (University of Georgia) helped in accumulat- ing and annotating the list of references. Above all, Edith Seilacher-Drexler, my dear VIII Acknowledgements wife and unpaid partner for half a century, did all the word processing involved in updating and re-arranging the text. The late Roland Goldring, Gabriela Mangano, Luis Buatois, and Andrew Rinds- berg were of tremendous help in compiling and annotating the relevant references. At various points, Wolfgang Gerber, Hans Luginsland, Werner Wetzel, Eden Volohonsky (Tübingen), Bill Sacco (New Haven) and Jens Rydell (Göteborg) supplied photographs.