INTERNATIONAL UNION OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES SECTION FOR PALAEOBOTANY International Organisation of Palaeobotany IOP NEWSLETTER 110 August 2016 CONTENTS FROM THE SECRETARY/TREASURER IPC XIV/IOPC X 2016 IOPC 2020 IOP MEMBERSHIP IOP EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTIONS IOP WEBMASTER POSITION OBITUARY: Dr. Richard D. Dayvault WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OUPH COLLECTIONS? THE PALAEOBOTANY OF ITALY UPCOMING MEETINGS CALL FOR NEWS and NOTES The views expressed in the newsletter are those of its correspondents, and do not necessarily reflect the policy of IOP. Please send us your contributions for the next edition of our newsletter (June 2016) by May 30th, 2016. President: Johanna Eder-Kovar (Germany) Vice Presidents: Bob Spicer (Great Britain), Harufumi Nishida (Japan), Mihai Popa (Romania) Members at Large: Jun Wang (China), Hans Kerp (Germany), Alexej Herman (Russia) Secretary/Treasurer/Newsletter editor: Mike Dunn (USA) Conference/Congress Chair: Francisco de Assis Ribeiro dos Santos IOP Logo: The evolution of plant architecture (© by A. R. Hemsley) IOP 110 2 August 2016 included in that newsletter to the address at the end of this newsletter. FROM THE In addition, please send any issues that you SECRETARY/TREASURER think need to be addressed at the Business meeting. I will add those to the Agenda. Dear IOP Members, Respectfully, I am happy to report, that IOP seems to be on track and ready for a new Executive Mike Council to take over. The elections are progressing nicely and I will report the results in the September/October Newsletter. IPC XIV/IOPC X 2016 The one area that is still problematic is the webmaster position. We really to talk amongst ourselves, and find someone who is willing and able to do the job. I discuss the position in more detail below. Everything seems to be falling into place for IOPC X at Salvador Brazil. The Olympics seem to have gone well, so the Brazilians are all practiced as great hosts, so our meeting should be great fun. I look forward to seeing all of you there. As always I am eternally grateful for submissions to the newsletter, even if the The 2016 joint meeting of the International news is bad. Carole Gee reports on the bad Palynological Congress and the International news of the passing of Richard Dayvault, Organization of Palaeobotanists will be held and well as the good news of the publication 23-28 October 2016 at Salvador, Bahia, of ‘The Palaeobotany of Italy’. And Gar Brazil. The venue is The Bahia Othon Rothwell provided an important update on Palace. the status of the Ohio University Paleobotanical collections since his The homepage with registration details is up retirement from that institution. and running. I will publish one more newsletter in late The Website is: September-Early October to report on the results of the elections, the status of IOP, http://www.ipciopcbrazil.com/ and the upcoming IOPC 2016 meetings. The site is very easy to use, but if your As always, please send anything you want Institution has a robust Firewall the site may IOP 110 3 August 2016 be blocked as it was for me. I simply IOP EXECUTIVE registered from home and had no problem. COMMITTEE ELECTIONS Time is running out, but do please remember to double check the requirements for The IOP Executive Committee elections are entering Brazil. For example, US citizens underway and will be open until 30 August. need a visa, but every country is different. To date 73 members have voted for a participation rate of 26%. That is an even worse voting rate than American elections, and I know that you don’t want to make us IOPC 2020 Ugly Americans look good. So if you haven’t already, please vote. If you need At this time we have no official bids to host another ballot, please just let me know. IOPC2020. IOP Webmaster IOP MEMBERSHIP I was very sorry to accept the resignation of Thank you for the great response to the Alan Spencer as our Webmaster. Alan has recent call for membership updates. I did a done a great job for us for more than 10 hard cull to clean up the rolls for the years now, but he has decided that he needs incoming Secretary/Treasurer and so we to focus on other things. I would personally now have 279 members. I deleted any like to thank him publically, and member who was more than 2 years in acknowledge how much he has helped me arrears. I used the 2 year cut-off because the these past years. His help was invaluable. I current system won’t allow anyone to pay hope all of you also take the time to thank dues until after their membership has him for his service to IOP. expired, so it is easy to forget to pay when one’s membership expires on January 1. But it does mean that we need someone to take on that position. Alan has generously In addition, some members have a bias offered to be there to assist in the transition, against using Paypal. If there are issues with so things should go smoothly for our next Paypal, please let me know what they are, webmaster. If you have an interest in the and we can discuss them at the Business position, or know someone who would like Meeting. That system makes life very easy to serve IOP as Webmaster, please let me for the Secretary/Treasurer but if there are know as soon as possible. This position is problems we need to know what they are so not voted on, and you can serve as long or as we can address them. Sending checks in short of time as you would like. anything except US dollars is not helpful because the exchange costs are too Our organisation can’t function properly prohibitive. without a webmaster. Alan and our previous webmasters have done a great job of setting up and maintaining the site, so it just needs someone with the time and skills to keep it IOP 110 4 August 2016 running. Please consider this position, if it toxic uranium mine waste sites in western fits your agenda. Colorado, but on the weekends, he and his wife Jalena became avid fossil hunters of OBITUARY plants. In fact, Dick had collected fossil plants of all sorts for a number of decades; his email moniker was “geocycad.” Dr. Richard D. Dayvault 6 May 6 1948 – 29 August 2015 However, it was through the fossil cones, of which he had amassed hundreds of specimens from all over Utah, that we met. In 2007, Dick and Steven Hatch published an article on “Conifer Cones from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Rocks of Eastern Utah” in which they appealed to the paleobotanical world to have a closer look at these cones. Reading this article, I could not believe the wealth of three-dimensionally preserved cones that had been gathered together by Dick through the amalgamation of older private collections and his own dedicated collecting. By heeding his call in the article, Dick and I became friends, colleagues, and research partners in 2008 on conifer cones from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation from Utah and Dick Dayvault with wife Jalena in the Wyoming. Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of NE Utah Hence, we didn’t know each other very The last year has been an extremely sad one long—three years short of a decade—but we for all of us with the passing of so many would go prospecting for cones in Utah beloved paleobotanists and palynologists. pretty much every single year and As we mourn the loss of our colleagues, we collaborated intensively for an overview also reflect on their contribution to our field paper entitled "Palaeobiodiversity of conifer of science and personal enrichment to our seed cones in the Upper Jurassic Morrison lives. I’d like to tell you about my research Formation of Utah, USA,” which was partner and friend of mine, Dr. Richard D. published in Palaeobiodiversity and Dayvault, who died about a year ago. Palaeoenvironments just last year (June 2014). Dick was a professional geologist and mineralogist who worked on environmental Born and raised in North Carolina, Dick clean-up for and with the Department of spent his early years collecting rocks, Energy in Grand Junction, Colorado, for 35 minerals, and crystals. He took his interests years. Weekdays on the job, he cleaned up into college, where he received his B.S. and IOP 110 5 August 2016 M.S. degrees in Geology from East Carolina and hydrologist, by his mother Anna Lee, University in Greenville, N.C. Afterwards, brother Steve (and wife Paula) of North Dick moved on to the University of South Carolina, and honorary sister, K.D. Carolina in Columbia, where he was Curator Ashbrook of Grand Junction. at the L.L. Smith Geology Museum and taught physical and historical geology Yes, Dick and I had only seven years of classes. He then continued to teach these fieldwork and research together, and he has courses, plus igneous petrology labs, at East left us all much too soon, but Dick’s Carolina University. contributions to Jurassic paleobotany of North America and to the Morrison Thus, Dick was on the academic track, when Formation will stand forever. the call for a geoscientist drew him westward to the Department of Energy in Grand Junction, Colorado. Dick told me Carole Gee that this first road trip west—replete with University of Bonn gorgeous arid landscapes, breathtaking Germany geology, and wide open spaces—hooked him, like they continue to captivate me. Many of our long drives to fossil cone localities were spent chatting and taking in WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO the strikingly beautiful rock formations of THE OHIO UNIVERSITY eastern Utah.