Trace fossil classification: Difference between revisions

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===The Seilacherian System===

[[File:BoredEncrustedShell.JPG|thumb|Sponge borings (''[[Entobia]]'') and encrusters on a modern bivalve shell, North Carolina; an example of ''Domichnia''.]]

[[Adolf Seilacher]] was the first to propose a broadly accepted [[ethology|ethological]] basis for trace fossil classification.<ref>Seilacher, A (1953) Studien zur paläontologie: 1. Über die methoden der palichnologie. Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 96: 421-452.</ref><ref name="Seilacher, A 1964">Seilacher, A (1964) Sedimentological classification and nomenclature of trace fossils. Sedimentology 3: 253-256.</ref> He recognized that most trace fossils are created by [[animal]]s in one of five main behavioural activities, and named them accordingly:

* ''Cubichnia'' are the traces of organisms left on the surface of a soft [[sediment]]. This behaviour may simply be resting as in the case of a [[starfish]], but might also evidence the hiding place of [[prey]], or even the ambush position of a [[predator]].

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* ''Hypichnia'' are ridges and grooves found on the soles of the beds of origin at their interfaces with other [[stratum|strata]], representing the opposite of epichnia.

Other classifications have been proposed,<ref> name="Seilacher, A (1964) Sedimentological classification and nomenclature of trace fossils. Sedimentology 3: 253-256.<"/ref><ref>Chamberlain, CK (1971) Morphology and ethology of trace fossils from the Ouachita Mountains, southeast Oklahoma. Journal of Paleontology, 45: 212-246.</ref><ref>Simpson, S (1957) On the trace fossil ''Chondrites''. Quarterly Journal, Geological Society of London 112: 475-99.</ref> but none stray far from the above.

==History==

Early paleontologists originally classified many burrow fossils as the remains of marine [[algae]], as is apparent in ichnogenera named with the ''-phycus'' suffix. [[Alfred Gabriel Nathorst]] and J. F. James both controversially challenged this incorrect classification, suggesting the reinterpretation of many "algae" as marine invertebrate trace fossils.<ref name="TreatiseSupp1">{{Cite book|isbn=9780813730271|title= Miscellanea: Supplement 1, Trace Fossils and Problematica | last1= Häntzschel | first1= Walter | editor1-last = Moore | editor1-first= Raymond C. | year= {{{year| 1975 }}} | publisher= Geological Society of America | series= Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology}}</ref>

==See also==