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has been predominant since the time when
Buckland (1822)
, an influential
fellow of the Royal Society, recognized them as fossil feces (
Duffin, 2009
;
Fig. 2B). Bioerosional structures also received attention during the eighteenth
century. Intellectuals such as Lorentz Spengler and Gottfried Sellius focused on
modern bioeroding bivalves (Supplementary Material:
http://booksite.elsevier.
com/9780444538130
). Bioeroding organisms, collectively named as
vermes
lapidum
, were attributed by some authors to funnel-weaving spiders (
Happel,
1707; L´mery, 1716
;
Fig. 2
C). By the late 1700s, the attention given to biotur-
bational structures gradually rose. This phenomenon emerged from the same
cultural areas—the Italian and the German-speaking regions—which domi-
nated the Age of Naturalists.
From the eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, the term
fucite
was widely
adopted by Italian scholars to indicate bioturbated rocks; the term may refer to
Pliny's
phycites
, or alga-like stone. In his travel reports from Tuscany,
Targioni-Tozzetti (1777)
accurately described
fuciti
: “they are similar to the
Worm-Stones (Pietre Lombricarie), and when they are split-off
they reveal
impressions of algae (Fuci)”. Despite the alga-like appearance, Tozzetti questioned
the vegetal nature of
fuciti
, of which the origin “botanical or animal, is not known”
(
Targioni-Tozzetti, 1777
). To solve this issue, he collaborated with the abbot
Alberto Fortis, who had previously described
elmintoliti
(
Helminthoida
) from
Istria and Dalmatia (
Fortis, 1774; Suri´ et al., 2007
). Adolphe Brongniart, the ini-
tiator of the Age of Fucoids, studied
Fucoides
(
...
Chondrites
)
targionii
from the
collections of the Italian scientist, proving Targioni-Tozzetti's far-reaching influ-
ence (
Brongniart, 1828
: 56-57). After the 1830s, the term
fucite
fell into disuse,
being quickly replaced by the etymologically analogous
fucoid
.
In Germany, interest for natural history became popular in Thuringia, Saxony,
and Bavaria, giving particular attention to Permian and Triassic units, among
which the trace-fossil-rich Muschelkalk. In naming rocks, researchers came up
with specific descriptors, often based on those aspects of the texture resulting
from bioturbation. Among these early contributors,
Sch¨tte (1761)
used a
Renaissance term,
osteocolla
, for describing bone-like rocks characterized by
Protovirgularia
and
Planolites
. However, the best example of this tendency is
Batsch (1802)
, who meticulously described
Zungenkalkstein
(“tongue lime-
stone”, for its
Rhizocorallium
-dominated ichnofabric),
Loecherkalkstein
(“holey
limestone”, for the abundant
Balanoglossites
), and
Wurmkalkstein
(“worm
limestone”, for the prominent presence of
Planolites
and
Protovirgularia
).
The botanical interpretation, successively prominent in the Age of Fucoids,
was followed by a German student of Couvier and friend of Alexander von
Humboldt, namely, Johann Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim, who reported
Umbellularia logimna
(now
Zoophycos
) from the Ural Mountains (Supplemen-
tary Material:
http://booksite.elsevier.com/9780444538130
)
. Invertebrate trace
fossils were also noticed by the explorer Hinrich Lichtenstein during his travel
in South Africa (Master, 2010 in Supplementary Material:
http://booksite.
¼
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