A History of Ideas in Ichnology - Trace Fossils as Indicators of Sedimentary Environments - page 9

While in continental Europe, the major part of the ichnological observations
appeared in treatises; in Britain, they regularly appeared in periodic journals
published by scientific societies. Together with the Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society, the Transactions of the Geological Society of London
were a major channel for disseminating ichnological research. For instance,
McCulloch (1814) published a description of the pipe rock of north-western
Scotland, suggesting similarity to sabellid marine worm-burrows. Other influ-
ential contributors include Buckland, who described “paramoudras” from the
Chalk of Northern Ireland, and Webster, who figured Thalassinoides and
Ophiomorpha as zoophytes (plant-like animals, e.g., alcyonarian cnidarians;
Supplementary Material: http://booksite.elsevier.com/9780444538130 ).
In conclusion, the voyage from the Age of Naturalists to the Age of Fucoids
was tortuous (Fig. 3A and B), and the corresponding transitional period
incorporated concepts and media from both cultural stages.
6. THE AGE OF FUCOIDS
6.1 Emergence of the Paleobotanical Interpretation
The end of the French Revolution, the expansion of colonial empires, and the
Industrial Revolution were conditions that made the nineteenth century a period
of profound social and economic change ( Frey and Frey, 2004 ). This milieu
served as the background to the French botanist Adolphe Brongniart, defined
as the “typical child of the best of the French revolution” ( Stafleu, 1966 ;
Fig. 3 B). Adolphe held a name with status: he was the grandson of Napoleon's
architect and the son of the eminent geologist Alexandre Brongniart. In 1817,
Adolphe joined his father in a geological grand tour through the Swiss and
FIGURE 3 Pioneers in the study of trace fossils. (A) Leonardo da Vinci. (B) Adolphe Brongniart.
(C) Alfred Nathorst.