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that bioerosional traces played a central role for the development of uni-
formitarianism, as Lyell recognized recent relative sea-level fluctuations through
the observations of bioeroded Roman columns ( Baucon et al., 2008; de Gibert
et al., 2012 ). Animal architects received significant attention also in popular
science books ( Wood, 1866 ).
Victorian geologists applied their neoichnological attitude to the rock record
since the 1850s. They recognized the true nature of U-burrows and bivalve traces,
annelid trails, and especially arthropod trackways (e.g., Binney, Hancock,
Salter, Roberts in Supplementary Material: http://booksite.elsevier.com/
9780444538130 ). On the question of bioturbational structures, Nicholson
(1873) clearly established that many fucoids of earlier British workers were
annelid burrows or trails. Such studies reflect, but clearly predate, Nathorst's
(1881) classic work to refute the nature of fucoids.
By the same time, geologist Henry Thomas de la Beche drew one of the ear-
liest paleoecological reconstitutions ( Duria Antiquior ), based on coprolites and
body fossils found by Mary Anning ( Duffin, 2009 ). De la Beche also used fossil
borings for recognizing unconformities ( de la Beche, 1846 : 290). In the same
period, the study of microborings was made possible by the use of light micros-
copy, which played a dominant role in microbioerosional research until the
advent of scanning electron microscopy (“embedding-casting technique”;
Golubic et al., 1975; Tapanila, 2008 ).
In some cases, the study of trace fossils benefited from the expansion of the
British Empire, which represented the leading superpower of the nineteenth
century. A clear example is given by Edward John Dunn, who left Bedminster
(England) for New South Wales (Australia), where he trained as a geologist.
Successively, he traveled to southern Africa, accounting for “trails of worms
and tracks of crustaceans” in the Permian Ecca Group ( Dunn, 1872 ). Similarly,
the missionary Stephen Hislop (1860) pioneered the study of coprolites in India.
Among British researchers, Charles Darwin provided an important contribu-
tion to neoichnology through the study of earthworms and the production of
vegetable mold ( Meysman et al., 2006 ; Pemberton and Frey, 1990 ). Darwin
acknowledged the importance of fossil tracks in a letter to the American pioneer
of ichnology Edward Hitchcock: “In my opinion these footsteps [
] make one
of the most curious discoveries of the present century and highly important in its
several bearings” ( Burkhardt and Smith, 1987 ).
...
6.3 An Independent Ichnological Center: North America
Charles Darwin referred to the first inspiration of ichnology in North America,
the discovery of Triassic-Jurassic vertebrate trackways in New England in the
1830s ( Burkhardt and Smith, 1987 ). Hitchcock's (1858) magnum opus , Ichnol-
ogy of New England , was an instant classic. Although Hitchcock was originally
inspired by vertebrate trace fossils, he also studied the invertebrate ichnotaxa,
even making neoichnological observations for comparison. However, these
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