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attention and stimulated William Buckland, the first professor of Geology at
Oxford, to conduct experiments with modern turtles walking in pastry dough.
We now know these tracks to be those of mammal-like reptiles (synapsids) that
inhabited ancient dune fields (Supplementary Material: http://booksite.elsevier.
com/9780444538130 ). According to H¨ntzschel (1975 : W2), Buckland's leg-
acy includes the term “ichnology” itself.
In 1835, the famous “hand-shaped” track Chirotherium was reported from
the Triassic of Germany before any equivalent skeletal remains were known.
This gave rise to many fanciful interpretations, and it was not until the 1930s
that it was convincingly attributed to an archosaur ( Seilacher, 2007 ). Likewise,
in 1836, Edward Hitchcock described the first vertebrate tracks known from
North America, before the concept of dinosaurs was established in 1842.
Famously, he named large, emu- to moa-sized Jurassic tracks from the Connect-
icut valley region as Ornithoichnites , implying that they were made by giant
birds ( Hitchcock, 1836 ). In naming tracks, he established the tradition of ver-
tebrate ichnotaxonomy (naming tracks rather than body fossils) and his seminal
work is frequently cited to this day.
During his scientific career, Hitchcock assembled a vast ichnological collec-
tion, housed at the Appleton Cabinet at Amherst. Hitchock's ichnological cab-
inet served as a reference collection and attracted scientists from all over the
world. Among others, these include the Italian geologist Capellini (1867)
and the Austrian paleontologist Abel (1926) , who studied the famous Upper
Triassic vertebrate track sites of Connecticut and Massachusetts.
7. PERIOD OF REACTION
7.1 Fucoids
Traces
What did begin to emerge in the late Age of Fucoids was an increased interest in
invertebrate trace fossils as biogenic sedimentary structures. However, yet even
where the fucoid hypothesis was rejected or modified, the ichnological interpre-
tation was still not persuasive. Of crucial importance to the history of ichnology
are the publications by Nathorst (Supplementary Material: http://booksite.
elsevier.com/9780444538130 ; Fig. 3 C). Indeed, his 1881 work is seen as amajor
watershed in the history of ichnology in that it generated a broad acceptance for a
trace-fossil origin of various structures that at the time were considered remains
of plants or animal body fossils ( Osgood, 1970 ).
Nathorst conducted systematic neoichnological experiments by introducing
various animals into dishes with plaster of paris and observing their traces.
Nathorst pointed out the correspondence between modern invertebrate traces
and fucoids, challenging traditional ideas about how trace fossils formed.
Among Nathorst's arguments was also the common preservation along bedding
planes and in such pronounced relief that he found an algal origin impossible.
He also remarked on the absence of any organic material.
versus
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