A History of Ideas in Ichnology - Trace Fossils as Indicators of Sedimentary Environments - page 25

( Fig. 4 B), a chance that eventually led to Frey's being hired by the University of
Georgia. Several happy years of ichnological research followed at the University
of Georgia Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, where the two joined forces and
began to publish works that attracted a long series of graduate students.
The petroleum-savvy James Howard invited Hans-Erich Reineck and other
researchers from the Senckenberg Institute, resulting in two thematic volumes
of Senckenbergiana Maritima and establishing Sapelo Island as a touchstone
for neoichnology. Marginal-marine environments were extensively studied,
leading to the discovery of stratigraphic traps in the Western Interior Basin and
elsewhere, notably by Robert Weimer and his students at the Colorado School
of Mines.
Howard established the Ichnology Newsletter in 1968 as a means to share
recent findings, and this “gray” periodical, the first devoted to ichnology, has
continued episodically to the present day. Frey corresponded with ichnologists
throughout the world to put the basics of the science, especially its terminology,
on a firm basis. He organized and edited the first summation of ichnology,
The Study of Trace Fossils ( Frey, 1975 ), the publication of which galvanized
many students to enter the field. About the same time, the Society of Economic
Paleontologists and Mineralogists (now: Society for Sedimentary Research ,
SEPM) established its Trace Fossil Research Group , which was influential dur-
ing the crucial 1970s, when surges in the price of oil encouraged new methods
of exploration. The recognized importance of ichnology in the petroleum indus-
try fostered the study of trace fossils in core. Among the first to bring this
approach in practice, C. Kent Chamberlain studied the core appearance of sev-
eral ichnogenera ( Bromley, 1996 : 261) and made important achievements in the
fields of ichnotaxonomy and paleoethology ( Seilacher, 2007 : 105).
Although this section deals with the early Modern Era, it is important to note
that this golden age laid the basis of present-day North American ichnology,
acting by direct transmission of knowledge. An intricate set of connections
departs from John E. Warme, who focused on deep-sea ichnology and on
bioerosion during the 1970s and 1980s. He taught Allan “Tony” A. Ekdale
and others at Rice University before joining the faculty of the Colorado School
of Mines, where he taught Andrew K. Rindsberg before moving onto sedimen-
tological topics. Ekdale went on to the University of Utah and developed the
ichnofabric approach together with long-term collaborator Richard Bromley.
Together with J. F. Bockelie, the pair founded the long-lasting series of Inter-
national Ichnofabric Workshops (see Ekdale et al., 2012 ); Bromley (1990) suc-
cessively authored the influential textbook Trace Fossils : Biology and
Taphonomy . Notably, the topic was translated into German, Japanese, and Chi-
nese (Bromley, personal communication). Another example is represented by
Frey and Pemberton, who established a fruitful collaboration in the 1980s.
Among other accomplishments, they taught one of the first courses in ichnology
in North America and founded the first standard journal in the field, Ichnos
(1990). Pemberton went on to the University of Alberta, teaching many of