A History of Ideas in Ichnology - Trace Fossils as Indicators of Sedimentary Environments - page 28

Between 1950 and 1965, Rodolfo Casamiquela and the Italian-Argentinean
Joaquin Frenguelli opened the avenues for the development of modern South
American ichnology. While previous studies mostly mentioned trace fossils as
accessory components, their works were entirely devoted to ichnology (Supple-
mentary Material). The birth of South American Ichnology took place between
the 1960s and the 1980s and is illustrated by the work of researchers in Argentina,
Venezuela, and Brazil. Although the scope of some of these studies is still mostly
regional, trace fossils moved from the margins to the core. This tendency
undoubtedly reflected global developments in the discipline, most likely the
influential work of Adolf Seilacher, who was personally connected with some
of the classic figures of this age during his frequent trips to South America. At
the same time that Borrello undertook his research in Argentina, Macsotay
(1967) dealt with Cenozoic turbidite trace fossils from Venezuela. Macsotay's
work gave a strong impulse to the use of trace fossils in paleoenvironmental
reconstructions, particularly oriented to the flourishing oil industry in Venezuela,
an applied side of ichnology that was subsequently explored by another Venezu-
elan ichnologist, Nicolas Mu ˜ oz. In the same period, Rodolfo Casamiquela and
the Italian-Brazilian priest Giuseppe Leonardi investigated vertebrate ichnology
(see Fernandes et al., 2002 , for a comprehensive bibliographic review).
The next phase of studies within this age took place in the 1970s and 1980s,
particularly with the workbyFlorencioAce˜olaza and his research associates
in the Precambrian and early Paleozoic units of north-western Argentina. In
the same years, there was a rapid development of Brazilian invertebrate
ichnology, as shown by multiple contributions of Gerardo Mu˜ iz and Antonio
Fernandes ( Fernandes et al., 2002 ). In Brazil, new studies were undertaken
during the 1980s by Henrique Godoy Ciguel in Paleozoic units and Ismar
de Souza Carvalho, mostly on vertebrate ichnology ( Fernandes et al.,
2002 ). Among other Argentinean contributions may be noted those by Ricardo
Alonso on vertebrate ichnology, Jose Laza on ant trace fossils, Poir´ on
the sedimentological application of trace fossils, and Luis Buatois and
Gabriela M´ngano whose multifaceted work is summarized in a textbook
(Supplementary Material: http://booksite.elsevier.com/9780444538130 ).
On the other side of the ocean, Asian ichnology followed a composite devel-
opment, to some extent comparable to the recent history of South American ich-
nology. In Japan, trace fossils have received vague interpretations (“sand
pipes”, “problematica”) since the 1960s, when the description and taxonomy
of some Japanese trace fossils were carried out by Katto, Shuto, and Shiraishi
(Supplementary Material: http://booksite.elsevier.com/9780444538130 ). Dur-
ing the early 1970s and 1980s, there was an increased interest in trace fossils
as environmental indicators. For example, Kikuchi (1972) suggested the use
of “white vermiform trace fossils” (successively identified as Macaronichnus
segregatis ) for recognizing beach environments. Studies on paleoethology
and tracemaking mechanisms began in the 1980s with Kotake, famed for his
model of Zoophycos ( Kotake, 1989 ). In the following years, scientists such