Field Linguistics: A Guide to Linguistic Field Work. By William J. Samarin. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. Pp. 246. $6.95.

Regional study of Middle-Late Ordovician and Middle-Late Devonian carbonate and siliciclastic deposits in the northern Appalachian foreland basin reveals a prominent pattern of eastward-darkening of marine mudrocks and associated fossils. Exoskeletons of certain trilobite genera transform from a saddle brown coloration in southern Ontario exposures to black and near-black in central and eastern New York. Similar eastward darkening of mudstones and argillaceous carbonate units is observed to be covariant with conodont color alteration (C.A.I.) values across this same region. This pattern is coupled with other lines of evidence for eastward increases in heat-of-burial for strata across New York State, indicating that the darkening is linked to this control. Laboratory heating of thermally “cold”, light-colored samples shows that this process can be simulated under controlled conditions. The darkening of fossils and mudrocks probably occurs due to thermal maturation of organic matter within these materials.Darkening of certain fossiliferous mudrock facies from color values as high as N 7.5 at a C.A.I. of 1.0 to those of N 2.5 at C.A.I. of 3.5 has important implications for paleoecological interpretations. Where obvious fossil-rich beds are absent and field work cursory, it might be tempting to infer a shelf-to-basin transition in the uprank direction where none exists. Where skeletal packstone and grainstone beds are common in thermally mature deposits it is possible that intervening dark-colored shales may be erroneously interpreted as basinal, organicrich (black) shales and the grain-supported beds as turbidites, when, in fact, such beds are shallow-shelf tempestites. We believe that similar value gradients should be present wherever local or regional heat-flow anomalies or differential burial patterns are developed. Foreland basins bordering orogens should contain such gradients and workers must be alert to this illusory color effect when working on complex facies in such settings. It is probable that many paleoenvironmental judgments may have been colored by misinterpretations of this type.

Download Full-text

Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone and Systemic Boundaries Blossburg, Pennsylvania 1830-1900

Earth Sciences History ◽

10.17704/eshi.11.1.hwg6126841j51172 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 21-29 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Alan Leviton ◽

Michele Aldrich

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Fish Fauna ◽

Field Work ◽

Upper Devonian ◽

Boundary Problems ◽

Lower Carboniferous ◽

Red Sandstone ◽

Survey Report ◽

The 19Th Century ◽

Floodplain Sediments

During the Late Devonian, in what is now northcentral Pennsylvania, slow moving streams meandered across the plain of the "Catskill" Delta. A varied fish fauna lived in these streams, and their remains are entombed in the ancient stream channel and floodplain sediments. In the 1830's, English railroad engineer Richard Cowling Taylor visited the coal mining community of Blossburg and remarked on the analogy between the Old Red Sandstone of England and that found near Blossburg. Not long afterwards, James Hall (1811-1898), best known for his work on Paleozoic invertebrates of New York, also visited Blossburg to clear up vexing boundary problems in the New York formations. He obtained fish scales from the red sandstones, many of which he identified as scales of Holoptychus nobilissimus, a crossopterygian fish described by Louis Agassiz in 1839. In his annual report for 1839 to the New York Legislature, Hall also took note of some large scales, which were unlike any previously described. Under pressure from the Governor, Hall, like the other survey scientists, had to submit timely reports even if studies were incomplete, and he hurriedly described the new scales, referring them to a new genus and species, Sauritolepis taylori. In his final survey report (1843). Hall dealt more fully with the new fish, renaming it Sauripteris taylori based on the fin structure, the significance of which he had not earlier recognized. The Blossburg fishes did not languish in obscurity; James DeKay referred to them in his checklist of fishes of New York, as did Charles Lyell in his 1845 Travels in North America. In 1890 John Strong Newberry placed the fish fossils in the Lower Carboniferous; he also described several new species. Hall's handling of the fossil fish he had before him and, indeed, the reasons for entering Pennsylvania in the first place, are emblematic of the way much science was practiced in the first half of the 19th century. Further, recent field work in the Blossburg area shows Hall's astuteness as a field geologist for he correctly placed the fish in the Upper Devonian, although in this region the Upper Devonian-Lower Carboniferous boundary is not well defined.

Download Full-text

Report on Field-work in Chenango County [New York]

Science ◽

10.1126/science.3.66.525-a ◽

1896 ◽

Vol 3 (66) ◽

pp. 525-526

Author(s):

C. S. PROSSER

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Field Work

Download Full-text

BRYOLOGIA NOVO GRANATENSIS. ESTUDIOS DE LOS MUSGOS DE COLOMBIA IV. CATALOGO NUEVO DE LOS MUSGOS DE COLOMBIA

Bryophyte Diversity and Evolution ◽

10.11646/bde.13.1.13 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 95-133

Author(s):

Steven P. Churchill

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

York Botanical ◽

Field Work ◽

Botanical Garden ◽

New Combinations ◽

Systematic Botany ◽

Number Of Species ◽

New York Botanical Garden

A revised moss checklist for Colombia recognizes 877 species distributed among 242 genera and 65 families. Departmental distribution is provided for all species. This paper is based on the previous checklist by Florschütz-de Waard & Florschütz (1979), publications since that time, on the extensive holdings of the New York Botanical Garden, the Institute of Systematic Botany, Utrecht, and other herbaria, and on recent field work. Included in this list are a number of the collections made by Aguirre C., Cleef, Griffin, Killip, Schultes, Steere, van der Hammen and van Reenen, among others, which have not previously been incorporated into the Colombian moss literature. Comparison of the number of species reported for each of the departments based on the 1979 and the present checklist both suggest that over half of the departments are poorly known. Forty new additions to Colombia are provided in this catalogue: Amblystegium serpens, Anoectangium aestivum, Astomiopsis amblycalyx, Breutelia brevifolia, Brymela parkeriana, Bryohaplocladium praelongum, Bryum coloratum, B. perlimbatum, Chorisodontium setaceum, Dicranum peruvianum, Drepanocladus uncinatus, Encalypta asperifolia, Entodon hampeanus, Epipterygium immarginatum, Fissidens allionii, F. diplodus, F. intermedius, Groutiella obtusa, Gymnostomum recurvirostrum, Hymenodon reggaeus, Leiomela ecuadorensis, Lepidopilum affine, L. cuspidans, L. cubense, Leptodontium stellaticuspis, Leskea plumaria, Leskeadelphus bolivianus, Neckera urnigera, Potamium deceptivum, P. pacimonense, Pseudotaxiphyllum distichaceum, Rhegmatodon polycarpa, Schistidium apocarpum, S. rivulare ssp. latifolium, Scorpidium scorpioides, Syrrhopodon steyermarkii, Tortula caroliniana, Zygodon ehrenbergii, Z. fragilis, Z. stenocarpus. Approximately 560 new departmental records are included. Several new combinations are made: Calyptrochaeta deflexa (C. Muell.) comb. nov., C. nutans (Hampe) comb. nov., Pleuridium subenervis (Hampe) comb. nov., Rhodobryum perspinidens (Broth.) comb. nov., R. roseodens (C. Muell.) comb. nov., Schizymenium brevicaulis (Hornsch.) comb. nov., S. dolichothecum (Herz.) comb. nov., S. pectinatum (C. Muell.) comb. nov., S. subobliquum (Hampe) comb. nov., Sematophyllum sticticola (C. Muell.) comb. nov. and, S. turgidulum (Herz.) comb. nov. Several further species are reduced to synonymy: Aulacomnium venezuelanum Mitt. (=A. palustre), Grimmia bogotense (Hampe) Jaeg. (=G. longirostris), Mielichhoferia elegans Herz. (=Schizymenium bogotense), Pohlia integridens (C. Muell.) Broth. (=P. elongata), and P. paucifolia (Jaeg.) Broth. (=P. elongata).

Download Full-text

Review: Field Linguistics: A Guide to Linguistic Field Work

Practical Anthropology ◽

10.1177/009182966801500509 ◽

1968 ◽

Vol os-15 (5) ◽

pp. 238-240

Author(s):

Jacob A. Loewen

Keyword(s):

Field Work ◽

Field Linguistics

Download Full-text

Meek at Albany, 1852-58

Earth Sciences History ◽

10.17704/eshi.6.1.u2g030n427ul0x0k ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 40-46

Author(s):

Clifford Nelson

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Field Work ◽

State Governments ◽

Scientific Identity

F. B. Meek served as James Hall's salaried assistant and draughtsman at Albany during 1852-58. In aiding Hall's "Palaeontology of New-York" and other projects, Meek gained experience in field work, curation, research, illustration, and publication that he developed in collaboration with F. V. Hayden and others to fulfill Hall's promise to make Meek an original investigator in paleontology. A dispute with Hall about scientific identity and integrity, rekindled by the Permian controversy, ended Meek's years at Albany. In 1858, Meek joined Hayden at Washington and continued work in paleontology and stratigraphy at the Smithsonian, under contract to the Federal and several state governments.

Download Full-text