Anthony J. Martin

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Anthony J. Martin is a paleontologist who has taught at Emory University since the early 1990s. He is best known for his books, An Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs, [1] Life Traces of the Georgia Coast [2] , Dinosaurs without Bones [3] , and Life Sculpted: Tales of the Animals, Plants, and Fungi that Drill, Break, and Scrape to Shape Earth [4] . He is married to artist Ruth Schowalter.

Contents

Martin's main area of expertise is ichnology, the study of animal activity in modern and ancient sediments. He studied dwarf fossil faunas under Wayne A. Pryor at Miami University and Ordovician trace fossils under Robert W. Frey at the University of Georgia. Both Pryor and Frey emphasized the need for ichnologists to study modern traces in order to understand trace fossils, and Martin took this to heart. He honed his tracking skills in several field schools with emphasis on modern vertebrate ichnology. Having run numerous field trips and field courses on Sapelo Island, Georgia and San Salvador Island together with Emory colleague Stephen W. Henderson, Martin developed the experience necessary for books on Trace Fossils of San Salvador [5] and Life Traces of the Georgia Coast. [6]

Martin has visited Australia several times to lecture at Monash University and to collaborate with researchers there, e.g., on the ichnology of polar dinosaurs and the oldest known fossils of crayfish. [7] In the United States, he was part of the team that discovered the first known dinosaur burrow. [8] [9] He has also written several times on the ichnology of modern and fossil arthropods, including the modern ghost crab Ocypode quadrata [10] and the Paleozoic trace fossils Arthrophycus [11] and Nereites . [12] Martin is a proactive educator who uses the Web for education well beyond his Emory venue, notably by blogging, e.g., as the PaleoPoet [13] and currently as author of "Life Traces of the Georgia Coast: Unseen Lives of the Georgia Barrier Islands". [14]

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Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trace fossil</span> Geological record of biological activity

A trace fossil, also known as an ichnofossil, is a fossil record of biological activity by lifeforms but not the preserved remains of the organism itself. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, which are the fossilized remains of parts of organisms' bodies, usually altered by later chemical activity or mineralization. The study of such trace fossils is ichnology and is the work of ichnologists.

<i>Troodon</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Troodon is a former wastebasket taxon and a potentially dubious genus of relatively small, bird-like theropod dinosaurs definitively known from the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous period. It includes at least one species, Troodon formosus, known from Montana. Discovered in October 1855, T. formosus was among the first dinosaurs found in North America, although it was thought to be a lizard until 1877. Several well-known troodontid specimens from the Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta were once believed to be members of this genus. However, recent analyses in 2017 have found this genus to be undiagnostic and referred some of these specimens to the genus Stenonychosaurus some to the genus Latenivenatrix, and some to the genus Pectinodon. The genus name is Ancient Greek for "wounding tooth", referring to the teeth, which were different from those of most other theropods known at the time of their discovery. The teeth bear prominent, apically oriented serrations. These "wounding" serrations, however, are morphometrically more similar to those of herbivorous reptiles, and suggest a possibly omnivorous diet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burrow</span> Underground animal home dug in soft dirt

A burrow is a hole or tunnel excavated into the ground by an animal to construct a space suitable for habitation or temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion. Burrows provide a form of shelter against predation and exposure to the elements, and can be found in nearly every biome and among various biological interactions. Many animal species are known to form burrows. These species range from small invertebrates, such as the Corophium arenarium, to very large vertebrate species such as the polar bear. Burrows can be constructed into a wide variety of substrates and can range in complexity from a simple tube a few centimeters long to a complex network of interconnecting tunnels and chambers hundreds or thousands of meters in total length; an example of the latter level of complexity, a well-developed burrow, would be a rabbit warren.

<i>Orodromeus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Orodromeus is a genus of herbivorous orodromine thescelosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Only one species is known, the type species Orodromeus makelai.

<i>Zephyrosaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Zephyrosaurus is a genus of orodromine ornithischian dinosaur. It is based on a partial skull and postcranial fragments discovered in the Aptian-Albian-age Lower Cretaceous Cloverly Formation of Carbon County, Montana, USA. New remains are under description, and tracks from Maryland and Virginia, also in the US, have been attributed to animals similar to Zephyrosaurus. It lived approximately 113 mya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Two Medicine Formation</span> Geological formation in Montana, United States and Alberta, Canada

The Two Medicine Formation is a geological formation, or rock body, in northwestern Montana and southern Alberta that was deposited between 83.5 ± 0.7 Ma and 70.6 ± 3.4 Ma, during Campanian time. It crops out to the east of the Rocky Mountain Overthrust Belt, and the western portion of this formation is folded and faulted while the eastern part, which thins out into the Sweetgrass Arch, is mostly undeformed plains. Below the formation are the nearshore deposits of the Virgelle Sandstone, and above it is the marine Bearpaw Shale. Throughout the Campanian, the Two Medicine Formation was deposited between the western shoreline of the Late Cretaceous Interior Seaway and the eastward advancing margin of the Cordilleran Overthrust Belt. The Two Medicine Formation is mostly sandstone, deposited by rivers and deltas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of paleontology</span> History of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ichnofacies</span> Trace fossil

An ichnofacies is an assemblage of trace fossils that provides an indication of the conditions that their formative organisms inhabited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wayan Formation</span> Stratigraphic Unit in Idaho

The Wayan Formation is a geological formation in Idaho whose strata date back to the latest Early Cretaceous and the earliest Late Cretaceous. Dinosaur, other reptile, mammal, and micro and macro-floral remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation. The lack of extensive outcrops, limited geographic extent, and extreme structural deformation have limited paleontological explorations of the Wayan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thescelosauridae</span> Extinct family of dinosaurs

Thescelosauridae is a clade of neornithischians from the Cretaceous of Asia, North America and possibly South America. The group was originally used as a name by Charles M. Sternberg in 1937, but was not formally defined until 2013, where it was used by Brown and colleagues as the group uniting Thescelosaurus and Orodromeus, based on their phylogenetic results. During a phylogenetic revision of neornithischians by Clint Boyd in 2015, the authorship of Thescelosauridae was given to Brown and colleagues, which meant that the similar name Parksosauridae, informally defined in 2002 by Buchholz, would have had priority over Thescelosauridae. The two clades had slightly different definitions, with Parksosauridae referring to all animals closer to Parksosaurus than Hypsilophodon, but they contained the same taxa so Boyd used Parksosauridae under the assumption it had priority. However, in formalizing the clade following the regulations of the PhyloCode, Madzia, Boyd, and colleagues identified in 2021 that Sternberg was the proper authority for Thescelosauridae, giving it priority over Parksosauridae. As well, they gave Thescelosauridae the definition of the largest clade containing Thescelosaurus neglectus but not Iguanodon bernissartensis, as long as Hypsilophodon foxii was not in the group, modifying previous definitions for Thescelosauridae in order to maintain its modern use, so that the clade was not applied if Thescelosaurus fell within Hypsilophodontidae, a family that has not been recently used but may be revived if the systematic position of Hypsilophodon was solidified at some point in the future. Madzia et al. identified the analysis of Madzia et al. in 2018 as the reference analysis for the name Thescelosauridae, an analysis based on a revised version of the 2015 Boyd analysis.

<i>Ophiomorpha</i> Taxon

Ophiomorpha is an ichnotaxon, usually interpreted as a burrow of an organism living in the near-shore environment. The burrow lining is more or less smooth on the inside, and densely to strongly mammalated or nodose on the outside, due to the packing of fecal pellets for support of the burrow. Branching is irregular but Y-shaped where present. It is often considered part of the Skolithos ichnofacies, where it has occurred since the early Permian, though it has also occurred in deep water settings since the Late Jurassic, such as well-oxygenated turbidites.

The Uhangri Formation, located at the Uhangri Dinosaur Fossil Site, is a geological formation from which fossil pterosaur tracks have been recovered near Haenam-eup, Jeollanam-do, South Korea.

The Haman Formation is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in South Korea. It has been dated to the Albian, with an estimated maximum depositional age of 105.4 ± 0.4 Ma. The deposit is known for its tracks, including those of dinosaurs, pterosaurs and birds. It overlies the Silla Conglomerate which overlies the Chilgok Formation. It is laterally equivalent to the Sagog Formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Lockley</span> Welsh palaeontologist (1950–2023)

Martin G. Lockley was a Welsh palaeontologist. He was educated in the United Kingdom where he obtained degrees and post-doctoral experience in Geology in the 1970s. Since 1980 he had been a professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, (UCD) and was later Professor Emeritus. He is best known for his work on fossil footprints and was the former director of the Dinosaur Tracks Museum at UCD. He was an Associate Curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and Research Associate at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. During his years at UCD he earned a BA in 2007 in Spanish with a minor in Religious Studies, became a member of the Scientific and Medical Network and taught and published on the evolution of consciousness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic ghost crab</span> Species of crustacean

The Atlantic ghost crab, Ocypode quadrata, is a species of ghost crab. It is a common species along the Atlantic coast of the United States, where it is the only species of ghost crab; its range of distribution extends from its northernmost reach on beaches in Westport, Massachusetts, south along the coasts of the tropical Western Atlantic Ocean to the beach of Barra do Chui, in Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil.

<i>Koreanosaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Koreanosaurus is a genus of orodromine neornithischian dinosaur. One species has been described, Koreanosaurus boseongensis.

Micrichnus is a trace fossil ichnogenus of arthropods. It was once thought to be a trace fossil made by a vertebrate.

<i>Nereites</i> Trace fossil

Nereites is a genus of trace fossil. Modern tracemakers of incipient Nereites include worm-like organisms, horseshoe crabs and hermit crabs. Traditionally, two models have been proposed for Nereites:

  1. in the ‘worm model’, Nereites is a feeding burrow produced by wormlike organisms, probing and backfilling laterally
  2. in the ‘arthropod model’, the characteristic lobes are pressure-release structures made by arthropod legs. According to this interpretation, Nereites is a locomotion trail

The Blackleaf Formation is a geologic formation in Montana. It preserves fossils dating back to the Albian to Cenomanian stages of the Cretaceous period.

This article records new taxa of trace fossils of every kind that are scheduled to be described during the year 2019, as well as other significant discoveries and events related to trace fossil paleontology that are scheduled to occur in the year 2019.

References

  1. ↑ Martin, A. J., 2006, Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs (second edition): Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 560 pp.
  2. ↑ Martin, A. J., 2012, Life Traces of the Georgia Coast: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 670 pp.
  3. ↑ Martin, A. J, 2014, Dinosaurs without Bones: Pegasus, 460 pp.
  4. ↑ Martin, A. J, 2023, Life Sculpted: Tales of the Animals, Plants, and Fungi that Drill, Break, and Scrape to Shape Earth: Chicago, University of Chicago Press
  5. ↑ Martin, A. J., 2006, Trace Fossils of San Salvador: San Salvador, Bahamas, Gerace Research Center, 80 pp.
  6. ↑ Martin, A. J., 2012, Life Traces of the Georgia Coast: Bloomington, Indiana University Press.
  7. ↑ Martin, A. J., Rich, T. H., Poore, G. C. B., Schultz, M. B., Austin, C. M., Kool, L., and Vickers-Rich, P., 2008, Fossil evidence from Australia for oldest known freshwater crayfish in Gondwana. Gondwana Research, 14: 287-296.
  8. ↑ Varricchio, D. J., Martin, A. J., and Katsura, Y. 2007, First trace and body fossil evidence of a burrowing, denning dinosaur. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 274: 1361-1368.
  9. ↑ Martin, A. J., 2009, Dinosaur burrows in the Otway Group (Albian) of Victoria, Australia and their relation to Cretaceous polar environments: Cretaceous Research, 30: 1223-1237.
  10. ↑ Martin, A. J., 2006. Resting traces of Ocypode quadrata associated with hydration and respiration: Sapelo Island, Georgia, USA. Ichnos, 13: 57-67.
  11. ↑ Rindsberg, A. K., and Martin, A. J., 2003, Arthrophycus and the problem of compound trace fossils. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Special Issue (Complex Trace Fossils), 192: 187-219.
  12. ↑ Martin, A. J., and Rindsberg, A. K., 2007, Arthropod tracemakers of Nereites? Neoichnological observations of juvenile limulids and their paleoichnological applications. In Miller, W. M., III (editor), Trace Fossils: Concepts, Problems, Prospects: Amsterdam, Elsevier, p. 478-491.
  13. ↑ Martin, A. J., http://www.paleopoet.blogspot.com/
  14. ↑ Martin, A. J. http://www.georgialifetraces.com/blog/
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