Review of Seattle SVP Meeting

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Review of 54th Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Meeting (Oct.19-22,
1994), Burke Museum and the University of Washington, Seattle

The 54th annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Meeting (Oct.19-22,
1994), sponsored by the Burke Museum and the University of Washington,
Seattle, opened with two symposia before the official start of the meeting.
"Sea Reptiles of the Past" concentrated on the functional morphology,
paleoecology and systematics of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, sea turtles, and
mosasaurs, and "Outreach and Education" provided a forum for discussion of
improved communication with amateur collectors, the government, the press,
and various levels of the education system.

The meeting itself, with over 600 people attending, opened with a symposium
in memory of Everett C. Olson that consisted of papers on wide ranging
topics from new Cretaceous mammals from Mongolia to preservation of
collagen in Tyrannosaurus rex bone, to broad scale patterns of extinction,
faunal evolution and classification.  The first mammal session focused
largely on biostratigraphy, reconstruction of paleocommunities and
interpretation of diet in some extinct mammals.  Students who participated
in the Romer Prize Session (the Society's award for best student
presentation) were praised by the jurors for the overall high quality of
their work and the prize this year was shared by J. Alroy of the University
of Chicago for his project "The mammalian time scale of North America" and
M. W. Caldwell of McGill University for his research on "Limb ontogeny,
evolution and aquatic adaptation in lepidosauromorph diapsids."

After a suggestion by the meeting organizers at the time of abstract
submission in March that efforts to reduce the number of platform
presentations would be greatly appreciated, this meeting hosted one of the
largest poster sessions ever, with well over 100 entries on an extremely
wide range of topics in vertebrate evolution and several conputer exhibits.
This session ran unopposed by talks and was followed by a short
preparator's session and an open business meeting.  At the business
meeting, issues such as the society's budget, use of Internet, the size,
budget and operation of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and SVP's
policy on amateur collecting were among the topics discussed. Official
minutes of this meeting will be published in the SVP News Bulletin later
this year.  An official meeting of student members of SVP was also
introduced for the first time this year.

The fossil primate evolution presentation session focused primarily on
issues of early Cenozoic primate evolution. Saturday's mammal session
included several papers on geochronology and mammalian paleontology of
particular sites, various aspects of cranial morphology of different taxa,
and the biology of edentates, whales, and other groups.  The longest
session on Saturday included several papers on early fishes and mostly
papers on various aspects of archosaur paleobiology such as functional
morphology, histology, systematics, and the introduction of some new taxa.

Several awards were presented at the official closing banquet, the
Romer-Simpson medal, SVP's highest honor, was presented to John Ostrom as
he retired from a distinguished career at Yale University.  Several
optional field trips to nearby areas such as the John Day Basin and Mt. St.
Helens were available to interested conferees and plans are already
underway to prepare for the next annual meeting which will be hosted by the
Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.


  - Maureen O'Leary, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine


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[                                                                          ]
[ Norm Macleod                                                             ]
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Norman MacLeod
Senior Research Fellow
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet)
N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet)

Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
                     Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 071-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  071-938-9277
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