From Sue Turner: Conodont elements

From
Date
Priority
Reply-To
This came from Sue Turner this morning.  The text appears to be 
directed AT me rather than TO me, so I am assuming it was intended 
for vrtpaleo and paleonet.  So here it is:

Date:          Wed, 31 May 1995 07:06:06 +1000
To:            map2@leicester.ac.uk
From:          S.Turner@mailbox.uq.oz.au (Dr Susan Turner)
Subject:       Re: Conodont elements

As Mark knows, there was a lot of discussion on the nature of 
conodont elements at the Unesco-IUGS IGCP 328  Gross Symposium held 
in Gottingen in August 1993 (abstracts were edited by me and copies 
are available from me price $20). Many of the workers on fossil 
vertebrate microremains did not agree/accept that the evidence 
presented on hard tissues supported the hypothesis that conodont 
elements were teeth or vertebrate. And as Mark knows from reading 
Ichthyolith Issues those people have voiced their opinions and have 
papers already out or in press with Modern Geology which is 
publishing the papers from the above symposium - these people 
include Dick Kresja, Hans-Peter Schultze , Anne Kemp and Bob 
Nicoll. Alain Blieck and I have submitted a paper to the Boucot 
Symposium though not primarily about conodont elements as teeth. 
There are many other ideas about what the elements are - as people 
who have read around must know - the main problem being that they 
were tissue covered         When I have time (maybe after the work 
leading up to IGCP 328s final meeting to be held in Paris in 
September) I will sit down and look at condoont elements myself and 
see if I agree with the wear facets or not. For now as I have said 
I am just not happy with the evidence presented (i.e. I am not yet 
convinced) and I am speaking for other participants in IGCP 328 who 
are not convinced - is all. As I am on the listserver and they are 
not I am prepared to take the comments from both sides and 
disseminate them.         
But even I do not have contact with the many hundreds of conodont 
workers in the Pander Society and I would like to hear their 
opinions.         Sue 

 

 



Dr Mark A. Purnell

Department of Geology, University of Leicester
University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, U.K
tel: 0116 2523629  fax: 0116 2523918