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GULF COAST SECTION SEPM AD HOC COMMITTEE FOR GULF OF MEXICO TAXONOMIC
EQUIVALENCY MINUTES OF THE FIRST ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING
September 19, 1995
Chevron Tower, Houston, Texas
(NOTE: Interested readers can refer to August, 1995 articles on the
PaleoNet HomePage and Micropal regarding the Gulf of Mexico Taxonomic
Equivalency Project)
The first official meeting of the Gulf Coast Section SEPM Ad Hoc
Committee for Gulf of Mexico Taxonomic Equivalency was held at
Chevron Tower, Houston on September 19th. Project Chairperson Ed
Picou (consultant, retired Shell Oil) and Committee Member Garry Jones
(Unocal) presided. Attending the meeting were Bob Fleisher, Larry
Zarra (Chevron), Denise Butler (Pennzoil), Lori Glassgold, Brian
O'Neill, Mike Styzen (Shell), Rome Lytton, Sally Zellers (Texaco),
Pete McLaughlin, Richard Denne (Exxon), Steve Root, Ron Morin (Mobil),
Steve Truax, Mike Dumont (Vastar Resources), Dick White, Rich Lane
(Amoco), Rashel Rosen and Bernie Shaffer (Excalibur Interpretation),
Dana Griffith (private consultant), Dick Zingula (retired Exxon), Tom
Shunick, Rhonda Roederer (Bane and Shunick), Mike Nault, Ardy
Callendar, Skip Breard (Applied Biostratigraphix).
The meeting was called to order by host Bob Fleisher of Chevron and
attendees introduced themselves.
Project Chairperson Ed Picou briefly reviewed past,
less-than-successful attempts at unifying species concepts of the
biostratigraphically important Gulf of Mexico marker species and asked
the attendees for their help to ensure this latest attempt reaches a
successful conclusion. Ed expressed delight at the broad
representation of oil company and consulting biostratigraphers in
attendance, citing that successful completion of the project will
require input from both parties and will benefit all Gulf of Mexico
biostratigraphy. Ed described a two-year time frame to finish the
project whereby the first year would be spent compiling data and the
second finalizing the data into publishable products, both hard copy
and electronic. Ed explained that the main purpose of the meeting was
to gain input from the attendees as to the scope and desired final
products of the project and how to best organize project participants
for synthesizing the immense amount of information that will be
collected during the course of the project.
Garry Jones reiterated some key points from his Paleo Lunch Bunch of
August 10th in Houston where he spoke on behalf of Ed Picou about the
Taxonomic Equivalency Project:
The paleo "industry" in the Gulf of Mexico is multifaceted including
biostratigraphers from oil companies, consultancies, academia,
government, and museums. Successful completion of the project will
require input from all these sources.
Past failure to fully document species concepts and their proper
stratigraphic order has led, or could lead, to the following results:
Difficult to impossible to merge paleo data from multiple sources into
meaningful correlation diagrams and structure contour, isopach, and
paleobathymetry maps.
Species not assigned their proper latin binomial precludes ability to
compare stratigraphic ranges and environmental tolerances on regional
to worldwide basis.
Non-paleontologists obtain tarnished image of utility of
biostratigraphic data (and biostratigraphers!)
Species concepts retire or die with the paleontologists who defined
them.
Acting as facilitator, Garry Jones directed a group discussion on the
multitude of tasks necessary to complete the Taxonomic Equivalency
Project. To focus the discussion, Garry used the various project
recommendations drafted by the Industry Biostratigraphy Coordinators
Group (IBCG) and forwarded to Ed Picou in a memo of August 8, 1995.
Garry asked that attendees discuss the scope, organization, and final
products of each recommendation. Garry also recorded action items
stemming from this discussion. The following are the more salient
results:
A consensus was reached that the project should focus on foram,
nannofossil, and possibly palynological biostratigraphy of the
Oligocene (base of Vicksburg) to Recent section and cover both onshore
and offshore Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Louisiana.
The project workload was divided into two broad categories:
1. Documentation of species concepts.
2. The creation of standard biostratigraphic chart showing the
succession of key species events (extinction horizons, evolutionary
first appearances, acmes, coiling changes, etc.) tied to a numerical
geochronology.
A consensus was reached to divide the workload among several
subcommittees, and various attendees signed on as subcommittee members
(or volunteered names of people not in attendance who expressed a
desire to participate):
SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS
Foram Taxonomy, Plio - Pleistocene:Ardy Callendar, Matti Rannik, Skip
Breard, Steve Truax, Jim Gamber, Dick Geen, Rome Lytton, Rich George
Foram Taxonomy, Miocene:Dick Zingula, Lori Glassgold, Rhonda Roederer,
Brian O'Neill, Steve Truax, Jim Gamber, Dick Geen, Rome Lytton,
Michael Dumont
Foram Taxonomy, Oligocene:Dick Zingula, Rhonda Roederer, Tom Shunick,
Larry Zarra, Jim Gamber, Dick Geen, Terry Christian.Calcareous
Nannofossil Taxonomy:Mike Styzen, Ron Morin, Bernie Shaffer, Steve
Root, Richard Denne, Ralph Salomon, Jim Bergen, Joe Boudreaux, Sheila
Barnette, Art Waterman
Palynological Taxonomy Michael Dumont, John Wrenn
Biostratigraphic Chart and Time Scale: Garry Jones, Tom Shunick, Mike
Dumont, Jim Ogg, Mike Styzen, Pete McGlothlin, Steve Truax, Sally
Zellers
Attendees also compiled a list of biostratigraphers not in attendance
whose knowledge of some aspect of Gulf of Mexico biostratigraphy might
be useful to the various subcommittees:
AFFILIATION BIOSTRATIGRAPHER
Oil Company Jim Newell (BP)
Consultants Corky Johnson, Tony Charletta, Sam Miano, Clarence
Albers, Bernie Hill, Mark Jiang, Water Rudick, Bill
Grubb, Tom Reilly, Bill Brantly
MMS Wylie Poag
State Survey Charlie Smith, Dave Pope
Academia Joe Hazel, Martin Lagoe, Hillary Olsen, Woody Wise,
Stefan Gartner, Barry Kohl
ACTION ITEMS: From the list of committee volunteers, Ed Picou to
select a coordinator for each subcommittee and officially report the
personnel and charge of each subcommittee to the GCS SEPM Executive
Council Meeting to be held at the GCAGS Meeting in Baton Rouge October
25-27. By end of 1995, to-be-named coordinators of each subcommittee
to hold at least one meeting with his/her subcommittee members and
draft a detailed 6-month plan of action for Ed Picou. Group consensus
was that subcommittee meetings and/or microscope sessions could best
be accomodated in conjunction with upcoming functions such as GSA (New
Orleans, November, 1995); GCS SEPM Research Conference (Houston,
December, 1995); or future IBCG meetings.
Possible final products of the taxonomic aspects of the project
included:
Hard copy taxonomic "atlas" published by GCS SEPM (binder format
allowing easy entry of new species or updated information.
Electronic atlas on CD, PalCat format, or in the relational data base
format recently proposed by Norm MacLeod and Steve Culver (Natural
History Museum, London), and made available on Worldwide Web.
Selection of type specimen(s) to represent species concept and
deposition in a repository that ideally is both easily accessible to
Gulf of Mexico biostratigraphers and provides professional curation.
ACTION ITEM:
Dick Zingula to look into possibility of repository at Houston Natural
History Museum.
Some oil companies and consultants pledged donating heretofore
proprietary volumes of taxonomic information to the project, including
photomicrographs and respective type specimens.
Possible features of a taxonomic atlas would include:
At minimum, all important regional biostratigraphic markers.
As many locally applicable markers as project time allows.
All faunal associates of the marker species.
Selection of best name to represent the species concept.
Identification of proper latin binomial if one exists.
Synonymies.
Key taxonomic features which distinguish the species.
Paleoenvironmental preference (updip vs. downdip utility).
Listing of associated faunal/floral elements for each species event.
Identification of type of species event (extinction, first appearance
datum, etc.).
Assignment of numerical age estimate for each event (see Biostrat
Chart section below).
Assignment of "mappability" index for each species event.
Image(s) of each species concept captured through some combination of
previously published figures and/or new photomicrographs, perhaps
using PaleoVision technology c/o Norm MacLeod at the Natural History
Museum in London.
As a means for electronically organizing and editing the mass of
taxonomic information that will be collected during the course of the
project, the meeting attendees viewed a demo of a prototype Windows
program designed specifically for the project by Mitch Covington
(Bugware, Inc., Tallahassee, Florida). Attendee reaction to the
software, essentially an electronic notebook for recording taxonomic
information and scanned images, was positive. One aspect of using
such software in the project is that each subcommittee member could
retain a copy and via E-mail send new information on species taxonomy
to the subcommittee coordinator (who presumably would act as an
information clearinghouse). The coordinator could then periodically
issue updated versions of the data to subcommittee members for their
review.
ACTION ITEMS:
Foward several suggestions for modifying the software program to Mitch
Covington.
Insure compatibility of export files from Mitch's program with that of
suggested electronic atlas such as taxonomic relational data base
proposed by MacLeod and Culver.
Possibly look into an Australian Geologic Survey program which might
capture the taxonomic information in spreadsheet format.
Possible final products for the biostratigraphic chart portion of the
project included:
Hard -copy "wall chart" of Gulf of Mexico biostratigraphy tied to a
geochronologic framework.
Electronic version of biostratigraphic chart in spreadsheet format
(see below).
Possible features of a biostratigraphic chart included:
Each Gulf of Mexico species event tied to the geochronologic framework
of Berggren, Kent, Swisher, and Aubry, 1995, SEPM Special Volume No.
54 (in press), including columns showing the geomagnetic polarity
history and standard, low-latitude planktic microfossil zones.
A subchart or inset comparing the biostratigraphic succession of
species events and placement of epoch boundaries for each oil
company/consultant zonation versus the subcommittee's recommended
standard for the Gulf of Mexico.
To help organize the biostratigraphic information collected from the
various companies and consultancies and place these data against a
geochronologic framework, it was proposed to utilize the services
offered by Jim Ogg (Purdue University) who has compiled the Cenozoic
geochronology of Berggren et al. in Excel spreadsheet format. Ogg
could place each company/consultant zonation as a separate column
against the Berggren et al. standard. Some planktic biostratigraphic
events will be found on all the company/consultant zonation schemes
(e.g., extinction horizons of Calcidiscus macintyrei and Globoquadrina
altispira) and also have been assigned a numerical age estimate in
Berggren et al. These planktic events can act as common horizontal
tie lines linking the various zonations on the Ogg spreadsheet.
Species events falling between between these common tie lines can be
automatically assigned by Excel an interpolated numerical age
estimate. It will be up to the subcommittee to fine tune these age
estimates in a final standard compilation The Excel spreadsheet
format will allow automatic updating of numerical ages as new data are
received during the course of the project. In addition, the "hot
cell" feature in Excel can allow for quick access of taxonomic
information collected for each species during the course of the
project.
ACTION ITEM:
To-be-named subcommittee coordinator to send existing
company/consultant zonations already in Excel format to Jim Ogg and
discuss which planktic species events to use as common tie lines.
Toward the end of the meeting, several attendees urged project
participants not to get bogged down in details, but to proceed with
the "big picture" by documenting the species concepts and
biostratigraphic succession of the regional markers. Local markers
and other details could then be placed within this regional framework.
Also noted by attendees: the title "Gulf of Mexico Taxonomic
Equivalency Project" really only addresses one aspect of the project;
the title probably needs to be changed.
ACTION ITEM:
Choose a better, more-encompassing project name.
Respectfully submitted,
Garry Jones
Unocal
Lafayette, Louisiana
Partial index: