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Folks, The Union Chapel site, which has yielded more than 1200 slabs of Early Pennsylvanian (Westphalian A) tetrapod trackways in the past 3 years, is about to be buried if reclamation is not halted in time. (I should state at the outset that I am writing solely as a private citizen, not in my capacity as a state employee. This is not to be construed as an official communication.) The owners of this coalmine and the Alabama Surface Mining Commission have cooperated with the Alabama Paleontological Society (APS) and researchers from several universities to delay reclamation, insofar as federal regulations have allowed them to do so. In May, amateurs and professionals met in a Workshop on Permo-Carboniferous Ichnology to study the tracks, visit the site, and present work on related material. They agreed on the signal importance of this site to science. Hartmut Haubold (Universitaet Halle) considers it to be the richest tracksite of Carboniferous age in the world. A multiauthored book on the site is well under way, and hundreds of photographs of trackways have been posted on the Web. Spearheaded by Prescott Atkinson, M.D., the APS has been trying to preserve the Union Chapel site for science and education. We envision a site where further collections can be made, and where the tracks can be gathered under one roof for study and display. Dr. Atkinson's qualifications are impeccable. He is a medical researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and has cooperated fully with state museums. The Society's efforts have reached the public in several newspaper articles, and US Congressman Robert Aderholt has entered a bill to preserve the site. The owners are cooperative, but another person has an option to buy the land, and so the highwall will be shot down and the site buried within 30 days unless a court order can halt the action. Under US law, the Alabama Surface Mining Commission has no choice but to oversee the reclamation. An injunction would buy time for Congressional action. If you feel that your research, or your opportunities to teach or to lead field trips, would be affected by reclamation of the Union Chapel site, then please write a letter to support Prescott Atkinson at: PAtkinson@peds.uab.edu . Thanks, Andrew K. Rindsberg ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For more information, see: Prescott Atkinson biography http://www.cmb.uab.edu/faculty/atkinson/Biography.html Book-in-progress on Union Chapel trackways and paleoenvironment; Photographic atlas http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/monograph/ Workshop on Permo-Carboniferous Ichnology http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/ucm/ucm.html Chronology of Union Chapel events and bibliography to July 2002 http://kudzu.astr.ua.edu/sitevisit/UCMbib.html Field trip reports of the Birmingham Paleontological Society (now APS) http://www.westga.edu/~bpsweb/BPS_Trips/bps_field_trips.html NAPC abstract by Rindsberg, Martin & Pyenson on ichnology of site http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/napc/abs20.html GSA abstract by S. Hood on xiphosuran trackways http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002NC/finalprogram/abstract_32459.htm Emory University abstract by N. Pyenson on tetrapod trackways http://www.sciencenet.emory.edu/undergrad/SURE/Posters/2001_pyenson.html
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