NAPC and Coiling Programs

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Date
In response to David Kohl's question about NAPC - it's like most other
scientific meetings, you get out of it what you put in. NAPC is somewhat
unusual for US meetings in that it is (to my knowledge) the only
regularly-scheduled meeting that is entirely devoted to paleontology. There
are paleontology papers/posters on offer at all the annual society meetings
(e.g., GSA, AAPG, AGU), but they are placed in programs that are already
crowded with geology and geophysics talks/posters. At NAPC your talk is
placed in a program that is crowded with other paleo. talks. Plus there is
much to be said for the gathering of a hyper-critical mass of
paleontologists together for chats in the hall and social events (where the
real science gets done).

In response to David Goldsmith's query about coiling parameter programs, I
have a very old copy of such a program that was done by Richard Cowen many
years back and relies on the standard "raupian" parameters. I've also seen
a demo of an alternative approach developed and programed by Spath Ackerly
some years back and discussed in his Paleobiology article on coiling
parameters. I haven't seen a program that implements of the Okamoto's
methods. For 3D modelling you might check out Olvig Hammer's excellent work
(http://www.notam.uio.no/~oyvindha/loga.html) - which evidently includes
results produced by Okamoto's equations - and then get in touch with him.
These programs are great teaching tools so if anyone knows of how to get
ahold of some that use the more current modelling methods please post that
info to PaleoNet so that we all may benefit from it. I'd also like to talk
to any developers of such software about making their programs permanently
available through the PaleoNet FTP site.


Norm MacLeod



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Norman MacLeod
Micropalaeontological Research
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: 0171-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  0171-938-9277
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