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The following announcement is being posted to a number of paleontological listservers in an effort to solicit feedback from the worldwide paleontological community for the upcoming "Paleontology in the 21st Century" meeting. A complete description of this meeting, including preliminary reports from the Paleo21 topic groups is available at the following url http://www.nhm.ac.uk/paleonet/paleo21/ The Paleo21 WWW pages are extensively referenced with contact information for the conference organizers, scientific conveners topic coordinators, and topic delegates. If you have a comment, a point you would like to see accorded more emphasis, an alternative point of view, a dissenting opinion, etc. with respect to the present state and/or future direction of the science of paleontology the organizers and participants in the conference want/need to hear from you. Your feedback is needed so that the Paleo21 meeting can assemble a balanced impression of where paleontology as a science is today and where the paleontological community would like to see it move in the next century. Please distribute this announcement (by any and all means) to your paleontological colleagues. Norman MacLeod (on behalf of the Paleo21 organizers) _______________________________________________________________________ Paleontology in the 21st Century Workshop (A International Senckenberg Conference) H. Richard Lane, J. Lipps, F. Steininger, W. Ziegler Rationale Introduction Most of us are acutely aware that many aspects of Paleontology are in transition. Funding for academic and government research and staff positions worldwide has decreased significantly over the last ten years, and continues to do so with no end in sight. Academic geology departments, by and large, are not replacing retiring members of our profession in kind, and experienced stratigraphic paleontologists are being laid off in record numbers as the petroleum industry continues to reel from adverse worldwide business and political climates. Ironically, all this comes at a time when the science of paleontology is undergoing a period of unprecedented progress as new technologies and data analytic approaches are integrated with its rapidly growing and increasingly detailed database. It is hard to imagine a geological discipline that has made, and, despite these problems, continues to make, as many different practical contributions to the earth sciences as paleontology. Yet, for a variety of reasons, continued access to these data, along with individuals trained to expand and interpret them is in serious jeopardy. Because this problem cuts across all of paleontology, a pan-paleontological effort is needed to address it and, thus, the main reason for this one-week workshop. The workshop entitled "Paleontology in the 21st Century" is a Senckenberg Conference and is co-sponsored by a variety of professional societies, industry, museums, national funding agencies, and private business. The purpose and scope of the workshop is intended to identify and address issues impacting paleontology and the paleontological community as they enter the 21st Century. The idea was generated from a workshop sponsored by SEPM (Society of Sedimentary Geologists) in Snowbird, Utah, October 1994 which was entitled, "Applications of Sedimentary Geology and Paleontology into the 21st Century." That workshop was a very stimulating one for those of us who had the opportunity to attend it and its results and recommendations should have a major impact on the direction of the science in the next century. However, the Snowbird workshop included only those paleontologists from industry, academia and government who concern themselves with the applied side of paleontology. Thus, another purpose of this workshop is to bring together a broad spectrum of paleontologists representing the various organizations where they are employed, and the various specialties. There has been a major effort to achieve a fair representation by geography, paleontological specialty and gender. How And Why Of Paleontology In The 21st Century Paleontology in the 21st Century is a workshop to suggest goals to the paleontological community and those it interacts with for the start of the next century of paleontology. Because vigorous discussion among the participants is desired, the conference had to be limited in numbers of people attending. The Organizing Committee desires two things: 1. that the attendees be able to represent a broad, if perhaps incomplete, spectrum of paleontological concerns; and 2. that the entire paleontological community worldwide be included in the final suggestions. Of course, we recognize that the best way to do these would be to include all paleontologists everywhere; we feel badly that this is simply impossible for many reasons. Thus, we have selected participants according to their distribution across the types of employment, the subdisciplines and the regions of the world represented in paleontology today. The process involved a selection of a few paleontologists from academia, industry, and museums who then made yet another selection of topic leaders and suggested participants. The leaders of each topic were also able to make selections to their topic. No one person or group of people made the entire selection. We hope this process gives us the breadth of experience and vision required to sketch the outlines of a new century of paleontology Since the workshop is necessarily limited in attendance, we do not surmise that we can anticipate or expect agreement from all paleontologists. Our results should be regarded as a point of departure for discussion of paleontology in the 21st century, not a plan for it. The results should be considered by all paleontologists and modified or rejected after careful thought. Our goal is to provoke those thoughts from the paleontological community with the hope that action can ensue. Towards this goal, we will next organize a worldwide electronic conference by posting the results of the workshop on our World Wide Web site. We invite discussion, comment, suggestions and criticism from the worldwide paleontological community. In this way, we envision that the workshop will organize topics and initiate discussion in a conference that the community can then join electronically. The conference will take place as soon as the results of the workshop is completed and posted on the Web site. The electronic conference will run for one month to allow discussion by all who wish to participate. The final document, to be published by the Senckenburg Museum, will incorporate these discussions. We hope the community understands both the practical limitations of the workshop and the desirability of their input to the final product through electronic conferencing. Purpose 1. The following is the Scientific Committee's vision of the workshop's purpose. These purposes were reviewed and agreed to in Washington D. C. in June 1996. 2. To identify broad scientific initiatives for the 21st century that, if successful, will maximize paleontology's relevance and impact on technology, society and industry. 3. To develop and suggest an overall, unified, direction(s) for paleontology as it enters the 21st Century. 4. To evaluate the current organizational structure of paleontology and recommend / implement changes for the future, if judged needed. 5. To promote better communication between the various specialties/fractions in Paleontology. 6. To strategize development of a public support base. 7. To more effectively structure and use government regulation/and enhance paleontology's interface with governments. 8. To promote effective interfaces with other specialties. Topic Groups Organizations (Our employers, funders, and societies) Topic Topic Coordinator a. Academia K. Flessa b. Commercial Collectors M. Triebold c. Consultancies J. Fenton d. Funding Agencies C. Maples/E. Fluegel/ D. Maronde e. Government L. Edwards f. Independent Paleontologists C. Cozart g. Industry J. Armentrout h. Museums/Institutes D. Erwin/W. Ziegler i. Societies J. Gall Paleontological Themes (The products of our work) Topic Topic Coordinator a. Astropaleobiology S. Cady/M. Walter b. Biostratigraphy/Geochronology M. Simmons c. Functional Morphology N. Schmidt-Kittler d. Geobiology/Biogeochemistry A. Knoll/J. Hayes e. Macroevolution D. Jablonski f. Paleoclimatology J. Parrish g. Paleoecology/Paleobiology F. Fuersich h. Paleoceanography W. W. Hay i. Systematics/Taxonomy D. Briggs Paleontological Infastructure (The things that assist us) Topic Topic Coordinator a. Computers/Quantification/Databases N. MacLeod b. Curating/Collection/Extraction/Preparation W. Allmon c. Media J. Fischman d. Publications S. Bengtson e. Public Outreach R. Stucky/J. Scothmoor f. Regulation C. L. May and C. Benjamini g. University Education S. Carlson Additional Reports a. Vertebrate Paleontology J. Flynn ___________________________________________________________________ Dr. Norman MacLeod Micropalaeontological Research N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (E-mail) Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD Office Phone: 0171-938-9006 Dept. FAX: 0171-938-9277 E-mail: N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk ___________________________________________________________________
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