Re: paleonet Burgess Shale Fossil Theft

From

Date
Reply-To

Dear palaeonetters,

A few weeks ago we saw some graphic evidence of a pillaged fossil site in Queensland on a new Australian science television show. Its a world wide problem.

Depressing stuff, but lets not tarnish all "fossil entrepreneurs" and "amateur collectors" with the same brush. There's nothing wrong with being a fossil collector if you're also interested in the science. If you're interested in collecting fossils but not interested in palaeontology then I feel sorry for you because you're missing out on so much - it must be like having a self administered frontal lobotomy!

Let's face it, any scientist (amateur or professional) doesn't like to see their raw data disappear - doesn't matter whether its perceived as an important or less important branch of science - who makes such hilarious subjective judgements anyway!

Why does it matter if raw data dissappears? Well, without raw data the science wont grow and can't challenge the assumptions and conclusions already built from the available data set. If that doesn't happen well, it isn't really science then is it?

Why join a "backwater" science list to sneer at the mindset of other list dwellers? I think the last par of Thomas's post says it all. Struth - in terms of lack of perspective I think the bloke who started this thread is the holotype!

Why not pick up a book, explore the internet, go to your local library and museum, do some courses - get interested! You'll be pleasantly surprised!

Cheers

Andrew

Andrew Simpson
Science Museums
Division of Environmental and Life Sciences
Macquarie University NSW 2109
ph (61 2) 98508183
fax (61 2) 98509671
email: asimpson@els.mq.edu.au
http://www.museums.mq.edu.au

"The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment"

>>> Tompaleo@aol.com 09/05/01 01:35pm >>>
In a message dated 9/4/01 4:07:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, benw@mail.uca.edu
writes:

> Pristis@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > This is such silly-business. It constantly amazes me how
> > self-important
> > paleontologists can be! This is just a rock that is missing from a
> > mountain-top. How many of these worm impressions does it take to make
> > this a
> > "tragedy"? Get real, guys, get some perspective!
>
Dear Mr. Pristis,

Originally, I was not going to respond to your msiguided post as I am already
heavily mired in a similar issue, dealing with some people of apparently like
mind as yours, but I just couldn't let this go. This is far too important.

As one who is currently dealing with this issue on a number of fronts, and
NOT a paid (or self important) professional paleontologist, let me address
your concerns.

With all due respect, it is _you_ who has lost his perspective. Perhaps it's
because you are under some false impression regarding the relative abundance
of a particular type of fossil or fossil locality. Perhaps you think everyone
should be _entitled_ to "collect" fossils from anywhere and for any purpose.
In fact, statements such as "this silliness" and "it's just a rock" reflect a
level of ignorance that comes as a surprise considering the fact that no one
is made to sign on this list. It is the same old, tired, myopic, argument I
routinely encounter with individuals who somehow think that paleontologists
are hoarding fossils just to keep amateurs or "entrepreneurs" out -- out of
self importance! Come now. So you resort to reductio ad absurdum to belittle
everyone as well as the seriousness of the infraction! Perhaps you are
arguing from the point of one who is on the "outside" whatever that may be.
I've heard that one too. To me sir, I see it as being grossly ignorant of the
facts to put it nicely.

Case in point. You may or may not have seen recent postings on this list
written by myself regarding my efforts to save a small two acre site on the
East Coast of North America. This site, (<2 acres) is the ONLY such place in
eastern North America where Aptian age dinosaur and vertebrate fossils may be
found. The site is a relict of the heyday of iron ore mining that boomed in
the late 19th and busted in the early 20th century. It is the last of its
kind. All the other sites are now shopping malls, parking lots, roads and
housing developments. One has to travel a couple thousand miles WEST (i.e.,
Montana, Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Utah) to see anything remotely
comparable or travel a couple thousand miles EAST to the upper Wealden beds
on the Isle Of Wight to again find anything remotely comparable. In between
all that vast expanse of space is virtually NOTHING except this <2 acre site.
Do the math. What percentage of this vast area is occupied by my site? Then
the question becomes, how much fossil information can we glean from here?
What is there to be gained from such a diminutive site?

Answers:
1) very very small, hence very very important
2) allot and still growing
3) only a better understanding of the mode and tempo of evolution and
extinction during the Early Cretaceous- a (poorly represented) time of global
climactic, floral and faunal change to say the least.

Now supposedly, anyone who has ever read up on the Arundel Clay and it's
fauna, locally at least, knows the answers to these questions. And yet I have
encountered individuals who think that, 1) just because they have trespassed
upon this site in the past without being caught (until their encounter with
me) gives them some sort of "right" to collect there, and 2) that there "are
plenty of fossils" and no need to hoard them. They always think that.

Then there was the time I guided a small group from a local rock club and one
among them, purportedly an unemployed geologist took me to task asserting
that he has read all the same literature that I and others have read and
proclaimed that all the sites that I have just said are now shopping malls,
etc., are in fact still there and being mined by us to this date. For those of you who are not familiar with the history of the Arundel fauna, yes there
once were many sites between Baltimore and Washington, DC but the references
the person based his assertions upon were that of Lull (1911), Singewald
(1911), Bibbbins (1897) and Marsh (1887) along with a plethora of
paleobotanical literature of the same vintage. Incidentally, until the last
15-20 years, probably better than 90% of the fossils then known from the
Arundel were also collected during these early years. Talk about living in
the past! Nothing I said could sway him. He was convinced I was concealing
some dark 'club secret' not to mention the argument over whether or not the
gravel lag deposit at the base of a _channel_ deposit were gastroliths or
not!

Then there is the ONGOING pillage of my site by local amateurs from a
similarly local "rock club" who continue to sneak on site stealing fossils
despite many warnings and direct confrontations. The locality and
accessibility of the site is such that it is nearly impossible to have the
police on hand to arrest them. Their defense rings of the same refrain as
previously discussed. God only knows what fossils are being destroying just
by their aimless walking and random probing. They are likely destroying even
more than they finding as this site has turned out to be a major
microvertebrate site! To further illustrate their incompetence, I always make
it a point to inspect this physical evidence of "poaching" as I call it to
inspect these "potholes" and even their boot tracks and nearly always, I can
find something in or near them! Most of the finds are not that spectacular
but it is always something small like a hybodus tooth or shards of bone.
Sometimes it's more significant material. One year, about 5 cubic yards of
clay were removed from an area I had been quarrying for microvertebrates
which had only recently been discovered and subsequently reported in JVP
(June 1999) by me a year or so before. Coincidence? In a previous
autumn/winter, they went so far as to cut a literal bench in the quarry face,
again near an area I had been working for microverts, to make their
extraction of whatever it was easier. I can only guess that it was pretty big
(over 6 feet long) based on the size the operation. The trespass and poaching
had occurred over the late fall to winter, when I make few appearances there.
These individuals clearly share your views.

When caught or confronted, they all have expressed the same attitude as you,
"it's only one or two teeth," bones whatever ... and "there's plenty there
for _everyone_." Gag! Multiply the numbers of incursions times "one or two"
of everything being stolen as well as what might be getting destroyed in the
process by at least 6 individuals that I am aware of, over many years then
divide that by the singularity that this site represents and you can easily
see that the site is hemorrhaging! Some of those fossils are being sold, I
have primary and secondary evidence of that. In the case of my (<2 acre)
site, any loss is potentially very damaging as every find has high potential
of being something completely new to science. I can prove this as well with
this summer's field work alone or rather what field work I was able to do
when not calling, writing and emailing politicians and appointees, etc., to
help save this site from people who think they know better.

Now as to fossil sellers and "dealers" I have very little love for the vast
majority of this outgroup. Ther ar just too many horror stories of "dealers"
jumping sites long worked by academics, either openly, viz. "buying out the
rights," or subversively -- by sneaking in when no one is around and stealing
what they can get the most money for while trashing the rest!

Fossils by their very nature are very rare. This rarity is confounded by
accessibility, location, politics and so on. Each site and each fossil
horizon has its own unique attributes and must be taken on a case by case
basis. Anyone who has been on this list more than a day or so should know
this. In the case in question, you picked the wrong case. The age and
diversity of the fossils of the Burgess Shale open a fascinating window into
a very important geologic interval and make them extremely valuable from a
scientific view. It should be preserved in perpetuity for that use. It is not
a commodity to be exploited.

And while I sort of share you view regarding other more important social
ills, the so-called drug war is a big sick joke and the billions wasted would
have been better spent elsewhere. Here again you make dubious comparisons.
Then again, I have heard this argument as well.

Finally sir, if these are only rocks <sic>, then why are you on a list
entirely composed of and conceived by those who share these interests and are
devoted to the study of "these rocks"? Your belittling of those whose lives
and careers are built upon "these rocks" as well as that of the fossils
themselves betray your own ignorance and myopia with respect to the very
critical issue of fossil site preservation.

Regards,

Thomas R. Lipka
Geobiological Research
2733 Kildaire Drive
Baltimore, Md. 21234 USA