Department of Geology 



Research and Expeditions 



Pursuing their investigation of the occurrence of fossil vertebrates 

 and invertebrates in a Pennsylvanian black shale in Parke County, 

 Indiana (see Annual Report ^1958, page 59), Dr. Rainer Zangerl, 

 Curator of Fossil Reptiles, and Dr. Eugene S. Richardson, Jr., 

 Curator of Fossil Invertebrates, spent two weeks in the field during 

 the summer (see page 36). Later, in November, they returned to 

 that area and conducted a two-day field conference with members 

 of the Indiana Geological Survey. Both trips led to clarification 

 of points in the stratigraphy of the area. 



In the laboratory they continued their work on the fossils col- 

 lected in the course of this project. They made preliminary notes 

 on all of the many thousands of fossils from the two principal 

 Mecca project localities (Mecca quarry and Logan quarry). This 

 included making and studying 313 X-ray photographs of speci- 

 mens in the black shale. With an electronic printer purchased this 

 year from a National Science Foundation grant, prints were made 

 of about one-third of the mass of X-ray films of the collection 

 acquired during the year and previous years. These prints are supe- 

 rior to the original films for the purpose of comparative study. 

 Optical analysis of the Mecca shale itself was also made, and a 

 large number of microscopic sections of the shale from the Mecca 

 and Logan quarries was ground and a qualitative and quantitative 

 record of the composition was made. 



George Langford, Curator of Fossil Plants, subjected the col- 

 lections under his care to a complete overhauling to make them 

 more accessible in the two storerooms. The collections consist of 

 three extensive and representative assemblages of fossil plants: 

 one from the Pennsylvanian of Will County, Illinois, and the other 

 two from the Lower Eocene and Upper Cretaceous of the southern 

 states. Many species are involved, some known, others new or 

 informative. Preliminary studies have been made of these new 

 species and some have been described and illustrated. 



Dr. Robert H. Denison, Curator of Fossil Fishes, completed his 

 study of Lower Devonian fishes from northwestern Ohio, a collec- 

 tion that was presented to the Museum in 1956 by Dr. J. Ernest 

 Carman of Ohio State University. He has commenced a revision- 

 ary study of the Cyathaspidae, a primitive group of Silurian and 

 Devonian jawless vertebrates. This will be based on collections 



59 



