Fine Finds from the Finis
The Dallas Paleontological Society will meet on Wednesday, April 8th, at 7PM Central daylight savings time, in the Boonesville Auditorium (Room H125) of the Ellison Miles Building (Building H) at Brookhaven Campus of Dallas College, 3939 Valley View Lane, Farmers Branch. Dr. Ben Neuman, Professor of Biology at Texas A&M University and Mike DeBrock, Geologist, will combine forces for a discussion of diversity and preservation of fossils in the Finis Shale of north Texas.
Ben Neuman is a Professor of Biology and chief virologist of the Global Health Research Complex at Texas A&M University. He trained at the University of Toledo (Ohio), University of Reading (UK) and The Scripps Research Institute, before faculty positions in California, the UK, Texarkana, and now College Station. He also has a passion for invertebrate fossils! Mike DeBrock majored in Geology at Miami University (Ohio), and then earned an MS in Geology from Bowling Green State University with a thesis on Pennsylvanian polyplacophoran fossils from Texas. Retired after 33 years in the petroleum industry in Louisiana and Texas, he began to catalogue all of the species found in the Finis Shale at Lake Jacksboro spillway. He reached out to DPS and joined our Pennsylvanian Study Group. This project has grown to a major effort by many DPS members to provide an authoritative guide to the full diversity of the Finis Shale.
Lagerstätten are rare sites with abundant excellent fossils. They fall into three categories: Konservat with extraordinary preservation of soft tissues, Konzentrat with extreme abundance of fossils (as in bone beds), and Liberation where delicate features are preserved because removal of matrix is simple and complete. Most fossil sites fall under only one of these types, but the Finis Shale has elements of all three. Mike will show how the ease of preparation of Finis Shale fossils leads to an extraordinarily rich fossil record. He will present work of the DPS group to document the enormous number of fossil species present in the Finis Shale. The validated Finis Shale fossil guide and species list is available at txpn.org. Ben will highlight a recent paper from another group that demonstrates soft tissue preservation in Finis Shale conulariids. He will also show how the near-perfect preservation in Finis Shale brachiopods may greatly expand our understanding of this fossil group.
DPS meetings are always free and open to the public, and anyone interested in fossils is invited. Members can bring snacks and food to share. Everyone can bring fossils for identification or to show off. In light of this month’s talks, we especially invite fossils from the Jacksboro Spillway. The meeting will be streamed on Zoom at: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83096250920. If the link does not work, start Zoom and enter the meeting ID of 830 9625 0920.
We hope to see you at our meeting.
PS There may be door prizes!
DPS
The DPS is a group of professional and amateur paleontologists that want to exchange information, interact, and continue their education in paleontology. We meet once a month on the second Wednesday evening of the month at Brookhaven College, Building H.
