Re: Remember the Alamosaurus (was RE: taxonomy is not stratigraphy)

[Denver Fowler <df9465@yahoo.co.uk>]

Forwarded for Jonathan....

-----
Denver, please forward this reply to the List...

At 05:17 PM 8/2/2005, you wrote:
>My point was that the age of the single ash date for
>the <middle of the> Javelina falls outside that of
the
>fossiliferous portion of the Lance. If the Javelina
is
>contemporaneous, in <its uppermost> part, with the
>Lance, then it is no problem to my interpretation.

Fair enough.



>But, should we really refer to the entire Javelina as
>'Lancian'? Is it not inappropriate and misleading to
>have the seemingly exclusive 'Lancian' age defining,
>in fact, an inclusive period of time that stretches
>beyond the limits of the Lance fauna itself?

Don't get me started on NALMAs. I think the whole idea
channelizes 
people's 
thinking and robs biostratigraphy and biogeography of
flexibility. 
Rather 
than tritely considering the Javelina "Lancian" or
"Edmontonian," we 
should 
address faunal continuity within the Javelina, and
compare the Javelina 
fauna to roughly contemporaneous faunas (determined,
preferably, by 
means 
other than biostratigraphy), independent of
preconceived notions of 
biostratigraphy and biogeography. The suggestion that
the Javelina is 
"Lancian" was an early take, an approximation that
Lawson and Lehman 
and 
others used before proper data could be collected.
Obviously, that data 
is 
now being collected. So, yeah, I very much agree with
you.



>But in all fairness, everybody has made some mistakes
>regarding the strat of this section. [...] It was not
my
>intention to seem disrespectful in my posting, and if
>this was the case then I apologise.

Actually, it was probably ME who went off on YOU. I
think it is pretty 
obvious you weren't trying to be disrespectful. Rather
than fight other 
people's battles, I probably should have let the whole
thing slide. 
Sorry!



>I have spent the summers of 2002, 2003, and 2004
>collecting and following the section in the
>Naashoibito and Kirtland with Bob <Sullivan> et al,

That's all I need to hear. My understanding of the
stratigraphy there 
is 
second-hand, so I cannot address your criticisms
directly. However, it 
certainly sounds like you are in a position to
evaluate people's 
stratigraphy, so I must retract my previous "advice"
(with a big slice 
of 
humble pie, to boot!). :)



>My points in previous
>emails were not to pick fights, but to draw attention
>to the actual poor support for the various
>interpretations of southern strat, based for the most
>part on Lawson, 1976, THAT maxilla, and a whole host
>of indeterminate ceratopsian.

As you can probably tell, I very much agree with you.
Hence why you 
guys 
are combing the San Juan Basin, and we are coming Big
Bend. Also why 
Ron 
and I are working on "THAT" maxilla... I got sick and
tired of its 
(unsubstantiated) central role in Maastrichtian
dinosaur biogeography. 
If 
you didn't know, Lawson originally intended to name it
as a new 
species!



>Wouldn't it be nice if
>someone found a good ceratopsian site in amongst the
>Alamosaurus fauna....

To quote somebody, "wait for the paper." :)

Jon



                
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