The Papers That Ate Cincinnati

["Jerry D. Harris" <jharris@dixie.edu>]

If you get that reference, you're probably a bigger Dr. Demento fan than 
me...!

First up, a paper that is likely to spark all sorts of discussion on-list:

Taylor, M.P. 2007. Phylogenetic definitions in the pre-PhyloCode era; 
implications for naming clades under the PhyloCode. PaleoBios 27(1):1-6.

ABSTRACT: The last twenty years of work on phylogenetic nomenclature have 
given rise to many names and definitions that are now considered suboptimal. 
In formulating permanent definitions under the PhyloCode when it is 
implemented, it will be necessary to evaluate the corpus of existing names 
and make judgements about which to establish and which to discard. This is 
not straightforward, because early definitions are often inexplicit and 
ambiguous, generally do not meet the requirements of the PhyloCode, and in 
some cases may not be easily recognizable as phylogenetic definitions at 
all. Recognition of synonyms is also complicated by the use of different 
kinds of specifiers (species, specimens, clades, genera, suprageneric 
rank-based names, and vernacular names) and by definitions whose content 
changes under different phylogenetic hypotheses. In light of these 
difficulties, five principles are suggested to guide the interpretation of 
pre-PhyloCode clade-names and to inform the process of naming clades under 
the PhyloCode: (1) do not recognize "accidental" definitions; (2) malformed 
definitions should be interpreted according to the intention of the author 
when and where this is obvious; (3) apomorphy-based and other definitions 
must be recognized as well as node-based and stem-based definitions; (4) 
definitions using any kind of specifier taxon should be recognized; and (5) 
priority of synonyms and homonyms should guide but not prescribe. Strict 
priority should not be observed in the pre-PhyloCode era, and should not 
determine which existing names are permanently established; precedence 
should begin only with the formal establishment of the PhyloCode.

This one is available free at: 
http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/pubs/taylor2007/Taylor2007-pre-phylocode-pn.pdf. 
This is one of those kinds of papers that I'll probably have to read a few 
times to get the overall gist of -- the discussion behind various 
phylogenetic nomenclatures is, for whatever reason, one of those things that 
doesn't go into my skull easily -- but it lays out some very good 
guidelines, at least by my reading.  How (or if) they'll ever be 
implemented, though, remains to be seen, especially for various really 
contentious definitions (e.g., Aves vs. Avialae, Ornithuromorpha vs. 
Euornithes) -- after all, it's _people_ dealing with all this rather than 
strictly logic-based machines (I wonder how the Borg would handle 
phylogenetic nomenclature...), and emotions have clearly infected some of 
these debates.  One aspect the paper doesn't really cover (though it covers 
a LOT in its brief 6 pages!), at least not explicitly, is _commonness_ of 
usage as a criterion, and in particular how a term is most commonly 
perceived/implemented, which I think is an exceedingly important, if not 
overarching, component of naming (e.g., Aves has included _Archaeopteryx_ 
for over 100 years, and even the general public, when they know of 
_Archaeopteryx_ at all, understands that it is a "bird" -- the paper does 
discuss vernacular terms), which even though it was not originally 
constructed to include it (_Archaeopteryx_ being unknown to Linnaeus), to me 
automatically overrides Avialae and Aves sensu Gauthier; similarly, I've 
seen Euornithes sensu Sereno used rarely, but Ornithuromorpha, despite its 
jumbled history, commonly used for the clade of all birds closer to 
Neornithes (or _Passer domesticus_ if you want a species anchor) than to 
Enantiornithes (or _Sinornis santensis_), and that oughta count.  It's not a 
perfect argument, I admit -- if it were implemented in its entirety, then 
_Brontosaurus_ would have priority over _Apatosaurus_ (and frankly, I don't 
have a huge problem with that) just because of common usage, but of course 
it's arguable whether or not the most widely understood (e.g., including the 
non-scientific public) usage of the term _Brontosaurus_ really describes a 
species (or genus) as opposed to a synonym for "sauropod."


    Anyway, enough blithering on my part; on to more papers!  This batch 
includes new papers of a more geological bent:

Roberts, E.M. 2007. Facies architecture and depositional environments of the 
Upper Cretaceous Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah. Sedimentary Geology 
197(3-4):207-233. doi: 10.1016/j.sedgeo.2006.10.001.

ABSTRACT: The Kaiparowits Formation is an unusually thick package of Upper 
Cretaceous (late Campanian) strata exposed in Grand Staircase-Escalante 
National Monument of southern Utah, USA. The formation was deposited within 
the rapidly subsiding Cordilleran foreland basin as part of a thick clastic 
wedge derived from sources in the Sevier orogenic belt, thrust sheets in 
southeastern Nevada and southern California, and the Mogollon slope in 
southwestern Arizona. Channel systems in the Kaiparowits Formation shifted 
from northeastward to southeastward flow over time, and for a short period 
of time, sea level rise in the Western Interior Seaway resulted in tidally 
influenced rivers and/or estuarine systems. Thick floodbasin pond deposits, 
large suspended-load channels, and poorly developed, hydromorphic paleosols 
dominate the sedimentary record, and all are suggestive of a relatively wet, 
subhumid alluvial system. This is supported by extremely rapid sediment 
accumulation rates (41 cm/ka), and high diversity and abundance of aquatic 
vertebrate and invertebrate fossils.


Roca, X., and Nadon, G.G. 2007. Tectonic control on the sequence 
stratigraphy of nonmarine retroarc foreland basin fills: insights from the 
Upper Jurassic of central Utah, U.S.A. Journal of Sedimentary Research 
77(3):239-255. doi: 10.2110/jsr.2007.021.

ABSTRACT: Continental successions of the North American Western Interior 
retroarc foreland basin provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate the 
tectonic controls on nonmarine sequence stratigraphy. The transition between 
the Upper Jurassic Brushy Basin Member anastomosed fluvial system of the 
Morrison Formation and the gravelly braided-river deposits of the Buckhorn 
Conglomerate has been studied to assess the dispersal of coarse clastics and 
the development of associated basin-wide unconformities in a sequence 
stratigraphic framework. The sharp contact between the two members is 
interpreted to be conformable based on stratigraphic, sedimentologic, and 
petrologic data collected at and near Cedar Mountain in central Utah, while 
a regional, mature paleosol at the top of the Buckhorn Conglomerate 
indicates the presence of a major sequence boundary. These interpretations 
are combined with paleoflow data and fluvial architectural analysis to 
reconstruct the evolution of the alluvial equilibrium profiles that 
controlled deposition of the succession.
The Buckhorn Conglomerate is interpreted as an example of a post-orogenic 
deposit on the basis of (1) its tabular geometry, (2) distance from the 
contemporaneous thrust belt, (3) shift to transverse paleoflow direction 
from the preceding Brushy Basin axial drainage, (4) conformable lower 
contact, and (5) presence of an overlying sequence boundary with a 
westward-expanding hiatus eroding the coeval foredeep. The onset of a 
protracted period of low rate of orthogonal convergence between the Farallon 
and North American Plates resulted in tectonic quiescence and consequent 
isostatic rebound of the Middle to Late Jurassic thrust belt and the 
contiguous contemporaneous foredeep, as well as dynamic uplift. The ensuing 
basin-wide decrease in subsidence rate induced the progradation of the 
Buckhorn alluvial plain into the Morrison back-bulge depozone, and the 
subsequent generation of the overlying pedogenic unconformity, which 
separates the deposits of the Jurassic flexural event from the overlying 
Sevier tectonostratigraphic unit.

(Haven't read this one myself yet, but from what I understand, it ignores a 
huge volume of work done in this same area since around 1992...)

Finally, a new, short dinosaur paper and a Mesozoic croc paper, the former 
from the same issue of _Neues Jahrbuch_ that contains the "underwear dragon" 
_Pantydraco_ (oh, please...you KNOW that's how it's gonna go down in 
history...!):

Wings, O., Pfretzschner, H.-U., and Maisch, M.W. 2007. The first evidence of 
a stegosaur (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from the Jurassic of Xinjiang/China. 
Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie Abhandlungen 243(1):113-118.

ABSTRACT: A well preserved dorsal vertebra of a stegosaur is described from 
the Oxfordian Qigu Formation of the Junggar Basin, northwestern China. This 
is the first evidence for thyreophoran dinosaurs in this Formation. 
Previously, stegosaurs have only been recorded from the Lower Cretaceous 
Tugulu Group of this region. Although the generic identity of the specimen 
is indeterminate, the find provides confirmation for the presence of 
stegosaurs in the Jurassic of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.


Ösi, A., Clark, J.M., and Weishampel, D.B. 2007. First report on a new basal 
eusuchian crocodyliform with multicusped teeth from the Upper Cretaceous 
(Santonian) of Hungary. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie 
Abhandlungen 243(2):169-177.

(erects the new taxon _Iharkutosuchus makadii_, a basal eusuchian that is 
the sister taxon of _Hylaeochampsa_)


...and a pterosaur paper:

Hone, D.W.E., and Benton, M.J. 2007. Cope's Rule in the Pterosauria, and 
differing perceptions of Cope's Rule at different taxonomic levels. Journal 
of Evolutionary Biology 20(3):1164-1170. doi: 
10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01284.x.

ABSTRACT: The remarkable extinct flying reptiles, the pterosaurs, show 
increasing body size over 100 million years of the Late Jurassic and 
Cretaceous, and this seems to be a rare example of a driven trend to large 
size (Cope's Rule). The size increases continue throughout the long time 
span, and small forms disappear as larger pterosaurs evolve. Mean wingspan 
increases through time. Examining for Cope's Rule at a variety of taxonomic 
levels reveals varying trends within the Pterosauria as a whole, as 
pterodactyloid pterosaurs increase in size at all levels of examination, but 
rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs show both size increase and size decrease in 
different analyses. These results suggest that analyses testing for Cope's 
Rule at a single taxonomic level may give misleading results.

In this paper, beware that the suppementary information file at the 
journal's web site appears to be corrupt and unreadable; I've got a good 
copy if you want it, though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry D. Harris
Director of Paleontology
Dixie State College
Science Building
225 South 700 East
St. George, UT  84770   USA
Phone: (435) 652-7758
Fax: (435) 656-4022
E-mail: jharris@dixie.edu
and     dinogami@gmail.com
http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/
"Trying to estimate the divergence times
of fungal, algal or prokaryotic groups on
the basis of a partial reptilian fossil and
protein sequences from mice and humans
is like trying to decipher Demotic Egyptian with
the help of an odometer and the Oxford
English Dictionary."
              -- D. Graur & W. Martin (_Trends
                  in Genetics_ 20[2], 2004)