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Eastern Canada
BIBLIOGRAHY OF VERTEBRATE ICHNOLOGY
VERTEBRATE ICHNOLOGY RESEARCHERS
ICHNOLOGY MEETINGS & PUBLICATION
PROJECTS
LINKS TO PALAEO WEBSITES
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Footprints belong to a special category of fossils known as trace
fossils, or ichnofossils
(ichno = trace). The study of traces (vertebrate or invertebrate)
is know as ichnology, the study of
fossil traces is palaeoichnology (palaeo
= ancient) as opposed to the study of recent traces which is
neoichnology (neo = new).
Trace
fossils are the preserved records of an animal's (or plant's, or
microbe's) activity. Trace fossils differ from body
fossils in that they are not the physical
remains of an animal such as bones or shells (see
footprint preservation).
Since an animal only has one skeleton, but can produce millions of
tracks in its lifetime the fossilized tracks of animals are much more
common to find than their skeletal remains.
Trace fossils can be given taxonomic status
in a way similar to naming body fossils.
Instead of naming a genus or species as would be the case with body
fossils (i.e. Homo sapiens), vertebrate ichnologists (people who
study vertebrate traces) give ichnogenus and ichnospecies names to a
trace fossil. It is important to keep in mind that the name is for the
trace and not the animal that made the trace.
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The scientific study of vertebrate footprints dates
back to the early 1800's, at the time when the world's leading scientists
were just beginning to learn about our fossil heritage and about the true
antiquity of the Earth.
Fossil tracks were found in Canada in the mid-1800's on the east coast,
but tracks were not reported from western Canada well into the 20th
Century. Not all Canadian provinces and territories have reported tracks
of vertebrates. There are many reasons why this could be. For instance
some provinces and territories may not have rocks of the right ages or
may not have them exposed in a way for tracks to be found.
It is the intent of this website to provide some
information on vertebrate ichnology research in Canada.
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