New refs #12

[Ralph Chapman <CHAPMAN.RALPH@NMNH.SI.EDU>]

Sorry to have been away so long, been having some e-mail troubles
(hopefully this will make it to the list) and have been incredibly busy.
I have a tremendous backlog to go through and will as time goes on.
I have decided to ignore other postings of some of these items because
I can't keep them straight in my head as to what's been done anyway.
Besides, I can bring my own high level of inanity to them anyway. 
Speaking of such, I'm listening to my copy of Monty Python Sings
while doing this - absolute genius.

We'll start with some large reptiles from the overburden. We have the
following - a start towards some things we need to do more of:

Willis, P.M.A. & R.E. Molnar. 1997. Identification of large reptilian
   Teeth from the Plio-Pleistocene deposits of Australia.
   Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New
   South Wales, 130(3/4):79-92.

Starts tackling the problem of identifying taxa using isolated teeth. In
this case using Crocodylus porosus as a main form and branching to
the other main large reptiles of the time. I have a series of ongoing
projects I keep trying to get to on using morphometrics for developing 
reference taxa for identification of partial material using various
morphometric methods. I have a bunch of croc projects that I need
to finish up, including some in this vein. This paper is a first step
towards that kind of thing, and there certainly is a broad window
for the two of them to expand into if they wish using this material
as a started. Other taxa include Megalania, Quinkana
Pallimnarchus and C. johnsoni (or C. johnstoni depending on how
you read the code and the original descriptions - if you are a strict code 
person I believe it has to be C. johnsoni despite being named for 
Johnston - it's real complicated).


Mulder, E.W.A., M.M.M. Kuypers, J.W.M. Jagt & H.H.G. Peeters.
   1997. A new late Maastrichtian hadrosaurid dinosaur record from
   Northeast Belgium. N. Jb. Geol. Palaont. Mh., 1997(6):339-347.

These guys get the award for the most initials per author, international
division. Material from a quarry about 3 miles south of Maastricht
itself, Looks like a hadrosaurid left metatarsal III. As you might 
expect, the stratigraphic position is nailed well-down, the first for
dinosaur material from there. Only a distal portion of one bone.


Rieppel, O. 1997. An unusual sauropterygian from the Triassic of
   the Savinja Alps of northern Slovenia. N. Jb. Geol. Palaont.
   Mh. 1997(4):244-254. 

Another one of Olivier's oddball taxa that turns out to be a
pachypleurosaur sauropterygian related to Serpianosaurus
and Neusticosaurus based on the tarsal area. Had dinner with
Olivier a couple weeks ago and a great time chatting with him.
He's incredibly bright and it's wonderful to have someone
working on these things. Lots of odd taxa across the various
museums, especially in Europe.


Maisch, M.W. 1997. The Lower Cretaceous dinosaur Iguanodon
   Cf. fittoni Lydekker 1889 (Ornithischia) from Salas de los
   Infantes (Province Burgos, Spain). N. Jb. Geol. Palaont.
   Mh., 1997(4):213-222.

Some vertebral material from one of my favorite places (Spain)
that seems to be the first appearance of the species outside
Great Britain. Beds may correlate with the Waldhurst Clay of
the Wealden.


Buffetaut, E. 1997. New remains of the giant bird Gastornis
   from the Upper Paleocene of the eastern Paris Basin and
   The relationships between Gastornis and Diatryma.
   N.Jb. Geol. Palaont. Mh., 1997(3):179-190.

More from the productive hand of EB. Some remains of
limb bones of Gastornis from the eastern Paris Basin.
Suggests also that Gastornis and Diatryma are similar
enough to be congeneric. Suggests that genus would then
have an origination in Europe and later dispersal to
North America during the Early Eocene faunal interchange.


Gurnis, M., R.Dietmar Muller & L. Moresi. 1998. Cretaceous
   vertical motion of Australia and the Australian-Antarctic
   discordance. Science, 279:1499-1504. 6March98

Detailed analysis and modeling of plate tectonics showing why
and how Australia ended up where it did. Always nice to know
paleogeography.


And finally for now...

Claeys, P., J. Smit, A. Montanari & W. Alvarez. 1998. The
   Chicxulub impact crater and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary
   In the Gulf of Mexico region. Bull. Soc. Geol. France,
   169(1):3-9.

Detailed discussion of the impact zone and geology and asserts
this is the smoking gun indeed. Notes geochemical signature
of deposits suggesting result was huge amount of CO2, water
vapor and SO2 that pretty much screwed things up globally
for a while and made lots of taxa have a lousy day. I suspect,
even for skeptics, it might be time to stick a fork into it, it's
done. Some discussion of tsunami deposits as well, always a
favorite of mine.

More in a while as I work through the pile.

Ralph Chapman