A Rock that Cracked Like Mud Cracks, and Polygonal and Columnar Structures in Sedimentary Rocks

 I suspect that everyone reading this blog posting will be familiar with polygonal mud crack patterns on the surface of sedimentary rocks and with columnar jointing in basalts and other volcanic rocks.  For mud cracks that result from desiccation a similar theory for their formation applies to the formation of columnar jointing in basalts.  When cracks and joints form in contracting layer or substance, whether due to desiccation or thermal contraction, they tend to form rectilinear, T-junction-dominated patterns or hexagonal patterns, with Y-junctions.   The  shape in which cracks intersect reflects the order in which the cracks appeared, as later cracks curve to intersect earlier ones at right angles, with cracks obeying a simple elastic energy balance as they grow, with rectilinear patterns evolving to hexagonal patterns (See Goehring 2013; and Goehring and Morris, 2014; Brooker et al., 2018; Loope et al., 2020).  Interestingly, because of NASA’s Mars probes the study of mud cracking, and the study of rectangular to polygonal rock crack patterns, is back in fashion as scientists try to explain the polygonal patterns on the surface of Mars by comparing the cracks on Mars with examples on earth (for example, Webster et al., 2017; Brooker et al., 2018; Chan et al., 2007, Chan et al., 2008) in part because the  polygonal patterns on Mars may indicate the presence of surface water or terrestrial polygonal  patterns might lead to insights on weathering  processes on Mars.

Below is a photograph of a specimen of  limestone  that I collected in 2019 from Tackaberry’s quarry in Westport and left outside over the winter to weigh down a barbeque covering.  The rock cracked in a pattern reminiscent of mud cracks, and, on a larger scale, of cracks on outcrops.

Polygonal jointing and cracks are common in weathered granite and sandstone.  Leonard (1929) reports polygonal cracking in granite as a weathering phenomena.   García-Rodríguez et al. (2015) discuss polygonal cracking in granite.   Williams and  Robinson (1989) discuss polygonal cracking in granite and sandstone.  Netoff (1971) reported polygonal jointing in sandstone near Boulder, Colorado. Kocurek and Hunter (1986) reported polygonal fractures in the Navajo and  Page sandstones in Arizona.  Loope et al., 2020, for  the Navajo sandstone of south-western USA, reported  polygonal  fracturing, noting that  “On steep outcrops, polygonal patterns are rectilinear and orthogonal, with T-vertices. Lower-angle slopes host hexagonal patterns (defined by the dominance of Y-vertices). Intermediate patterns with rectangles and hexagons of similar scale are common. ... [H]exagons on sandstone surfaces (like prismatic columns of basalt) have evolved from ancestral orthogonal polygons of similar scale.

In the references below I’ve mentioned a few of the more interesting reports of polygonal and columnar rock structures.  Some of the hexagonal patterns in sedimentary rocks are said to have been derived from desiccation and mud cracking , and some from thermal expansion and contraction.   I will first mention the reports of the large desiccation cracks.  While I expect that everyone reading this is familiar with columnar jointing in basalts, one interesting fact that some will have overlooked is that columnar jointing is found in clay,  in sedimentary rocks, and in contact metamorphosed sedimentary rock.    The same theories for formation of columnar jointing in basalts have been applied to columnar jointing in clay, columnar jointing in sedimentary rocks, and columnar jointing in contact metamorphosed sedimentary rock.   Different theories apply to the formation of orthogonal joint sets (e.g., tessellated pavement) formed by stress  (see Li, 2020).

I have not provided references to columnar structures in basalts as I assume the reader has visited the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, or Brier Island, Digby, Nova Scotia, or any of the hundreds of other sites worldwide exhibiting columnar basalts.   Worth noting is that Murchison (1839, page 187) mentions columnar syenite.  

Giant Desiccation Cracks in Sediment and in Sedimentary Rock

Gilbert (1877) reported mudcracks in the Shinarump shale in the Henry Mountains of Utah that penetrate 10 feet downward into the shale.   Grabau (1913) commented that  “where fossil mud-cracks penetrate a formation to the depth of ten feet, as is the case in the upper Shinarump (Jura-Triassic ) shales of Utah (Gilbert), it is difficult to believe that they could be formed under other conditions than those permitting prolonged exposure such as is found only in the playas of the desert, where ten years or more may elapse between rainfalls.”

 Hunt et al. ( 1953) mapped the geology of the Henry Mountains, Utah and reported that “On the west side of Mount Ellsworth mud cracks in the top layers of the Chinle [formation] are filled by sandstone belonging to the Wingate. The wedges of sandstone in the mud cracks project downward as much as 7 in., and the cracks in the Chinle can be traced downward as much as 3 ft.”

Tomkins, (1965) reported large sandstone polygons in the Carmel Formation of Jurassic age and suggested that these were formed by eolian infilling of mud cracks with sand, followed by lithification and partial removal of easily eroded siltstone “mold” material.

O'Sullivan (1965) reported polygonal-shaped features parallel to the bedding and as much as 7  feet  across which he  considered to be casts of large mudcracks, which were formed at the top of a shale bed and later filled with sand.

Neal (1965a) reported giant contraction polygons, up to 3 feet wide and 3 feet or more in depth at Rogers Playa in California. 

Neal (1965b) reported and figured large contraction polygons from the San Augustin Plains, New Mexico, many of which are 200 feet or more across, and from Rogers Playa, California and  Bicycle Playa, California.  He also reported and figured pressure-ridge polygons as much as 100 feet across from the Winnemucca Playa, Nevada.

Neal, Langer and Kerr (1968) reported giant desiccation polygons of Great Basin clay playas, with the polygons of a width of 300 meters. 

Tucker (1981) describes giant polygons (up to 14 m wide) on the bedding surfaces of Triassic salt deposits of Cheshire, England, and suggests thermal contraction as the most likely method of their formation.

Loope and Haverland (1988) reported giant desiccation fissures filled with calcareous eolian sand with the downward-tapering fissures as much as 18 cm wide and 5.7 m deep defining orthogonal polygons 10 m or more in diameter.

Columnar  Structures in Clay

Salisbury (1885) reported on hexagonal columnar structures in a five foot thick clay layer at a railway cut in Wisconsin, noting that “The columns varied in diameter from ten to fifteen or sixteen inches. They were uniformly, but not regularly, six-sided, and could be divided easily across their longer axes, parallel to the bedding planes, so that each column was separable into regular sections.”   Harvey et al. (1977) suggest that Salisbury’s columnar clay structures are synergesis polygons.

Columnar and Polygonal Structures in  Limestone

Lesley (1892),  Van Ingen and  Clark (1903),  Kindle (1914),  Norman (1935), White (1882) and O'Neill (1941), Chadwick (1940) and Wilson (2018)  reported columnar structures in limestone . 

Lesley (1892, page 933) described the Upper Silurian Bossardville Limestone of  Pennsylvania,    noting “It also possesses a genuine columnar structure,...the rock possessing a prismatic structure like the basaltic columns in lava... but confined to certain beds.”

Van Ingen and  Clark (1903)  described similar structures in the Silurian Rondout limestone of   New Jersey.   They reported two beds which break into polygonal blocks: “the “prismatic” or “five point [bed],” 32 inches thick breaks up into mostly pentagonal blocks 4 to 6 inches in diameter;  the "paving block" or "mud crack [bed]," 15 inches thick, breaks into larger polygonal blocks of 6 to 10 inches diameter;”.     They suggested that the structures “formed apparently by shrinkage cracks similar to those seen in drying mud”.   Their  plate 6 shows the  prismatic beds.

 The view is taken from below looking up at the overhanging beds.

Kindle (1914) provides the best description and photographs of columnar structures in a Canadian sedimentary rocks.  He report on columnar structures in the  lower two-thirds of a bed of limestone at the base of Mount Wissick on the shore of Temiseouata lake opposite Cabano, Quebec.    Here is Kindle’s photograph of the columnar bed..  

Kindle reported that the detached columns scattered along the ledge  have a length of 10 to 24 inches.    Kindle notes that “The columnar structure of this bed was first noted by Logan in 1863 (Geol. of Can. p. 421). It was again mentioned by Bailey and Mcinnes in the detailed section of Mount Wissick, published in l889.”   Logan (1850, page 55; 1863, page 421)   noted that “The limestone presents a vertical columnar structure, due to two sets of joints, which divide the beds into irregular rhombic prisms”.  Bailey and Mcinnes state “Grey nodular limestones , conspicuously divided by vertical joints , which often resent curved surfaces and produce an appearance resembling that of fluted columns . ..  The columnar limestones , which contain but few fossils , have a thickness of about 10 feet , and are followed by about the same thickness of finely banded massive limestones , ..  This is capped by more columnar limestone.”

Norman (1935) reported columnar Jointing in a vertically dipping dolomitic limestone found on the North shore of Hood Island, Lake Ainslie Map-area, Nova Scotia.  He  noted that  “In this limestone a very conspicuous columnar structure (See Plate III B) is developed in a 2-foot bed at the base of the limestone and consists of vertical prisms bounded by a variable number of sides, and averaging 5 inches in diameter. ... It is probable, therefore, that the columnar structure was produced by the desiccation of calcareous muds  deposited in shallow water.”

White (1882) and O'Neill (1941) report on columnar Silurian Limestone in Pennsylvania where the rock exhibits a prismatic structure like basaltic columns.

Chadwick (1940) reported columnar limestone produced by sun cracking in the Olney  limestone of New York State. 

Wilson (2018) reports on, and includes a photograph of,  hexagonal columnar joints in a four foot thick carbonate bed in the Jurassic rocks of Utah, noting that the “effect of the repeated hexagonal cracks is that the unit itself develops columnar joints, analogous to those often seen in basalt flows.” .

 Columnar Structures in Metamorphosed Clay, Limestone and Sandstone

Columnar structures are common in contact metamorphosed sedimentary rocks.

Brown (1870) and Arnold-Bemrose (1899) report on a columnar, jointed, baked, indurated red clay in contact with basalt, dolerite and a vesicular and amygdaloidal toadstone, where the columns in the clay “sometimes attained a length of 8 or 9 feet, and a breadth of 6 inches.”

Geikie (1882) mentions that “A columnar structure has often been superinduced upon stratified  rocks (sandstone, shale, coal) by contact with intrusive igneous masses.”  He lists a number of example of prismatic sandstone caused by intrusion of dykes, including sandstone  rendered prismatic by Dolerite at  Bishopbriggs, Glasgow; sandstone altered by basalt, melaphyre, or allied rock, Wildenstein, near Budingen, Upper Hesse; Schoberle, near Kriebitz, Bohemia; Johnsdorf, near Zittau, Saxony.    He notes that “Independently of the lines of stratification polygonal prisms, six inches or more in diameter, and several feet in length, starting from the face of the dyke, have been developed in the sandstone” Geikie also notes that “examples of the production of this structure have been described in dolomite altered by quartz-porphyry (Campiglia, Tuscany); fresh water limestone altered by basalt (Gergovia, Auvergne) ; basalt-tuff and  granite altered by basalt 2 (Mt. Saint-Michel, Le Puy).”

Geikie (1882) also notes that “ Some of the most perfect examples of superinduced prisms may occasionally be noticed in seams of coal which have been invaded by  intrusive igneous material. In the Scottish coal-fields sheets of basalt have been forced along the surfaces of coal-seams, and even along their centre so as to form a bed or sheet in the middle of the coal. The coal in  these cases is sometimes beautifully columnar, its slender hexagonal and pentagonal prisms, like rows of stout pencils, diverging from the surface of the intrusive sheet.”   Geikie says that this structure can be seen in “coal and lignite, with their accompanying clays, altered by basalt, diabase, melaphyre, &c, [at] Ayrshire, Scotland; St. Saturnin, Auvergne; Meissner, Hesse Cassel;  Kttingshausen, Vogelsgebirge ; Sulzbach, Upper Palatinate of Bavaria : Funfkirchen, Hungary: by trachyte, Commentry, Central France; by phonolite, Northern Bavaria.” 

Hume (1908), Beadnell (1926) and T’an (1927a, p. 38, fig. 20) describe columnar Nubian  sandstone in  contact with basic intrusive rocks.  Cílek et al. ( 2015) describe a large outcrop of columnar-jointed Upper Cretaceous “Nubian” sandstone which they attribute to “dynamic fragmentation by expanding liquid and gas phases related to magma emplacement and a subsequent relaxation.”  Splettstoesser and Jirsa (1985) report on columnar jointing in sandstone where it is intruded by dolerite.  Velázquez et al. ( 2008) report and include photographs of dramatic columnar joints (with orthogonal columns  from  3 to 10 cm in diameter, reaching 15 m in length)  in  reddish eolian sandstones adjacent to nepheline dikes.     Blackstone (1963)
reports columnar jointing in sandstone adjacent to sills and dikes where the columnar jointing is  similar in most aspects to columnar jointing described in igneous rocks, with the columns varying  from 3 in. to 5 in. in diameter and are up to 3 ft long.   Mullineux et al. (2020) report on columnar-jointed bentonite below a Doleritic Sill.

Buist  (1980) and  Young (2008) report on columnar jointing in Devonian and Early Carboniferous sandstones at two localities  on the Island of Bute, Scotland.   Buist suggests that the “columnar structure probably developed as a result of the emplacement of a basic dyke via a fissure.”  Young noted “The host rocks are cut by Early Carboniferous volcanic necks or plugs, which acted as heat sources, but development of columnar jointing was strongly controlled by small sills and dikes of a recessive, purple, fine-grained rock.”

Suggestions for the Cause of Other Polygonal Crack Patterns in Rocks

In an earlier blog posting I mentioned that in addition to desiccation  there are a large number of suggestions for the origin of polygonal crack patterns on the bedding surface of  rocks   These include a sub-aqueous origin at the water sediment interface  (synaeresis), a microbial mat origin, organic burrowing, frost wedging, gravitational loading, gravitationally unstable density inversion, sand injectites, seismic shock, interstratal cracking, water- release (interstratal dewatering), and layer parallel contraction resulting from compaction due to burial.   A few of the more interesting additional theories that I’ve noted since I wrote that earlier blog posting are:
- the control of mud crack patterns by small gastropod trails – Baldwin (1974) ;
- the control of mudcrack patterns by the infaunal bivalve Pseudocyrena – Kues  and Siemers (1977).

I will also have to add contact metamorphism which forms columnar-jointed sedimentary rocks adjacent to igneous dikes and sills  (e.g., Mullineux et al. ( 2020), Arnold-Bemrose (1899), Beadnell (1926), Velázquez et al. ( 2008).

Interestingly, for a  particular suite of rocks in Scotland six different theories have  been proposed  in peer reviewed publications to explain the origin of the polygonal cracks  (see Astin and Rogers,  1991;  Barclay,  Glover,  Mendum, 1993; Astin and Rogers,  1993).

Christopher Brett
Ottawa, Ontario

References and Suggested Reading

Arnold-Bemrose, H. H., 1899
On a sill and Faulted Inlier in Tideswell Dale, Derbyshire. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, Vol. 55, page 239-250   https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/109883#page/347/mode/1up

Astin, T.R.  And  D. A. Rogers,  1991
Subaqueous shrinkage cracks in the Devonian of Scotland reinterpreted. Journal of Sedimentary Research(1991),61(5): 850-859   http://dx.doi.org/10.2110/jsr.61.850

Astin, T. R. and , D. A. Rogers, 1993
"Subaqueous Shrinkage Cracks" in the Devonian of Scotland Reinterpreted: Reply
Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, Vol. 63 (1993)No. 3. (May), Pages 566-567
http://archives.datapages.com/data/sepm/journals/v63-66/data/063/063003/0566.htm

Bailey, L.W. and McInnes,William, 1989
Report on explorations and surveys in portions of northern New Brunswick, and adjacent areas in Quebec and in Maine, U.S.   Geological  Survey of Canada, Report for 1987-88,  new ser., vol. III, pt. II, Part M., pages  1M-52M  at  p. 31M.” https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100315506

Baldwin, C.T., 1974.
The control of mud crack patterns by small gastropod trails.  Journal of Sedimentary Research. 44, 695–7
https://doi.org/10.1306/74D72ADB-2B21-11D7-8648000102C1865D

 Barclay, W. J. ; B. W. Glover ; J. R. Mendum,  1993
"Subaqueous shrinkage cracks" in the Devonian of Scotland, reinterpreted; discussion and reply;
Journal of Sedimentary Research (1993) 63 (3): 564–567.
https://doi.org/10.1306/D4267B72-2B26-11D7-8648000102C1865D
http://archives.datapages.com/data/sepm/journals/v63-66/data/063/063003/0564.htm

Beadnell, H.J.L., 1926
Columnar Structure in the Nubian Sandstone. Geological  Magazine, vol. 63, p 271-272

Blackstone, D. L., 1963
Columnar jointing in sandstone.  Rocky Mountain Geology (1963) 2 (1): 7–11

Branagan, D.F., 1983
Tesselated pavements. In: Aspects of Australian sandstone landscapes. R.W. Young; G.C. Nanson (eds.). Australian and New Zealand Geomorphology Group Special Publication nº 1,
Wollongong, pp. 11-20.  https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.3290100516

Robinson, D.A., Williams, R.B.G.,  1992
 Sandstone weathering in the High Atlas, Morocco. Zeitschrift fur Geomorphologie, 36, 413-429.

Brown, E., 1870
On a Columnar Clay-bed in Tideswell Dale, and on so-called Pholas-borings in Millers Dale. Geological Magazine 7, 585–6.

Brooker,L.M., M.R.Balme. S.J.Conway, A.Hagermann, A.M.Barrett, G.S.Collins, R.J.Soare 2018   Clastic polygonal networks around Lyot crater, Mars: Possible formation mechanisms from morphometric analysis.  Icarus Volume 302, 1 March 2018, Pages 386-406
 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2017.11.022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103517301975

Buist, DS , 1980
Columnar sandstone, Island of Bute, Scotland. Geological Magazine 117, 381–4.

Campbell, Marius R., 1923
The Twentymile Park District of the Yampa Coal Field, Routt County, Colorado, Bulletin 748, U.S. Geological Survey, p. 8 [plate IV, Polygonal structures on a bedding plane of the Twentymile sandstone and at the edge of the Trout Creek sandstone bed.]

Chadwick, G. H., 1940
Columnar Limestone Produced by Sun Cracking. G. S. A. Bulletin, volume 51, No. 12, p. 1923 [in the Olney limestone of New York State.]

Chan, Marjorie A., W. M. Seiler, R. L. Ford, and W. Adolph Yonkee, 2007
Polygonal cracking and “Wopmay” weathering patterns on earth and mars:  implications for host-rock properties.    Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII (2007)
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/1398.pdf

Chan MA, Yonkee WA, Netoff DI, Seiler WM, Ford RL, 2008
 Polygonal cracks in bedrock on Earth and Mars: implications for weathering. Icarus 194:65–71
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.474.6164&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Cílek,V.,  J Adamovic and Lenka Varadzinová Suková, 2015
Sandstone columns of the 3rd Nile Cataract (Nubia, Northern Sudan). Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie Supplementary Issues 59(1)

Crosby, W. O., 1882,
On the classification and origin of joint structures, Proc. Boston Society Natural History, 1882-1883, v. 22, pp. 72-85 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/132041#page/7/mode/1up

Crosby, W. O., 1892 
Dynamical   Geology and Petrography . Boston: Boston Society of  Natural  History. [Joints and Joint structure, p. 263 -; the contraction joints or shrinkage cracks 266 -- p. 269: ...]

Degraff, James M.;  Aydin, Atilla 1987
Surface morphology of columnar joints and its significance to mechanics and direction of joint growth.   Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 99, issue 5, p. 605
10.1130/0016-7606(1987)99<605:SMOCJA>2.0.CO;2
[Columnar joints in basaltic lava flow]
 
Fletcher, Hugh, 1877
Report of Explorations and Surveys in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  Report of Progress for 1876-77, Geological Survey of Canada.  402-456; at  440, 442, 445 “columnar”  limestone

García-Rodríguez, M. , M. Gomez-Heras , M. Alvarez de Buergo, R. Fort J. Aroztegu 2015
Polygonal cracking associated to vertical and subvertical fracture surfaces in granite (La Pedriza del Manzanares, Spain): considerations for a morphological classification.  Journal of Iberian Geology  41 (3) 2015:  365-383
http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/rev_JIGE.2015.v41.n3.48860
https://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/130154/1/JIG_2015_GomezHeras.pdf

Geikie, Archibald, 1882
Textbook of Geology.  London,Macmillan and Co., 971 pages
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/126497#page/9/mode/1up

Geikie, Archibald, 1894
 Geology , Chapter in The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and ..., Volume 10, 1894, Ninth Edition, (American Imprint). Philadelphia

Gilbert, G.K., 1877
Geology of the Henry Mountains. U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, 160 pages     https://doi.org/10.3133/70038096
https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/70038096/report.pdf

Goehring, Lucas 2013
Evolving fracture patterns: columnar joints, mud cracks and polygonal terrain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Volume 371, Issue 2004,   Theme Issue ‘Pattern formation in the geosciences’ organised and edited by Lucas Goehring.  https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2012.0353
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2012.0353#d3e1862

Goehring, Lucas  and  Stephen W. Morris, 2014
Cracking mud, freezing dirt, and breaking rocks .  Physics Today 67, 11, 39 (2014); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.2584
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/PT.3.2584

Grab, Stefan,  Andrew S. Goudie, Heather A. Viles, Nicola Webb, 12015
Sandstone Landforms of the Karoo Basin: Naturally Sculpted Rock. In book: Landscapes and Landforms of South Africa (pp.11-21)  DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-03560-4_2

Grabau, A. W., 1913
Principles of Stratigraphy. New York: A. G. Seiler & company
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015023976205&view=1up&seq=9
 
Harrington, B. J., 1878
Notes on Miscellaneous Rocks and Minerals, Report of Progress for 1876-77, Geological Survey of Canada, 465-488 [at page 487-488 “a curious columnar limestone, with columns at right angles to the bedding” in half and inch to an inch thick bands in black shales near the village of Sandy Bay, Quebec along the St. Lawrence ]
http://archive.org/stream/reportprogressg00canagoog#page/n16/mode/2up

Harvey, R. D., White, W.A.,  Cluff, R.M.,  Frost J.K, & Dumontelle, P. B., 1977
Petrology of the New Albion Shale Group (Upper Devonian and Kinderhookiand in the Illinois Basin, A Preliminary Report  , Proceedings First Eastern Gas Shales Symposium, October 17-19, 1977, [EGS-18] p.328-354   
 
Hume, W. F., 1908
Notes on the Petrography of Egypt.  Geological Magazine, New Series, Decade 5, Vol. 5,  pages 500-509,   https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/96686#page/596/mode/1up

Hunt , Charles B.,  Paul Averiti and Ralph L. Miller, 1953
Geology and Geography of the Henry Mountains Region Utah. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 228    http://www.riversimulator.org/Resources/Geology/Hunt/GeologyGeographyHenryMountainsRegion1953Hunt.pdf

Jagla, E. A. , 2004
Maturation of crack patterns.     Physical Review E, vol. 69, Issue 5, id. 056212
DOI:      10.1103/PhysRevE.69.056212

Jukes, J. Beete, 1872 
The Student’s Manual of Geology, 3rd edition, Edited by Archibald Geikie. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black,778 pages. Chapter 7, Joints, Formation of Rock-Blocks, p. 174-185 @ 180
https://books.google.ca

Jüngst, H., 1934
Geological Significance of synaeresis;  Geologische Rundschau, V. 25, 312-325

Kindle, E. M., 1914
 Columnar structure in limestone; Geological Survey of Canada, Museum Bulletin no. 2, pt. 2,  p. 35-44,   https://doi.org/10.4095/104954

Kindle, E. M.,  1917
Some factors affecting the development of mud cracks. Journ. Geology, vol 25, 135-144
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/96111#page/157/mode/1up

Kindle, E. M.,  1918
Separation of salt from saline water and mud.  G. Soc Am, B 29: 80 (abst). 471-487
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/110877#page/555/mode/1up

Kindle, E. M.,  1923
A note on mud crack and associated joint structure : American  Journal of Science, 5th ser . , vol. 5, pp . 329 - 330 , 1 fig . , April , 1923  DOI: https://doi.org/10.2475/ajs.s5-5.28.329

Kindle, E. M.,  1923
Notes on Mud Crack and Ripple Mark in Recent Calcareous Sediments.  The Journal of Geology, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Feb. - Mar., 1923), pp. 138-145
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30079396
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/96115#page/174/mode/1up

Kindle, E. M., 1926
Contrasted types of mud-cracks. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, section IV,  p 71-76,

Kindle, E. M , And Cole, L. H., 1938,
Some mud crack experiments : Geologie der Meere und Binnengewässer , Band 2 , Heft 2 , pp . 278 - 283 , 6 figs. , July 15 , 1938

Kocurek, G., Hunter, R.E., 1986.
Origin of polygonal fractures in sand, upper-most  Navajo and  Page  Sandstones,  Page,  Arizona.  J.  Sediment.  Res.  56, 895–904.

Kues, B.S. and Siemers, C. T., 1977  
Control of mudcrack patterns by the infaunal bivalve Pseudocyrena.  Journal of Sedimentary Research (1977) 47 (2): 844–848.
https://doi.org/10.1306/212F726B-2B24-11D7-8648000102C1865D

Li L.,  Ji S., 2020
A new interpretation for formation of orthogonal joints in quartz sandstone.   Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2020.08.003

Leonard, R.J., 1929
Polygonal cracking in granite.  American Journal of Science 18, 487-492.
https://www.ajsonline.org/content/s5-18/108/487

Lesley,  J. Peter,  1892
A Summary Description of the Geology of Pennsylvania, Volume 2 describing the Upper Silurian and Devonian Formations, at page 933
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015065394523

Logan William E., 1850
Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for 1849-50.  Toronto: Lovell and
 Gibson.

Logan, William E.,  1863,  
Geology of Canada. Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress from its Commencement to 1863. Montreal: Dawson Brothers.  983 pages.

Mullineux, S.; Sparks, RSJ;  Murphy, MD; MacNiocaill, C.; Barfod, D.; Njorka, J.; Schumacher, JC, 2020
Columnar-jointed bentonite below a Doleritic Sill, Tideswell Dale, Derbyshire, UK: formation during prograde contact metamorphism.  Geological Magazine, vol. 157, issue 7, pp. 1181-1198
doi:10.1017/S0016756819001535

Murchison, Roderick Impey, Sir, 1839
The Silurian system,    Volume: v.1 (1839).  Columnar/prismatic basalt at 71, 126, 137, 138,  270, 274,275, 276, 289 ; 187 [columnar syenite]
 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/165541#page/7/mode/1up

Netoff,  D.I.,  1971. 
Polygonal  jointing  in  sandstone  near  Boulder,  Colorado.  Mountain Geologist 8, 17–24.
http://archives.datapages.com/data/rmag/mg/1971/netoff.htm

Loope , D. B. , And Haverland , Z. T. , 1988 ,
Giant desiccation fissures filled with calcareous eolian sand, Hermosa Formation (Pennsylvanian), southeastern Utah.  Sedimentary Geology, Volume 56, Issue 1, p. 403-413.  [At two stratigraphic intervals within the upper member of the Upper Pennsylvanian Hermosa Formation, calcareous eolian sand fills downward-tapering fissures that are as much as 18 cm wide and 5.7 m deep. Fissure fillings define orthogonal polygons 10 m or more in diameter.]

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Green’s Creek Fossils

For over one hundred and seventy five years fossils have been reported from concretions in the Leda clay deposits at Green’s Creek, principally at the mouth of  Green’s Creek where it flows into the Ottawa River, but also up to three kilometers eastward along the banks of the Ottawa River, along the creek and along tributary streams flowing into Green’s Creek.   The first reported fossil was the entire skeleton of a fossil fish, and it is fossil fish that are the most heralded and widely known, but Green’s Creek is more than just a source of fossil fish, it has produced fossils of vertebrates, invertebrates, trees, shrubs and plants.  It has been said of Green’s Creek by C.R. Harington (1983), a paleontologist with the National Museum of Natural Sciences, that “Of all fossil localities in Canada, none preserves a better record of life as it was about 10,000 years ago than that at Green’s Creek.”

The Leda clay, a marine clay, locally as thick as 200 feet, was deposited in the Champlain Sea which formed when the glaciers withdrew north of the St. Lawrence Lowland and admitted water from the Atlantic Ocean. The sea existed for about two thousand years and covered  the lower Ottawa River valley, much of Eastern Ontario, the St. Lawrence River valley, and modern Lake Champlain.  While most people think of the Leda clay as a homogeneous unit, geologists who study it tend to break it down into at least three units.  Gadd’s (1986) breakdown consists of  1) regularly laminated varves comprising fine silt and silty clay, with colours of shades of grey;  2)  massive to vaguely stratified silt and silty clay ranging from dark gray to reddish gray, the most fossilferous facies;  and  3) rhythmically to cyclically texture and colour banded of the silt-clay range ,  locally  with  sand   layers  near  or  at  the  top. The units are stacked on top of one another with unit 1 being at the bottom.

The whole of Green’s Creek falls in Ottawa’s Greenbelt and is protected federal land.   Bike and walking paths maintained by the National Capital Commission parallel the creek and the Ottawa River.  In addition, residents of Blackburn Hamlet, which adjoins the creek, have cut paths through the woods, fields and marsh adjacent to the creek.  Everyone that  walks along Green’s Creek will note the stratified bluish-gray clay lining the banks of the creek.  If you look closely you will note that some beds contain calcareous concretions, some round, some sausage shaped, many kidney shaped, most two or three times as long as broad, and most being of a size that can easily be picked up, averaging about 10 to 13 cm in their longest dimension.  They are set free from the clay by the erosion of the banks of the creek and the river, and at one time (before the National Capital Commission reinforced the shoreline of the Ottawa River) were plentiful at the mouth of Green’s Creek  in the spring.   A museum curator that I know has commented that by reinforcing the shoreline the N.C.C. destroyed a world class collecting site, and it is hard to argue with that assessment.

Not all of the concretions in the Leda clay contain fossils, and not all of the clay contains concretions.   The bed of clay that has produced the most fossils is at the highwater mark of the Ottawa River.   Most concretions from other layers are destitute of fossil remains.   I can personally attest to that statement. Thirty-five years ago I looked at concretions along one of the tributary streams, but found no fossils in any of them.

The most abundant fossil fish are a species of capeling, still found in the lower  St. Lawrence, and sculpin.    The Perth Museum has a concretion with a fossil fish from Green’s Creek on display.  (It had two, but one walked.)  Other fossil fish include the lump-sucker, stickleback, lake trout, and smelt.  Rare impressions of feathers, bones of birds and ducks, flying insects, tiny crustaceans, starfish, and worms have been reported.   The bones of a young seal were reported and figured by Leidy (1856) while the teeth and jawbone of a  seal were reported and figured by Dawson (1893).   One concretion contained the skull and forelimb of an American Marten, a land mammal; another, a chipmunk.

Concretions have been found that enclose fragments of wood, leaves of trees, seeds of plants, portions of marine plants, grasses, sedges, mosses, and algae.  Among the trees are the sugar maple, alder, birch and poplar.  An analysis of the flora shows that a third or more are wholly aquatic, and therefore deposited in place, a third are a land plants, drifted in by tributary rivers, and the rest represent semi-aquatic and marsh plants from adjacent land areas. The vegetation is identical to that now found in the Ottawa region, suggesting similar climatic conditions.

Besides the small shell Leda arctica (now Yoldia arctica), a marine mollusc, from which the clay gets its name, other marine and freshwater shells have been found.   Greenbelt land south of Blackburn Hamlet and north of Mud Creek (which  flows into Green’s Creek), exhibits intermittent sand deposits on top of the clay.  These sand  deposits also contain fossil shells.

Early Reports of Fossils in Concretions From Green’s Creek

Sir Charles Lyell, an English geologist, is credited with being the first to report on fossils in concretions from Green’s Creek.  Lyell visited North America in 1841-42 and in his book summarizing his visit (1845, at pages 126-127) mentioned “Mr. Logan obtained near Bytown concretions of clay similar to those called fairy stones, which occur without fossils in the clay at Albany, New York, and at Burlington, Vermont, and in Massachusetts, as described by Professor Hitchcock. In the centre of one of these nodules was the entire skeleton of a fossil fish, allied to, if not identical with, that named Mallotus villosus [ a capelin]  by Professor Agassiz, which now lives in the Greenland seas, and is also found fossil in Greenland.”    While “near Bytown” includes Green’s Creek, and Green’s Creek is the site that has produced the most fossil capelin in concretions, capelin have been found in concretions in clay in other areas around Ottawa.   The ‘Mr. Logan’  that Sir Charles Lyell referred to is William Logan, the founder and first director of the Geological Survey of Canada.

I tried to determine the how Logan obtained the concretions from ‘near Bytown’ but was unable to do so.  The most likely source would have been members of The Royal Engineers stationed in Montreal who mapped the Ottawa River and were involved with the construction of Ottawa River Canals and the Rideau Canal, other members of the Natural History Society of Montreal (e.g. Dr. A.F. Holmes), or  fossil and mineral collectors such as Andrew Dickson of Pakenham, Dr. Van Cortlandt of Bytown , Dr. James Wilson of Perth, or Reverend Andrew Bell.  Both Dickson and Van Cortlandt had collections of fossils from Green’s Creek: – see Dawson, 1859; Dawson, 1868; Ami, 1887.  Reverend Andrew Bell had a large collection of fossils, including plants found in the Leda clay at Green’s Creek, that he bequeathed to Queens, which Dawson, 1868, 1893 reports that he looked at.   Logan was friends with each of Dr. Holmes, Dr. Wilson, Dr.  Van Cortlandt, Andrew Dickson and Reverend Bell.

Harrington (1883) reports that Sir William Logan met Sir Charles Lyell in 1841 when by chance both were in New York City.   The following day William Logan  wrote to his brother James, telling him of Lyell's intended visit to Canada, stating "Lyell will be in Montreal some time in the spring, and if you in your leisure walks will make a collection of all the organic remains you can for him, you will not only be serving  him, but also cause of geology.   ...  The shells in the clay should also be collected, and you should endeavour to ascertain as nearly as possible the height of each locality above the level of the water in the harbour."  Harrington does not mention Logan sending concretions to Lyell.

In the Geological Survey of Canada’s Annual report for 1843, Logan describes the geology of the lands abutting the Ottawa River from Montreal to Bytown, and this appears to be based on personal observation, but he does not mention the clay or concretions at Green’s Creek.  In 1845 Logan traversed and mapped the upper Ottawa, starting at Bytown.  In the Geological Survey of Canada’s Annual report of progress for the year 1845-46, Logan describes the ‘Tertiary  [now Quaternary] Deposits’ along the valley of the Ottawa River, noting that “Along the whole valley of the Ottawa, clays, sands, gravels and boulders are met with in many parts.”  He mentions that “At the mouth of the Gatineau, near Bytown, not only marine shells have been obtained, but, in a nodule of indurated clay found in the deposit there, Mr. McNab, of the Crown Lands Office, some years ago, procured a perfect specimen (now in my possession) of  Mallotus villosus, or common capeling, a small fish, which still frequents the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in vast numbers.”   He does not mention the concretions from Green’s Creek.

The first report by the Geological Survey of Canada on the concretions in Green’s Creek was made by Alexander Murray (1852, pages 76-77), who reported: “but clays occur higher on the Ottawa, in the vicinity of By town, at the mouth of the Gatineau on the north, and of "Green's Creek" on the south side, which in addition to marine shells, of the species Saxicava rugosa, yield in the  latter named locality two species of fish, the Mallotus villosus or common capeling, and Cyclopterus lumpus or lump-sucker, both of which are still inhabitants of northern seas; the capeling still frequents the Gulf of St. Lawrence in great numbers, and the lump-sucker, the northern coasts of Scotland and America. Their fossil representatives are always enclosed in nodules of indurated clay of reniform shapes, and they appear to occupy a  bed nearly on a  level with the water of the Ottawa, ...; the same sort of nodules frequently enclose fragments of wood, leaves of trees, and portions of marine plants; among the last is one of the species of littoral algae still found near the coasts of arctic seas.”  

Where to Find Photographs of Specimens from Green’s Creek

Wagner (1984) contains photographs of concretions bearing fossils from Green’s Creek, namely two of fossil fish (figures 25 and 26), the impression of a feather (figure 33A) and a leaf (figure 33B).  Harington (1983) included photographs of concretions containing a Capelin, a sucker,  a Marchfly, a feather impression, the skull and front leg of an American Marten, a twig, and the tail region of a lake trout.  Kindle (1923, Plate 8, Figures 1 and 2) has an exceptionally clear photo of opposite sides of a concretion showing the skull and other parts of the skeleton of a marten, collected from the Ottawa River below Greens Creek.  McAllister et al. (1981) contains photographs of two fossil fish (a lake cisco and a rainbow smelt) from Green’s Creek.  Champagne et al. (1979) contains photographs of a fossil deepwater sculpin in a nodule from Green’s Creek.  Dawson (1893; pages 266, 268b) contains sketches of a fossil fish (the sculpin pictured above) in a concretion and of the jawbone of a seal in a concretion.  Dawson (1869) contains lithographs of concretions from Green’s Creek containing leaves and one containing a  piece of wood.  Gadd (1980) contains photographs of a concretion containing a  capelin, a concretion containing the imprint of a feather and a concretion containing a piece of Willow wood, all from Green’s Creek. Leidy (1856) figured a concretion found by Billings that contained the bones of a young seal. Below are one of Dawson’s lithographs and Leidy’s lithograph:

A spectacular photograph of both parts of a nodule with a fossil fish from Green’s Greek is on the Geological Survey of Canada’s web site at  http://www.science.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/97214.html

The Museum of Nature’s Collection

For over fifty years the Canadian Museum of Nature (the Victoria Memorial Museum at Metcalfe and McLeod Streets, Ottawa) has had on display a few fossils from Green’s Creek, including feather impressions and (if I recall correctly) the American Marten.  The museum provides the ability to search its collections online at http://collections.nature.ca/en/Search/Index
A search for ‘Green’s Creek’ in the Paleobiology Collection reveals over 1,600 specimens, including over 700 specimens of Mallotus villosus, a capelin.  Notably one specimen of Mallotus villosus from Green’s Creek was collected by William Logan and A. Dickson, presumably the Andrew Dickson who founded Pakenham, Ontario. 

The Redpath Museum at McGill in Montreal also has a collection of fossils from Green’s Creek.

Concretion Formation

Various theories have been advanced as to how the concretions at Green’s Creek were formed and why the concretions from Green’s Creek contain fossils but many parts of the Leda clay are devoid of concretions containing fossils.   A number of authors have commented on the topic.   A few are mentioned below.

Logan (1863) commented “About the mouth of Green's Creek, in Gloucester, a bed in the clay, near high-water mark, abounds in nodular masses, which are strewn along the shore of the Ottawa for two miles to the eastward. These seem to have been formed by a process of concretion around various organic remains, which are found on breaking open the nodules.”

Coleman (1901), when discussing concretions from Green’s Creek, suggested that “Similar clay higher up and farther inland seems to be without them, perhaps not containing lime enough to form them.”

Johnston  (1917) and  Kindle  (1923) suggested that the concretions were related to streams cutting the clay as few concretions are found in areas where there are no streams.    Johnston commented: “It is generally held that calcareous clay concretions, such as those found in the marine clay, are formed only in the zone of cementation, above the general permanent level of the ground water, and this appears to be borne out by the mode of occurrence of the concretions in this area.  Hence it is probable that the concretions were formed after the complete withdrawal of the marine waters and largely during the  time since the establishment of the present drainage. The marked oscillations of ground water level in the vicinity of the streams, especially in the lower portion of the Ottawa river owing to the rise and fall of the river, would greatly favour concretionary action and would explain the apparent absence of' the concretions in the clays at some distance from the river courses where the oscillations of ground water level would not be pronounced."  

Kindle (1923) suggested that the difference in temperature between Green’s Creek and the Ottawa River waters favoured the development of concretions, commenting that “These changes of temperature will be transmitted to the ground-waters permeating the clays of the river bank and result in frequent and abrupt changes in the lime-solvent powers of these waters by affecting their CO2 content through increasing or lowering the temperature. Changes of this character, it is believed, would stimulate the development of concretions.” 

Kindle (1923) also suggested that a factor favorable to the formation of these concretions is the diurnal change of temperature of river banks denuded of forests and exposed to the full glare of the sun resulting in the “relatively rapid movement of ground-water toward the exposed section as a result of evaporation and a consequent large transfer of the soluble materials required for the growth of concretions.”

Gadd (1971) found hard, circular, carbonate concretions at the faces of stream-cut banks in Champlain Sea clay along the St. Lawrence river valley, and concretions with a “malleable, putty-like consistency” about 30 inches in from the faces of stream banks.  Gadd (1971) suggested that the induration of carbonate concretions was “related to proximity to the exposure face of the stream-cut banks” and “that evaporation of groundwater at the exposed face of the varved deposits causes crystallization of the carbonates and final hardening of the concretions.”   

Yoshida et al. (2018) studied carbonate concretions from three locations in Japan, some containing well preserved fossils.  They reviewed the generalized conditions of spherical calcium carbonate concretion formation and concluded that concretions form  by reactions between HCO3 - and Ca2+ ions as concretions grow outwards, with carbon supplied by the organic source within the concretion and Ca2+ in the surrounding seawater-derived pore-water. They suggest that concretions “continue to grow until there is no more carbon of organic origin remaining within the concretion.”  They envisage a reaction front at the margin of the concretion characterized by rapid precipitation of CaCO3 due to super saturation and a pH increase at the cementation front.  They suggest that “This front is developed in any kind of carbonate-rich spherical concretion formed syn-genetically during burial of marine sediments with organic carbon sources in the concretions.” 

Assuming that organic decomposition furnished the carbon in the form of HCO3 - while the groundwater furnished the Ca2+ to make the calcium carbonate concretions, then the pH and ions in the water would have been important factors, and Johnston’s  (1917) and  Kindle’s  (1923) suggestion that the formation of  concretions was  related to streams cutting the clay might have been a factor if the streams were higher in Ca2+ or contributed to the adjacent groundwater having a different pH than the groundwater where there were no streams.

A problem with applying Yoshida et al. (2018) study to the Green’s Creek concretions is that there doesn’t appear to be enough organic carbon in many of the concretions (e.g., a concretion containing a leaf)  to generate the volume of carbonate in the concretion.  In addition Gadd’s (1980) report on his examination of numerous concretions does not support Yoshida et al.’s  (2018) suggestion.    In 1961 Nelson R. Gadd of the Geological Survey of Canada made a collection of about 700 concretions from a 30 meter section along the Ottawa River at Green’s Creek.  He split and examined the concretions.  He  reported (1980) that “the largest number of concretions consisted solely of cemented sediment. Fewer than sixty concretions (<10%) had nuclei. Among the nuclei such things as pebbles and mudballs, including till, sand lenses, etc. were common, leaving only about thirty of the concretions that contained organic remains as nuclei. These remains included single marine mollusc shells and groups of typical Champlain Sea shells.... one contained the cast of a feather ... [one] contained a piece of wood large enough for radiocarbon dating.”

Gadd (1962a, b) proposed that  the Champlain Sea clay was deposited in two phases: the original deeper deposit in a brackish or marine environment; the second major deposition or reworking in fresher water, with the freshwater clay outcropping along Green’s Creek from about Montreal Road to the  Ottawa River and along the banks of the Ottawa River (and the marine clay outcropping in the bed of Green’s Creek south of Montreal Road).   Gadd (1980) suggested that the  “Occurrence of complete skeletons of fish and other vertebrates in concretions is related to chemically induced carbonate cementation during early stages of putrefaction of soft-bodied animals. This could preserve skeletal remains through several cycles of erosion. Therefore some concretions carry fossil remains that may be allochtonous to the sediment in which they now occur. “

Christopher Brett
Ottawa, Ontario

Added February 1, 2021:    In 1987 The Geological Survey of Canada branch of Energy Mines and Resources published a brochure with the title ‘Surficial Geology and the Ice Age in the National Capital Region’ which on one side contained a geologic map of the Surficial and Terrain Features of Ottawa-Hull (extracted from GSC Map 1425A), and on the other side contained a synopsis of the Pleistocene Glaciation and the glacial sediments in the National Capital Region.  It also included photographs of five Pleistocene fossils found in glacial sands and clay, plus fossils in three clay nodules from Green’s Creek, plus a separate photograph of a nodule from Green’s Creek and a photograph of the 1971 Castleman landslide in Leda Clay.  The page of fossils is reproduced below in accordance with the permission granted  to reproduce Government of Canada works by Natural Resources Canada.   The reproduction has not been produced in affiliation with, or with the endorsement of the Government of Canada.

 

Fossil 3 is a barnacle.
Fossils 2, 4, 5, and 6 are Pelecypods (clams) with the most famous being 2 Saxicava (now Hiatella arctica) and 6 Leda arctica (now Yoldia arctica).
Fossils 2, 3, 4, 5 were collected in sandpits near the Ottawa airport.
Fossils 1, 7, 8  are concretions from Green’s Creek.  Photograph 1 shows a concretion containing Mallotus villosus, a capelin; 7, a leaf;  8, a feather.

The fossil Hiatella arctica is so common that early investigators of Quaternary geology (including Dawson, Logan, Ami, Coleman, Johnston)  used  the former species name Saxicava rugosa to designate Champlain Sea sand and gravel as Saxicava sand.   The shell Leda arctica (now Yoldia arctica) was common in the clay.   Those marine shells in  'Saxicava Sand' and 'Leda Clay' indicate a sub-arctic climate.

References and Suggested Reading

Ami, H. M., 1878
The great ice age and subsequent formation at Ottawa, Ontario.
Ottawa Naturalist, Volume 1, 65-74 and 81-88
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/15579#page/89/mode/1up

Ami, H. M., 1897
Contribution to the Paleonology of the post-pliocene deposits of the Ottawa Valley.  Ottawa Naturalist 11, 20-26
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/94746#page/26/mode/1up

Ami, H. M.,   1902
List of fossils to accompany report of Dr. R. W. Ells on the City of Ottawa map. Pages 51G-56G In  Ells, R W, Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report (n.s.) Volume 12 (1899), part G, 77 pages     https://doi.org/10.4095/294885 (Open Access)

Billings, E., 1857
 On the Tertiary Rocks of Canada, with some account of their Fossils.
The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist. Volume: v.1,  321- 346
 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/32713#page/349/mode/1up

Brett, Christopher P.,  2013
Glacial Erratics and Eskers in the Township of Lanark Highlands, Lanark County, Ontario
Blog Posting dated Thursday, 18 April 2013

Brett, Christopher P.,  2014a
Andrew Dickson, a Founder of Pakenham, Sheriff of Bathurst District, and Geologist, Blog posting dated Thursday, 22 May 2014

Brett, Christopher P.,  2014b
Lake Iroquois and the Glaciofluvial Deltaic Deposit at Joes Lake, Lanark Highlands, Ontario.
Blog posting dated Wednesday, 17 September 2014.

Brett, Christopher P., 2015a
Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt, M.D., (1805-1875) of Bytown and Ottawa, Surgeon, Field Naturalist, Museum Curator and Amateur Geologist. Blog posting dated Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Brett, Christopher P., 2015b
Hunting for Whales in Eastern Ontario.  Blog posting dated Friday, 24 April 2015

Brett, Christopher P., 2016
Fluvio-glacial Sculpted Forms in Outcrops Near Newboro, Eastern Ontario.  Blog posting dated
Tuesday, 26 January 2016

Brett, Christopher P.,  2018
A Glacial Sand and Clay Deposit in the Basement of St. Paul's United Church on Gore Street in Perth, Ontario.  Blog posting dated Tuesday, 20 March 2018

Brett, Christopher P.,  2020
Diplocraterion in Dodds and Erwin’s Glacially Polished Sandstone Parking Lot, Lanark County .
Blog Posting dated Friday, 13 November 2020

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 Deepwater sculpin, Myoxocephalus thompsoni (Girard) from a Pleistocene nodule, Green Creek, Ontario, Canada.  Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 16 (8): 1621–1628.
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Dawson, J. W., 1869
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Dawson, J.  W. , 1871
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Dawson. J.W. , 1878 
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Dawson. J.W. , 1893
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Gadd, N.R., 1962b.
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Gadd, Nelson R. 1980
Maximum age for a concretion at Green Creek, Ontario .
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Gadd, Nelson R. 1986
Lithofacies of the Leda Clay in the Ottawa Basin of the Champlain Sea.  Geological Survey of Canada. Paper 85-21.  44 pages.

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Harrington, C.R.,  1972
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Harrington, C.R.,  1972
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Bulletin  Geological Society of  America , 34 (3), p.  609-648. 
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Sheldon, J.M. Arms, 1900
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Wagner, F. J.E.,  1967
Published references to Champlain Sea faunas 1837-1966 and list of fossils. Geological  Survey of Canada Paper 67-16, pp. 1-82.    https://doi.org/10.4095/100919

Wagner, F. J. E, 1970
 Faunas of the Pleistocene Champlain Sea.  Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 181, 104 pages (1 sheet),  https://doi.org/10.4095/102325 

Wagner, Frances J. E., 1984
Fossils of Ontario: Part 2: Macroinvertebrates and vertebrates of the Champlain Sea, with a listing of nonmarine Species.   The Royal Ontario Museum
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Othenio Abel (1875- 1946), First References to the term Lebenspurren and Palaeobiologie, and a Translation into English of Othenio Abel’s 1926 and 1935 Comments on the Trace Fossil Climactichnites

 I have briefly mentioned Othenio Abel (1875- 1946), an Austrian paleontologist, in a few of my earlier blog postings.   While Othenio Abel’s name is seldom mentioned these days he is credited with being one of the founding fathers of paleobiology, and  his 1935  text ‘Vorzeitliche Lebenspuren’  is credited in both Frey (1975) and Knaust and Bromley (2012)  with being the standard text on trace fossils for twenty years.  Richard G. Osgood, Jr., (1975, page 8) mentions that “ The progress in ichnology at that time was synthesized in 1935 by Othenio Abel. His remarkable book, Vorzeitliche Lebenspuren, more than 600 pages long, covers both vertebrate and invertebrate traces as well as coprolites and example of osteological pathology in the fossil record.  It was the standard reference work for more than 20 years.”   Osgood also notes (1975, page 18) that “By the early 1900's, the fucoid debate resolved in favor of Nathorst’s ideas [that not all fucoids were plant or algae fossils but were traces of invertebrate organisms]  as emphatically shown by Othenio Abel, the founding father of paleobiology .”  

Over 260 Papers and Twenty Books

Othenio Abel was a prolific writer, authoring over 260 papers and twenty books.   Many of Othenio Abel’s books– with the notable exception of ‘Vorzeitliche Lebenspuren’ – are available on the web from archive.org.  The links are provided in the references below.  

In the references I have included Ehrenberg’s (1978) article which traces Othenio Abel’s career and lists all of his works.   I have also included Matthias’ (2011) paper which highlights Othenio Abel’s early papers on orchids and Abel’s transition from a biologist into paleobiology.  If the reader looks at the titles of Othenio Abel’s papers in the list of references to this blog posting then one will find  the early papers  on orchids.  Abel then transitioned to paleontology, with early papers on fossil dolphins, toothed whales and flying fish, before switching to fossil vertebrates.    Matthias’ (2011) paper contains two points that one would not expect to see in a biography of a paleontologist: first, a failed assassination attempt on Abel’s life in 1932; second, the suggestion that if Abel had married the head of the Biology department’s daughter, then Abel would have been awarded a Professorship in the Biology department.  Another point worth noting is that Abel published a number of works on ancient animals  myths, customs and popular beliefs.

Summaries of Othenio Abel’s carreer can be found at Https://www.encyclopedia.com
and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othenio_Abel    Worth noting is that  the oldest university institute for paleobiology was established in Vienna in 1924 on the initiative of O. Abel.   In addition, O. Abel founded the journal "Palaeobiologica" in 1927, which was published from 1928 to 1948.

Othenio Abel Coined the terms  Lebensspurren  and Paleobiology

Häntzschel (1962, page W178) credits Abel (1912) as the first to use ‘Lebensspur’ for trace fossils.   The 1912 reference is to Abel’s textbook entitled ‘ Grundzüge der Palaeobiologie der Wirbeltiere’  [Basic features of the paleobiology of vertebrates] .  Interestingly, this book is also credited as being the first reference to the term ‘Paleobiology’ (see Thenius, 2013) .  

Here are the first references to the terms  Lebensspur and Lebensspuren for trace fossils  (1912, page 65):

“Lebensspuren fossiler Organismen.

     Die Hauptquelle für unsere Kenntnis von der Lebensweise und den Lebensgewohnheiten der fossilen Wirbeltiere ist ihr Skelett, aus dessen Anpassungen wir durch Analogieschlüsse ihre Lebensweise und ihren Aufenthaltsort ermitteln können.
     Immer muß die morphologische Methode in enger Verbindung mit  der ethologischen Analyse die Grundlage derartiger Untersuchungen bilden. In einigen Fällen wird aber unsere Kenntnis von dem Leben der fossilen Wirbeltiere durch verschiedene Lebensspuren vermehrt, die sich in Form von Fährten, Wohnstätten, Fraßspuren, Nahrungsresten in der Leibeshöhle, Koprolithen, Embryonen, Eiern, krankhaften Veränderungen der Knochen, Anzeichen stattgefundener Kämpfe, Spuren  des Todeskampfes usw. entweder an den Kadavern selbst oder in den sie
bergenden Gesteinen finden.  Derartige Lebensspuren sind entweder eine wertvolle Bestätigung der auf morphologisch-ethologischem Wege erzielten Ergebnisse oder sie geben uns Aufschlüsse über Fragen, die mit Hilfe dieser Methode nicht gelöst werden können.”
https://archive.org/details/grundzgederpalae00abel/page/65/mode/1up

And here is Google’s translation (with a few changes) into English:

Traces of Life from Fossil Organisms.
     The main source for our knowledge of the way of life and habits of the fossilized vertebrates is their skeleton, from the adaptations of which we can determine their way of life and their whereabouts by analogy.
      The morphological method in close connection with the ethological analysis must always form the basis of such investigations.  In some cases, however, our knowledge of life of fossil vertebrates is increased by different traces of life,  which can be found in the form of tracks, dwellings, traces of food, food remains in the body cavity, coprolites, embryos, eggs, pathological changes in bones, signs of fights that have taken place, traces agony, etc. either on the cadavers themselves or in the rocks in which they are found.  Such traces of life are either a valuable confirmation of the morphological-ethological results or they give us information about questions that cannot be solved with the help of this method.

Note that ‘Lebensspur’ is a German word that had been used as early as 1842 in a fossil context to mean traces of life (see Anonymous, 1842).   Othenio Abel was the first to use it for trace fossils.

Lebensspuren References in Abel’s (1920) book entitled ‘Lehrbuch der Paläozoologie’

Also worth noting areAbel’s references to Lebensspurren in his (1920) book entitled ‘Lehrbuch der Paläozoologie’ [Textbook of paleozoology] which contains comments such as:

[page 6:] “Wurde die schützende Gesteinsschicht nicht durch eine starke Welle, sondern durch eine sanft verlaufende Woge über die Unterlage gebreitet, auf der die Tierreste oder Lebensspuren derselben, wie Fährten, Bohrgänge usw., lagen, so konnten unter diesen Bedingungen selbst solche Reste oder Lebensspuren fossiler Tiere fossil werden, die an anderen Stellen zerstört zu werden pflegen.”   which translates as: “If the protective rock layer was not spread over the surface by a strong wave, but by a gently moving wave, on which the animal remains or traces of life lay, such as tracks, drill holes, etc., even such remains or traces of life of fossil animals could be found under these conditions become fossil, which are usually destroyed in other places”

 [page 13:]Lebensspuren vorzeitlicher Tiere.
Stellen uns auch die körperlichen Reste der vorzeitlichen Tiere die Hauplquelle zur Erforschung der vorzeitlichen Tierwelt dar, so sind uns doch verschiedene Spuren ihrer Lebenstätigkeit und ihrer Lebensäußerungen erhalten geblieben, die uns in mancher Hinsicht sehr wertvolle Aufschlüsse vermitteln.
Zu solchen Lebensspuren gehören vor allem Fährten, Bohrgänge, Wohnstätten, Fraßspuren, Nahrungsresle in der Leibeshöhle fossiler Tiere, Freßplätze und Sterbeplätze, Koprolithen, Embryonen, Eier, krankhafte Veränderungen und Verletzungen, Spuren stattgefundener
Kämpfe, Anzeichen des Todeskampfes, Reste von Parasiten und Ansiedlern auf fremden Gehäusen, Fälle von Symbiose, kurz, eine große Zahl von Erscheinungen, die erst zum Teil ihre richtige Deu tung gefunden haben.  Die Ermittlung dieser Erscheinungen in Verbindung mit der Erforschung der Lebensweise der vorzeitlichen Tiere und ihrer Anpassungen an die Umwelt bildet eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der Paläobiologie

Google Translates this as:

Traces of life from ancient animals
     While the physical remains of the prehistoric animals are the main source of research into the prehistoric animal world, we have preserved various traces of their life activity and their expressions of life, which in some respects give us very valuable information.
    Such traces of life include, above all, tracks, bores, dwellings, eating traces, food rests in the body cavity of fossil animals, eating and dying places, coprolites, embryos, eggs, pathological changes and injuries, traces of what might have been struggles, signs of agony, remains of parasites and colonists on foreign housings, cases of symbiosis, in short, a large number of phenomena, only some of which have found their correct meaning. The determination of these phenomena in connection with the study of the way of life of the prehistoric animals and their adaptations to the environment is one of the most important tasks of paleobiology

Awards

In his lifetime Othenio Abel received a number of awards including the Bigsby Gold Medal from the  Geological  Society of  London ( 1911), the Rainer-Medaille of the  Kaiserlich-königlichen zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Vienna  (1921) and the  Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1920), which is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for meritorious work in zoology or paleontology study published in a three- to five-year period" (1922).

The Bigsby Medal was awarded to Othenio Abel by the Geological Society of London  in recognition of his contributions to the  knowledge of the Palaeontology of the Vertebrata, more especially of the Cetacea (marine mammals that comprises the whales, dolphins, and porpoises) and Sirenia (sea-cows).

Yochelson and Fedonkin’s (1993) References to Abel

Othenio Abel first came to my attention when I was reading Yochelson and Fedonkin ‘s ( 1993) treatise entitled ‘Paleobiology of Climactichnites, an Enigmatic Late Cambrian Fossil’.   Y& F noted that “Abel (1935) provided the only photograph heretofore of an actual specimen of the oval impressions from Mooers;”, that “In 1925, Abel (1935:242) visited Albany, New York, and
examined the trails collected from Mooers, New York; he was the first to publish a photograph of one of those oval markings. ...  He then considered in some detail the various notions which had been put forth as to the animal which may have formed the Climactichnites trails. Not only did he then decide that Climactichnites was of molluscan origin, like Raymond (1922), he was firm in his opinion that the trail formed by movement of a gastropod. Indeed, he suggested a shell-less opisthobranch, though he was aware of some of the problems in this interpretation.  ... Abel (1935:247-248) emphasized Bulla-like gastropods forming a ridge on either side of the shell as they crawl forward.”    

Otheno Abel’s Two Publications Mentioning Climactichnites

Otheno Abel mentions Climactichnites in two publications:

Abel, Othenio, 1926
Amerikafahrt : Eindrücke, Beobachtungen und Studien eines Naturforschers auf einer Reise nach Nordamerika und Westindien. [America trip: impressions, observations and studies of a naturalist on a trip to North America and the West Indies.] Jena: Gustav Fischer Verlag,  462 p., with  273 photos
 
Abel, Othenio, 1935
Vorzeitliche Lebensspuren. [Ancient traces of life.] Jena:  Verlag von Gustav Fischer. 644 pages. With  530 figures .

Abel's Comments on Climactichnites in  Amerikafahrt (1926)

 This  is a travel book, recording Abel's visit to America in 1925 to look at body fossils, trace fossils and rock formations.  It contains spectacular black and white photographs of  body fossils and trace fossils (for example, tracks from Connecticut and from the Grand Canyon).

In Amerikafahrt Othenio Abel only briefly mentions Climactichnites, but includes a photograph of the trace fossil  (his figure 244 ) with the caption (my translation): “Fig. 244 Climactichnites wilsoni Logan - Upper Cambrian (Potsdam sandstone), Bidwell's Crossing, Clinton Co., New York.  - Original plate in the New York State Museum in Albany. Photograph after a plaster cast  in the paleobiological institute of the University of Vienna. About 1/9 natural size.”  

 The photograph shows two  resting traces and two trails.  

In Amerikafahrt Othenio Abel’s discussion of Climactichnites is just an aside to his discussion of the Devil’s Corkscrew structures.   These were spiral shaped structures in Miocene age rocks found near  Harrison, Nebraska that were known locally as the as Devil’s Corkscrews and were named Daemonelix by Paleontologists.  They are now considered to be burrows made by the extinct beaver Palaeocaster.  Abel devotes thirteen pages (382-394), seven photographs and one cross-section to the Devil’s Corkscrew structures.  This is how Abel referenced Climactichites [my and Google’s translation]:

“The attempt to relate the stone spirals in the Harrison Beds to the devil is a counterpart to the interpretation of the strange and still not fully clarified Climactichnites (Fig. 244) in the Cambrian Potsdam sandstone from Bidwell's Crossing near Sciota, Clinton County, New York:  On the farm of Mr. B. H. Palmer, a stone slab with these tracks emerged [2], which the owner viewed as Christ's footsteps with which he had trod the heads of giant snakes.  When the paleontologists at the museum in Albany, NY, where the plate is now, tried to give the owner of the property a more natural explanation, the owner saw it as severe blasphemy and it took a long time to convince him that  his Biblical Interpretation would be in serious contradiction with a natural explanation.”   

Abel’s footnote [2] references three well known papers by John M. Clarke, Jay W. Woodworth, and  Lancaster D. Burling on Climactichnites.
 
+++++++++++++++  

Abel's Comments on Climactichnites in 'Vorzeitliche Lebensspuren’

In ‘Vorzeitliche Lebensspuren’ Othenio Abel devotes eight pages (242 - 249) and four  figures (214, 215, 216a, 216b) to Climactichnites.

These are the translations into English of the captions to the three figures.

Fig. 214 Climactichnites wilsoni Logan - section of a large sandstone slab kept in the New York State Museum in Albany, which represents the pouring of the actual track layer, which consisted of a layer of clay.   The elevations of this slab therefore correspond in reality to deepening of the track layer.   At the ends of the two tracks are the oval prints of the dead animals that created the tracks.    Potsdam sandstone (Upper Cambrian) from Bidwells Crossing, Clinton Co., New York.
– The photograph was made in Vienna from a plaster cast.  – About  1/9  natural size.

Fig. 215  Much reduced partial view of the track bearing slab from Bidwell's Crossing (Fig. 214), on which lie numerous tracks which run in different directions and which have been described as Climactichnites wilsoni Logan.  The oval formations represent the footprint of the animal that left the tracks, two of which are shown in Fig. 214.    Four such prints are not related to tracks; I regard these oval prints as the foot-disc prints of those individuals who were thrown on the beach together with the others, but died immediately, while the other conspecifics continued to crawl further  a shorter or longer distance, but then also died.  The strongly pronounced cross beads (see also Fig. 214) stand in the tracks in such a way that the apex of the V-shaped figures formed by the cross beads looks in the direction of movement (in contrast to the arrangement of the ridges in Climactichnites youngi, Fig. 216). (after J.M. Clarke, 1905.)

Fig. 216 Track and imprint of the whole animal of Climactichnites youngi (Chamberlin) from the Upper Cambrian of New Lisbon, Wisconsin, North America.
A. Section of the track to show the peculiar sculpture of the crawl track, which consists of strong, only slightly curved cross beads and very fine, close-standing, more curved grooves.
B. The beginning of the track, which ends at its end (in the illustration above) in an arc shape, was such that the fine, tightly curved lines visible in Fig. A run concentrically to the arcuate end of the track;  in the area of  the upper part of this track there are no transverse beads as they appear in the lower part of the picture and in Fig. A.  Figure  B shows the imprint of the oval base plate of the animal, which moved on (downwards in the figure) from this point.  The animal was probably put on the beach at low tide and crawled on from here; in Fig. 215, on the other hand, the oval ends of the tracks of Climactichnites wilsoni represent the respective ends of the different tracks, not, as in Fig. 216B, the beginning of the same (after L.D. Burling)

+++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++ +++
Below is a translation into English of Othenio Abel’s comments on Climactichnites.  Footnotes are indicated by  square brackets surrounding the footnote number and the page number (e.g., [2-243].  I have also included comment in square brackets correcting the location of the first Climactichnites trail to Perth, Ontario from Beauharnois, Quebec.   Abel’s is a different interpretation than that advanced by Getty and Hagadorn (2008, 2009).
 
Climactichnites – Very large, strangely broken tracks have been repeatedly observed in Upper Cambrian sandstones of North America, to which Sir William Logan (1860) drew attention and which he described under the name Climactichnites.  The location of these tracks is at Beauharnais in Canada. [CPB: Should be Perth, Ontario, Canada.]   Later James Hall (1889) reported the discovery of similarly designed tracks in the Upper Cambrian Potsdam sandstone near Porth Henry, Essex Co., New York.   However, greater attention was first aroused by the discovery of a large slab with tracks  in Bidwell's  Crossing near Sciata, Clinton Co., New York, which was laboriously excavated and brought to the State Museum of New York in Albany, where I (1925), with the kind permission of the Director John M. Clarke and the kind support of my dear friend Rudolf Ruedemann was able to investigate this find in depth. [1-242] (Fig. 214.)

 The sandstone slab exposed at Bidwell’s Crossing was 30 feet long by 10 feet wide.   There were 25 tracks on it, the average width of which was 5 inches, and some of which could be followed for 10-15 feet in length until they ended in an oval, bowl-shaped recess (Fig. 215).

Sir William Logan [1- 243] had already tried to unravel the nature of these traces of life, and since then attempts have been made again and again to explain the origin of the climactichnites.   Logan first suspected that these were creep marks from mollusks, and this conjecture, which was recently substantiated by Woodworth [2-243], is, as will be explained below, in fact to be regarded as the only possible explanation.   Sir William Dawson (1862) had thought that it was a special form of trail for the Limulus type of track.  In the same year, Jones expressed the view that Climactichnites should be seen as a flattened walkway of Crustaceans digging in the sand, while Grabau suspected in 1913 that the oval structures at the end of the tracks were collapsed living pits.

Still other researchers, such as Dana (1863), Billings (1870) and Packard (1900), advocated that Climactichnites should be seen as the trail of a large trilobite.

Gratacap had viewed Climactichnites as the trail of a great annelid in 1901 and this opinion was also taken up again by Walcott (1912) when describing a trail from the Upper Cambrian of New Lisbon, Wisconsin, which in its basic features, if not in every detail , matches the type of track from the Potsdam sandstone.   This type of track described by Walcott also ended in an oval, sharply delimited figure.

Todd even drafted a description of the creator of this track and came to the conclusion that the animal must have had a rigid tail shield with bristles or fine spines and that the locomotives that produced the last impressions must be highly flexible and arranged in pairs so that each of the two feet must have been independent of the movements of his companion ...

If we now mention that several authors have assumed that these are traces of Eurypterids, a view that was discussed in 1912 by JM Clarke and R. Ruedemann [1-245], we have pretty much a collection  of all imaginable attempts at explaination.

The first careful analysis of the trail was done by J. B. Woodsworth (1903). He was the first to attempt, based on a suggestion by Professor Walter Faxon,  to establish the theory of the gastropod nature of the Climactichnites track.  However, Faxon had thought that chitonids should be considered as the producers of these tracks.   However, there can hardly be any serious doubt that the oval impressions, which can be observed either alone or at one end of a track on the large plate of Bidwell’s Crossing, must be regarded as the footprints of large gastropods.   It seems incomprehensible that all conceivable attempts have been made to solve the climactichnites mystery, and it is probably only  explainable and understandable   because the tracks that can be seen on the sandy beaches of our flat coasts have not been examined and described with the desired thoroughness.   Above all, the different tracks of the tropical flat coasts have to be described and carefully analyzed in order to create a better basis for comparisons with the many fossil types of tracks than can be the case with the limitation to life trace studies on the European coasts.

Since the discovery, recovery and description of the large track slab with 25 climactichnites in the State of New York in 1902-1903, only the find of Climactichnites youngi Chamb. (1912) described by Walcott and thoroughly discussed by L. D. Burling (l.c. 1917) , in the upper Cambrian of Wisconsin (Fig. 216) , suitable to arouse a special interest, since in this the parallel edge impressions of the footplate of the producer of this track have been preserved particularly clearly and sharply.  It is particularly noteworthy that in this case the oval footplate impression, which L.D. Burling emphatically emphasizes, is not at the end, but at the beginning of the trail. Since Burling had dealt in detail with the question of the direction in which the apex of the V-shaped figure, which is formed by two corresponding transverse strips of the track, and since he had come to the conclusion that Climactichnites wilsoni Logan  from the Potsdam sandstone of Bidwell's Crossing sees the apex of the V in the direction of movement; with Climactichnites youngi Chamberlain, however, the V-shaped transverse strips diverge in the direction of movement, so he saw in this a difficulty of analysis for which he could not find an explanation.

 However, this difficulty does not seem to be unsolvable. Above all, we have to ask ourselves whether we can see a gastropod in the Climactichnites tracker who has a way of life such as B. Bullia, Nassa, Olivia, etc.,  i.e.  whether it was a gastropod that not only used to crawl on the surface of the sandy beach, but also in the sand itself.   Or whether it was a gastropod who led a nectonic way of life and only forced to crawl a distance on the beach, but then, perhaps with a renewed flooding of the beach, continued to swim with the flood again.

First of all, it must be remembered that, according to my observations on the sandy beach on the South African coast, the tracks that have been indented by sea snails are immediately completely blurred and destroyed, if the sandy beach covered by tracks is flooded again.   Such tracks can only survive if they dry and harden with the entire layer of sand on which they were pressed when it was still damp, and if they are later covered by a protective layer of fine dust, blown across the beach by country winds  [1-247]. Therefore, the end of a climactichnites, which is characterized by the oval foot disc impression, cannot be explained by the fact that the animal concerned swam away at the end of a track.

If, however, the animal cannot swim away, it must either have buried itself in the sand, or it has been removed from the surface of the beach by a predator or scavenger, or it has died on the surface of the sandy beach.

Since we now have sufficient knowledge of what places look like where snails have buried themselves in the sand, we can certainly include such a possibility for the end of the Climactichnites trail.     The oval footplate impression, which represents the respective end of the tracks, as can be seen on the large sandstone slab of Bidwells Crossing, corresponds exactly to the extent of the footplate; if the animal had crawled into the sand at the places where the tracks end with the oval figure, a funnel with raised edges would have formed in these places,
but you might not see a recess that was just pushed in flat.   The explanation of the conclusion of a climactichnites by digging in the producer of the track in the beach sand can therefore be out of the question.

However, if the Climactichnites trail had ended by the animals being taken away by predators or scavengers, any traces of these predators should have been visible on the surface of the sandstone slabs.      That is not the case and so this explanation cannot be considered.

On the other hand, solving the whole problem does not seem so difficult when we consider the following.   Let us imagine that at low tide a large number of gastropods were thrown from the waves onto the beach and remained there.   We do not need to assume that they must have been  gastropods with shells.    The shell-less opisthobranchier group is probably very old and we have no compelling reason to believe that their presence in the upper Cambrian is considered impossible or unlikely for phylogenetic reasons.    It is easy to imagine that the Climactichnites trail originates from a shell-less gastropod, which is similar to, for example,  a Pleurobranchus [sea slug] or an Aplysia [sea slug], but without a shell, such as the recent Doridier from the group of Nudiabranchier.  The Doridians are benthonic forms that can swim, but mainly move crawling on the seabed.   Some nudibranchers are known to be able to move very quickly on the floor, e.g. B. Tehys.

If we keep in mind that the crawl trace of such a snail, which has been pulled on the still wet sand at low tide, could only be preserved if the surface of the sand quickly dried out and hardened in the sun's heat when the tide fell rapidly, so this consideration, it seems to me, also provides the answer to the whole Climactichnites question.   If the snails crawled on the ground for a while after stranding, they could not do so when the sand started to dry.

We know that jellyfish that are thrown onto the beach on tropical flat coasts dry up to a thin, gelatinous mass and later dry out even more to a hardened mass after a very short time.  An anologous  process must also have occurred with the jellyfish that ran aground in the area of  the lagoon beaches of the Upper Jurassic  Seas in Bavaria.  These jellyfish themselves have not survived, but the imprints of their bodies, dried on the beach in the heat of the sun, have been preserved in an excellent manner and with many details of the structure.

So it should come as no surprise that the carcasses of such a shell-less Opisthobranchier, which I would like to be the creators of the Climactichnites trail, have not been preserved; but the oval footprints of these animals mark the end of each track on the large sandstone slab from Bidwell’s Crossing.

In contrast, the Climactichnites youngi from the Upper Cambrian of Wisconsin described by Walcott, the beginning of which is indicated by the oval foot disc impression, on Example that a gastropod set on the beach was spreading his foot disk to full size, slowly advancing, whereby the rear edge of the foot disc emerged in concentric, semicircular grooves separated only by very small gaps on the surface of the very fine-grained and homogeneous sand, and when the locomotive continued to move, the foot disc performed contractions that appear on the surface of the sand  through the transverse ridges and are separated by wide transverse channels.  But the fine concentric arch lines remained, caused by the advancement of the rear edge of the oval base plate, preserved alongside the transversal ridges and gutters, so that the peculiar picture emerged that shows us the trail depicted by Walcott.

Climactichnites youngi may have been indented by a different gastropod than Climactichnites wilsoni, since the latter has a median groove in the track; however, we must not forget, that the track forms of the recent Bullia rhodostoma show an extremely large variability, which is due to the different degree of moisture penetration of the sand on which the animals crawl.  It is therefore not absolutely necessary to use the differences mentioned between the two types of tracks  to infer the artificial or generic differences between their producers

Footnotes - Translated

 
[1-242] R. Ruedemann told me the following about finding this tracked slab: When the strange traces on the surface of a sandstone slab appeared in Mr. BH Palmer's farm, the owner thought the large oval traces at the ends of the "ladder-like" tracks were Christ's footsteps with which he had trodden the heads of giant snakes.     When the paleontologists of the museum in Albany, N.Y. tried to give the owner a more natural explanation, the owner saw it as severe blasphemy and it took a long time to convince him that his interpretation of the Bible would be a serious contradiction.  So Jay B. Woodworth finally got permission to lift the slab.  (See also: O. Abel, “Amerikafahrt”.  Jena, G. Fischer, page 382, Fig. 244.)

[1-243]  The literature on Climactichnites has been compiled and published by L.D. Burling in his study ‘Protichites and Climactichnites: A Critical Study of Some Cambrian Trails’ (American Journal of Science (4), Vol. 44 (the whole series 194), New Haven, 1917, page. 396-398).

[2-243] Jay W. Woodworth: On the Sedimentary Impression of the Animal whose Trail is known as Climactichnites.  – New York State Museum, Bull. 63, Paleont. 7, Report for 1902 ( Bull. 314, June 1904, pag. 959-966).  John M. Clarke: Fossil Trails at Bidwell’s Crossing.  – Ibidem, Bull 80, Paleont. 10, Report for 1903, February, 1905 (Bulletin 330), page 18-20, Pt. 2 and 3).

[1-245] John M. Clarke and R. Ruedmann: The Eurypterida of New York. – New York State Museum, Memoir 14, Albany, 1912, Vol. 1, pg. 85, Footnote.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/134207#page/91/mode/1up

[1-247] The fact that the same must also have been the case with the fossil snail tracks in the Greifenstein sandstone is shown not only by the cross-layering clearly perceptible in the transverse fractures of the track plates, but also by the surface of some sandstone plates from the grindstone quarries at Kierling in the Viennese forest (Fig. 208).
 
++++++++++++
I found that the following brief explanations helped my understanding.
 
Bullia rhodostoma  is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk  

Nekton or necton refers to the aggregate of actively swimming aquatic organisms in a body of water. The term was proposed by German biologist Ernst Haeckel to differentiate between the active swimmers in a body of water, and the passive organisms that were carried along by the current, the plankton. (See Wikipedia)

Pleurobranchus is a genus of sea slugs,  marine gastropod molluscs  

Aplysia is a genus of medium-sized to extremely large sea slugs   

Doridoidea -  are a taxonomic superfamily of medium to large, shell-less sea slugs, marine gastropod mollusks

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Christopher Brett
Ottawa, Ontario

References and Selected Reading

[The early references to Othenio Abel’s papers on orchids are from  Matthias, 2011.   For a complete list of Othenio Abel’s papers see Ehrenberg, 1978 ]  

Abel, O. , 1896
Die Befruchtung der Orchideen durch Insecten. [The fertilization of the orchids by  insects]  Der Stein der Weisen, 8, Heft 5 [in Bd . 15]: 129 134.

Abel, O. , 1897a
Die Orchideen in Sage und Geschic hte. [The orchids in legend and history]  Der Stein der Weisen, 9, Heft 12 [in Bd. 17]: 357 360.

Abel,  O. , 1897b
Einige  neue  Monstrositäten  bei  Orchideenblüthen [Some monstrosities in orchid flowers] (Ophrys aranifera  Huds.  und Orchis coriophora  L.).  Verhandlungen der kaiserlich königlichen zool ogisch botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien,  47: 415 420.

Abel, O. , 1897c
Ein Urwald Mitteleuropas zur Tertiärzeit. [A primeval forest in Central Europe during the tertiary period]  Der Stein der Weisen, 9, Heft 17 [in Bd. 18]:
132 138.

Abel, O. , 1897d
Zwei für Niederösterreich neue hybride Orchideen [Two new hybrid orchids for Lower Austria] (GymnadeniaWettsteiniana  m. und Gymnadenia  Strampfii  Aschers.).   Verhandlungen  der  kaiserlich königlich en  zoologisch botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 47: 609 615.

Abel,  O. , 1898e
  Der  Wasserleitungsstollen  der  Stadt  Eggenburg.  Ein  Beitrag  zur  Kenntniss  der Gauderndorfer Schichten. [The city of Eggenburg's aqueduct. A contribution to the knowledge of the Gauderndorf layers]  Verhandlungen der k. k. geologischen Reichsanstalt, 1898 (14): 301 312.  https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/SBAWW_109_0859-0924.pdf

Abel, O., 1898f
 Studien in den Tertiärbildungen von Eggenburg. [Studies in the Tertiary  of Eggenburg.] Beiträge zur Paläontologie und Geologie Österreich Ungarns und des Orients, 11: 211 226.   https://docplayer.org/112865827-Den-tertiaerbildungen-von-eggenburg.html

Abel, Othenio, 1898g
Ueber einige Ophrydeen   [About some ideas]

Abel, O. , 1899a
 Einige Worte über die Entstehung der Hochmure des Ferschbachthales im Ober Pinzgau. [A few words about the origin of the floodplain of the Ferschbach Valley in Ober Pinzgau] Verhandlungen der k. k. geologischen Reichsanstalt,  1899 (11/12): 296 297.
https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/VerhGeolBundesanstalt_1899_0296-0297.pdf

Othenio Abel, 1899b
 Studien im Klippengebiete zwischen Donau und Thaya: I. Pollau - Schweinbarth; (Aufnahmsbericht) [Studies in the cliff area between Danube and Thaya: I. Pollau - Schweinbarth; (Recording report)] [cephalopods, ammonites, and other fossils in limestones and dolomite] – Verhandlungen der Geologischen Bundesanstalt – 1899: 284 - 287.
https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/VerhGeolBundesanstalt_1899_0284-0287.pdf

Othenio Abel,  1899c
 Die Beziehungen des Klippengebietes zwischen Donau und Thaya zum alpin-karpathischen Gebirgssysteme [The relationship of the cliff area between Danube and Thaya to the alpine-Carpathian mountain system]– Verhandlungen der Geologischen Bundesanstalt – 1899: 374 - 381.   https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/VerhGeolBundesanstalt_1899_0374-0381.pdf

Abel, O., 1900
 Mittheilung über Studien an Orchis angustifolia  Rchbch. (O. Traunsteineri Saut.) von Zell am See in Salzburg und über einige andere Orchideen  aus dem Pinzgau. [Communication about studies on Orchis angustifolia Rchbch. (O. Traunsteineri Saut.) From Zell am See in Salzburg and about some other orchids from the Pinzgau] Verhandlungen der kaiserlich königlichen zoologisch botanischen Gesellschaft in  Wien, 50: 57 58.

Abel, Othenio,   1901a
Les dauphins longirostres du boldérien (miocène supérieur) des environs d'Anvers  [Longirostra dolphins from the Bolderian period (upper Miocene) around Antwerp]  Bruxelles: Polleunis & Ceuterick, imprimeurs. 95 pages plus 10 plates.
https://archive.org/details/lesdauphinslongi01abel

Abel, Othenio,   1901b
Zwei  neue Menschenaffen aus den Leitha-kalkbildungen des Wiener Beckens [Two new great apes from the Leitha limestone formations of the Vienna Basin]   1171-1207
https://archive.org/details/biostor-222013

Abel, Othenio,   1901c
Die Ursache der Asymmetrie des Zahnwalschädels   [The cause of the asymmetry of the toothed whale skull] 511-526
https://archive.org/details/biostor-221988

Abel, Othenio, 1904
 Über einen Fund von Sivatherium giganteum bei Adrianopel [About a find of Sivatherium giganteum (an extinct genus of giraffids– mammals that share a common ancestor with cervids and bovids)  near Adrianople] 629-651
   https://archive.org/details/biostor-220765

Abel, Othenio, 1905
Les odontocètes du Boldérien (miocène supérieur) d'Anvers. [The odontocetes (toothed whales)  of the Bolderian (Upper Miocene) of Antwerp.]   Bruxelles: Polleunis & Ceuterick, imprimeurs, 155 pages  https://archive.org/details/lesodontoctesd00abel

Abel, Othenio, 1906
 Fossile Flugfische [Fossil flying fish] .  Vienna: Self-published by the author.  88 pages plus plates https://archive.org/details/FossileFlugfisc00n

Abel, Othenio,   1906
 Die Milchmolaren der Sirenen   [The milk molars of the sirenians (Mammalia; Dugongidae- sea cows)].  Separate imprint from Neuen Jahrbuch Für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie.  Stuttgart:  E. Schweizergart’sche  Verlagshandlung,  pages 50-60   https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_SFErAAAAYAAJ

Abel, Othenio, 1907
 Die Morphologie der Hüftbeinrudimente der Cetaceen [The morphology of the femoral rudiments of the cetaceans (aquatic mammals)] . Vienna: K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei : In Kommission bei A. Hölder . 57 pages
https://archive.org/details/diemorphologiede00abel/page/52/mode/2up

Abel, Othenio, 1907
 Der Anpassungstypus von Metriorhynchus [The adaptation type of Metriorhynchus (an extinct genus of marine crocodyliform that lived in the oceans during the Late Jurassic)]. Separate imprint from Centralblatt Für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie. Stuttgart:  E. Schweizergart’sche  Verlagshandlung,  pages 225 -235
 https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QSstAAAAYAAJ

Abel, Othenio, 1908
 Angriffswaffen und verteidigungsmittel fossiler Wirbeltiere [Weapons of attack and defensive means of fossil vertebrates], pages 207- 217
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_SVErAAAAYAAJ/page/n5/mode/2up

Abel, Othenio, 1908
Neuere Studien über die Systematik und Stammesgeschichte der Halbaffen und über den Fund eines angeblichen Vorfahren des menschen in Südamerika [Recent studies on the systematics and tribal history of the half-apes and on the finding of an alleged ancestor of man in South America]
Separate Imprint , “Verhandlungen" der k. k. zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Vienna (1908) pages 35-38   https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_SlErAAAAYAAJ

Abel, Othenio   1909
 Cetaceenstudien. I. Mitteilung: Das Skelett von Eurhinodelphis Cocheteuxi aus dem Obermiozän von Antwerpen [Cetacean Studies. Part I: The skeleton of Eurhinodelphis Cocheteuxi from the Upper Miocene of Antwerp] 241-253
https://archive.org/details/biostor-220834

Abel, Othenio,   1909
 Cetaceenstudien. II. Mitteilung: Der Schädel von Saurodelphis argentinus aus dem Pliozän Argentiniens [Cetacean Studies. Part II: The skull of Saurodelphis argentinus from the Pliocene of Argentina] 255-272
https://archive.org/details/sbaww_118_0255-0272

Abel, Othenio,   1909
Konvergenz und Deszendenz. -  Verhandlungen der zoologisch-botanische Gesellschaft zu Wien  Wien, 1909, Wien.

Abel, Othenio,   1909
Bau und Geschichte der Erde. [Construction and history of the earth] Vienna: F. Tempsky ; 1909. 220 p.   

Abel,  O. , 1910   
Was  ist  eine  Monstrosität?. [What is a monstrosity?]  Verhandlungen  der  kaiserlich königlichen  zoologisch botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 60: (129) (150).
Reviewed: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23652640

Abel, Othenio,  1910
Über die allgemeinen Prinzipien der paläontologischen Rekonstruktion.[About the general principles of paleontological reconstruction] - Verhandlungen der zoologisch-botanische Gesellschaft zu Wien LX (1910): 141–46

Abel, Othenio,   1910
Kritische Untersuchungen über die paläogenen Rhinocerotiden Europas. [Critical studies on the paleogenic rhinocerotids of Europe.] Abhandlungen der Geologische Reichsanstall . Wien, IX. Bd., 20, H. 3, 1-52, 2 Taf., Wien.
  https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/AbhGeolBA_20_0001-0052.pdf

Abel, Othenio,   1910
Die Rekonstruktion des Diplodocus." Abhandlungen der K.K. Zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien 5 (1910)  https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/AZBG_5_3_0001-0060.pdf

Abel, Othenio,   1910
Die Vorfahren der Vögel und ihre Lebensweise. [The ancestors of birds and their way of life.]- Verh. k. k. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien, 1910, Wien [both Lebens and Spuren but not together]
https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/VZBG_61_0144-0191.pdf

Abel, Othenio,  1912
 Grundzüge der Palaeobiologie der Wirbeltiere [Basic features of the paleobiology of vertebrates]
 Stuttgart, E. Schweizerbart .  708 pages
https://archive.org/details/grundzgederpalae00abel

Abel, Othenio, 1914a
 Die vorzeitlichen säugetiere [The ancient mammals].   Jena:  G. Fischer 309 page

Abel, Othenio, 1914b
 Die Tiere der Vorwelt, [The animals of the past]     Leipzig, Berlin:  B.G. Teubner, 88 pages  https://archive.org/details/dietieredervorw00abelgoog

Abel,   O. , 1914c
  Atavismus.   [Atavism: a tendency to revert to something ancient or ancestral.] Verhandlungen   der   kai serlich königlichen   zoologisch botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 64: (31) (50).   

Abel,  O. ,  1914d
  Orimente  und  Rudimente. [Oriments and rudiments; an early work on paleobiology ]  Mitteilungen  des  naturwissenschaftlichen  Vereines  an  der Universität Wien, 12 (4/6): 79 82.   https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/MNVUniWien_12_0079-0082.pdf

Abel, Othenio,    1916
 Paläobiologie der Cephalopoden aus der Gruppe der Dibranchiaten [Paleobiology of the cephalopods from the group of the Dibranchiaten]
 Jena : Gustav  Fischer , 281 pages    https://archive.org/details/palobiologiede00abel

Abel, Othenio,  1919
Die Stämme der Wirbeltiere   [The Vertebrate Classes]
Berlin und Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter & Co. 896 pages
https://archive.org/details/diestmmederwir00abel

 Abel, Othenio,   1920
Lehrbuch der Paläozoologie [Textbook of paleozoology]  Jena:  G. Fischer.   500 pages https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_rCBCAAAAIAAJ

Abel, Othenio, 1921
Allgemeine Paläontologie  [General paleontology] Walter de Gruyter, 1921 -  149 pages

Abel, Othenio, 1921
Lebensbilder aus der Tierwelt der Vorzeit. Jena 1921 doi:10.5962/bhl.title.61701

Abel, Othenio,   1922
 Lebensbilder aus der Tierwelt der Vorzeit [Life pictures from the animal world of the past]
 Jena: Verlag von G. Fischer . 643 pages
https://archive.org/details/lebensbilderausd00abel/page/414/mode/2up

Abel, Othenio,   1923
Die vorweltlichen Tiere in Märchen, Sage und Aberglauben [The pre-world animals in fairy tales, sagas and superstitions]   Baden: G. Braun.  66 pages plus plates
https://archive.org/details/vorweltlichentier00

 Abel, Othenio,   1925
Geschichte und Methode der Rekonstruktion vorzeitlicher Wirbeltiere. [History and method of reconstruction of ancient vertebrates] Jena 1925

Abel, Othenio, 1926
Amerikafahrt : Eindrücke, Beobachtungen und Studien eines Naturforschers auf einer Reise nach Nordamerika und Westindien.
Jena: Gustav Fischer Verlag,   462 p., mit 273 Fotos

Abel, Othenio, 1928
Allognathosuchus, ein an die cheloniphage Nahrungsweise angepaßter Krokodiltypus des nordamerikanischen Eozäns. - Paläont. Z., 9.

Abel, Othenio,   1929
Paläobiologie und Stammesgeschichte. [Paleobiology and Tribal History.] Jena 1929, 423 pages

Abel, Othenio,   1931
Die Stellung des Menschen im Rahmen der Wirbeltiere. [The position of man in the context of vertebrates] 1931

Abel, Othenio, 1935
Vorzeitliche Lebensspuren. [Prehistoric Traces of Life]  Jena:  Verlag von Gustav Fischer. 644 pages.  With 530 illustrations, photographs, figures

Abel, Othenio,   1939
Die Tiere der Vorzeit in ihrem Lebensraum. [The animals of the past in their habitat] Jena 1939 335 pages

Abel, Othenio,   1939
Vorzeitliche Tierreste im Deutschen Mythus, Brauchtum und Volksglauben. [Ancient animal remains in German myths, customs and popular beliefs.]  Jena 1939

Anonymous, 1842
Einleitungsrede des zweiten Geschäftsführers. [Introductory speech by the second managing director]  Amtlicher Bericht über die Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte. [Official report on the gathering of German natural scientists and doctors] Vol 18, 19, 1842     https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/41163#page/310/mode/1up
Page 29  Unzähliges, was man noch vor wenigen Jahrzehn den todt nannte, worin man eine Lebensspur weder vergangen noch gegenwärtig zu entdecken vermochte, was man dem Reiche beizählte, in welchem jedes Leben, jede Organisation vermifst wird, besteht aus Myriaden thierischer Geschöpfe,  deren Entdeckung anderen Untersuchungen, als den bisherigen der Chemiker aufbehalten war. . So hat denn Alles gelebt und lebt theiis noch, was uns als Fels umgiebt, oder als loses Gestein und Erd' und Mergel noch so unscheinbar sich unseren Blicken entzieht; nichts giebt's, was nicht selbstsländig gewirkt, ja es wird  vielleicht nichts mehr die Zukunft für unorganisch erklären, sondern im ganzen Weltall ein Leben, ja ein reges Leben, oder doch ein überstandenes, wahrneh-men und betrachten
[Translation:] Countless things that a few decades ago were called death, in which a trace of life was neither past nor present to be discovered, what was attributed to the realm in which every life, every organization is missing, consists of myriads of animal creatures,  the discovery of which was reserved for other investigations than the chemists' previous ones.  So everything has lived and still lives, what surrounds us as rock, or as loose rock and earth and marl, however inconspicuously hidden from our view; There is nothing that has not worked independently, yes, perhaps nothing will declare the future to be inorganic anymore, but a life in the whole universe, indeed a lively life, or at least a survived, men and consider

Anonymous, 2020
Abel, Othenio, in encyclopedia.com
Https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/abel-othenio

Brett, Christopher,  2013a
On the trail of Climactichnites wilsoni - Part 1: Specimens Collected from a Quarry near Perth, Ontario.  Blog Posting dated 31 January 2013.
http://fossilslanark.blogspot.com/2013/01/on-trail-of-climactichnites-wilsoni.html

Brett, Christopher,  2013b
On the trail of Climactichnites wilsoni - Part 2: References to the Quarry Near Perth in the Scientific Literature, and the Geologic Mapping of Lot 6.  Blog posting dated February 11, 2013

Brett, Christopher,  2013c
On the trail of Climactichnites wilsoni - Part 3: A quarry about a mile from Perth as the town existed in 1859 .  Blog posting dated 6 May 2013
http://fossilslanark.blogspot.com/2013/05/

Brett, Christopher, 2020
Reports of Trace Fossils from the Potsdam Group Sandstones of Ontario, Quebec and New York State.  Blog posting dated 13 October 2020
http://fossilslanark.blogspot.com/2020/10/

Ehrenberg, Kurt, 1978
Othenio Abels  Werden  und Wirken.   Eine Rückschau zu seinem 100. [Othenio Abel’s development  and works. A look back at his 100th birthday]  Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft der Geologie- und Bergbaustudenten in Österreich , volume  25. s. 271-295 , Vienna
https://opac.geologie.ac.at/ais312/dokumente/Mitteilungen_Band25_271_A.pdf

Frey, R.W., 1975  (Editor)
The Study of Trace Fossils: A Synthesis of Principles, Problems, and Procedures in Ichnology
Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1975, 562 pages

Getty, Patrick R., 2007
 Paleobiology of the Climactichnites Trackmaker: An Enigmatic Late Cambrian Animal Known Only from Trace Fossils . Master's thesis, University of Massachusetts Amherst.  https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/19/

Getty, Patrick R. and James W. Hagadorn, 2008
Reinterpretation of Climactichnites Logan 1860 to Include Subsurface Burrows, and Erection of Musculopodus for Resting Traces of the Trailmaker.  Journal of Paleontology,  Vol. 82, No. 6 (Nov., 2008), pp. 1161-1172 (12 pages)    https://www.jstor.org/stable/20144280

Getty, Patrick R. and James W. Hagadorn, 2009
Palaeobiology of the Climactichnites Tracemaker. Palaeontology, Volume 52, Issue 4, July 2009, Pages 753-778   https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2009.00875.x

Häntzschel, W., 1962
Trace Fossils and Problematica. 177-245, Part W, Miscellanea, in Moore, Raymond C., editor, Treatise on invertebrate Paleontology. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press.  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015000388606

Knaust, Dirk and Richard G. Bromley, 2012 (Editors)
Trace Fossils as Indicators of Sedimentary Environments . Amsterdam, Oxford, etc.: Elsevier,  960 pages

Osgood, Richard G. ,Jr., 1975,
The History of Invertebrate Ichnology, chapter 1 in The Study of Trace Fossils: A Synthesis of Principles, Problems, and Procedures in Ichnology edited by R.W. Frey 1975.  Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1975, 562 pages

Rieppel, Olivier, 2012
Othenio Abel (1875–1946): the rise and decline of paleobiology in German paleontology
Historical Biology, An International Journal of Paleobiology, Volume 25, 2013 - Issue 3
Pages 313-325 |  https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2012.697899
“Othenio Abel is widely acclaimed as the founder of paleobiology; of the journal Palaeobiologica and of the Paleobiological Society in Vienna.”

Romer, Alfred Sherwood , Nelda E. Wright, Tilly Edinger, and Richard Van Fran, 1962
Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates Exclusive of North America, 1509-1927.  Geological Society of America, Memoir 87, volume 1, A-K, Abel at page 1

Svojtka, Matthias, 2011
Das botanische Frühwerk des Paläobiologen Othenio Abel  (1875 -1946):  Persönliche Netzwerke und fachliche Prädisposition . [ The early botanical work of the paleobiologist Othenio Abel  (1875 -1946): Personal networks and professional predisposition]    Berichte der Geologischen Bundesanstalt, [Includes photo of O. Abel from 1901]
https://www.zobodat.at/biografien/BerichteGeolBundesanstalt_89_0052-0066.pdf

Thenius, Erich, 2013
100 Jahre Paläobiologie an der Universität Wien – die Jahre 1912 bis 1973.  [100 years palaeobiology at the University of Vienna, 1912–1973.]   Schriften Verein zur Verbreitung naturwissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse 151–152  (2013): 7–37
https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/SVVNWK_151_152_0007-0037.pdf

Watts, W.W., 1911
Report of the Council for 1910. President’s Address .  Award of the Bigsby Medal [to Othenio Abel.]  The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London. Volume 67, 1911, pages x  and xlvii  https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/122849#page/977/mode/1up

Yochelson, Ellis L and Fedonkin, Mikhail A., 1993
Paleobiology of Climactichnites, an Enigmatic Late Cambrian Fossil.  Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology. 74 (74): 1–74
DOI: https