New Book Highlights Ancient Footprints

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — “Pennsylvanian Footprints in the Black Warrior Basin of Alabama” is a new book that outlines the discovery, documentation, classification and interpretation of rare fossil animal tracks discovered in a surface coal mine near Jasper.

The book — co-edited by Dr. Ronald J. Buta, professor of astronomy at The University of Alabama, along with Drs. Andrew K. Rindsberg and David C. Kopaska-Merkel of the Geological Survey of Alabama — discusses the unusual fossil tracks that were discovered by Oneonta High School science teacher Ashley Allen in 1999.

The tracks and various kinds of traces were made by early amphibians, primitive reptilians, fish and a variety of invertebrates that lived on and near a tidal mud flat that was part of the Jasper area some 310 million years ago.

The book was published by the Alabama Paleontological Society and sponsored by the Geological Survey of Alabama Education Committee, the McWane Science Center, and the Alabama Geological Society in July 2005. It represents something unique in Alabama paleontology — an amateur-professional collaboration that led not only to research and documentation of a rich fossil site, but also to the preservation of that site by the State of Alabama. In addition, the site was the focus of a recent episode of the television show “Discovering Alabama” called “Tracks Across Time.”

Many of the fossil specimens are now housed in the collection of the Alabama Museum of Natural History located in Smith Hall on the UA campus. Others are housed in the McWane Science Center, the Anniston Museum of Natural History, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque.

The discovery has brought paleontologists to Alabama from across the Atlantic. The site was been declared the “best Carboniferous track site hitherto known” by Dr. Hartmut Haubold, a German vertebrate paleontologist who participated in the study of the fossil trackways found.

Interested readers can purchase the illustrated book from the APS Web site www.alabamapaleo.org or at the Geological Survey of Alabama’s Publication Office at 420 Hackberry Lane in Tuscaloosa.

Designed for amateur as well as professional paleontologists, the book is accompanied by the website http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/monograph/ where more than 2,500 photographs of fossil tracks are included. For more information, contact Dr. Buta at 205/348-3792, buta@sarah.astr.ua.edu.