Comprehensive book?

[grg1109]

Hi.  I'm wondering if someone could recommend a comprehensive book on marine fossil invertrabates of North America covering all ages.  I have the "Index Species of North America" book.  I also own a couple of books on Devonian Fossils in NY.  Although these have been helpful...I would like a good comprehensive book so as not to keep bothering you all here for fossil identification.

Thanks

Greg

[Tidgy's Dad]

There isn't one. 

It would be ginormous and have to be published in dozens of volumes. 

You've surely seen how big some books or papers are that describe just one formation. 

There are some books that might show the most common fossils and if you get hold of all of the volumes of the Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology that will include most genera, but not species. 

There's just too much for one book.

 

I find papers / books on the particular formation / location I am studying or the closest match. 

And folk on the forum don't feel bothered by id requests. A lot of us like to help and find it fun as well as enjoying showing off our knowledge every now and again.

[grg1109]

Thanks...I understand completely what you're saying about "ginormous".

Greg

 

[grg1109]

Does anyone know if "Invertebrate Fossils 1952 McGraw-Hill Book Company, pages 1-766 with illustrations Moore Lalicker Fischer" is any different than the "Index Speicies of North America" book?

Greg

[Bob Saunders]

I save a lot of online PDF's about fossils to my desk top computer. Do an occasional back up to a CD disk or thumb drive.  

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Idem. And in addition I have an Excell file with the authors, the year, the title, the place of backup, keywords and a link to each PDF, each filed in a folder (ammonites, trilobites, sea urchins, fish-seletians etc...). Once I have done my search I just have to click on the link and the PDF opens !

 

Coco

[Crusty_Crab]

On 7/28/2021 at 4:36 AM, grg1109 said:

Does anyone know if "Invertebrate Fossils 1952 McGraw-Hill Book Company, pages 1-766 with illustrations Moore Lalicker Fischer" is any different than the "Index Speicies of North America" book?

Greg

I have both. They are different in that the Invertebrate Fossils book gives a brief explanation about the morphology, reproduction, ontology and explanation of the various morphological terms you may encounter with a short list of common genera. There are also some nice line drawings that illustrate these. Index Fossils of North America mostly lists the known genera at the time and has only a cursory explanation of the morphology. I would say that they are both superseded by the most recent volumes of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, which covers both more thoroughly and is more up to date. After Invertebrate Fossils was published, Moore realized how inadequate it was to actually present the scope he had wanted. He then started on the Treatise, but was immediately overwhelmed by the scope of the project. Luckily, the project has continued and is updated regularly. If you're looking for a comprehensive book, it would look more like the volumes of the Treatise.  http://paleo.ku.edu/treatise2/treatise.html

As @Tidgy's Dad mentioned, it does not include the species, which would be documented in a smattering of books and papers. I have found some of the more recent volumes of the Treatise, such as the 6 volumes on the brachiopods, to be useful to be able to understand the terms and morphology presented in the papers. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Crusty_Crab

[tombk]

 

On 7/28/2021 at 5:58 AM, grg1109 said:

a comprehensive book on marine fossil invertrabates of North America covering all ages.

I was hoping to find the same thing, but as the other posters note, this would really be too much for one book. As @Crusty_Crab mentioned, the Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology has 6 volumes on brachiopods alone! 

[cngodles]

Last I checked, a membership to the Palaeontological Association will get you online access to all of the PDF's for the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. I had a membership in 2020, because I wanted to get their print journals in the mail. Unfortunately, they stopped printing them after the year I joined. So I didn't join in 2021. The membership runs Jan-Dec, so joining late can be a disadvantage. The price is low without a print journal though, being only 40 pounds ($54-55ish USD today). This was in 2020. I would double/triple check before purchasing a membership for this reason. The association had a single global username password that was shared across all users.

 

I was super happy to be able to get access to the PDFs. I plan on signing up next year.

 

Another option is to buy the books. I've purchased at least a dozen of the volumes off various resell and auction sites over the years.

 

Unfortunately, taxonomy is a moving target. Several of the books are 50 years old or more and are in bad need of a rewrite. That being said, there are several that are still perfectly correct.

 

Brachiopods and Trilobites are two that have had recent rewrites in the past 25 years or so.

 

New Membership: https://www.palass.org/beta/eps/membership-new/

Edited September 20, 2021 by cngodles

[tombk]

Thank you, @cngodles for the info. I just checked the site, and it said that "New memberships placed on/after the 1^st SEP 2021 cover the subscription period 2022 as well as the remainder of 2021," so joining in September is actually ideal it seems. Is the quality of the images in the PDFs very good? It seems like a very good deal. 

[cngodles]

It’s official PDFs from the Treatsie publisher themselves. I know people in paleo who swear by PDFs because they are “easier to search”.

 

Attached is a phone screenshot from volumes I have downloaded to my phone.

 

 

[cngodles]

The whole thing is odd because KU offers a $299 annual sub but you get it for free with a much cheaper sub.

 

Anyway, it appears to still be a thing.

 

http://paleo.ku.edu/tronline/treatiseonline.html

http://paleo.ku.edu/digitaltreatise/digitaltreatise.html

 

There is another similar organization who may be cheaper yet.

https://paleo.memberclicks.net/become-a-member

Edited September 20, 2021 by cngodles

[cngodles]

Also, one of the better books in my opinion is Fossils of Ohio. This book only focuses on Ohio, but they have a wide range of geologic ages and it covers a lot of material. It's big, a must have for anyone at least in the OH, WV, PA, NY region. I wrote a post below that covers the best way to obtain a copy. It's a big book, 1 1/4" thick and over 550 pages. It's not as comprehensive as index fossils is, but it's a solid inclusion to a reference collection. It also talks about plants and vertebrates as well. Black and white figures, well printed though.