radiolaria - Marum

Radiolaria 14 Bibliography - 1993
Kozur, H. & Mostler, H. 1993. Anisian to Middle
Carnian radiolarian zonation and description of some
stratigraphically important radiolarians. Geol. Pälont. Mitt.
Innsbruck, Sonderbd., 3, 39-199.
Kruglikova, S.B. 1993. Observations on the distribution
of polycystine Radiolaria in marine sediments (mainly at
high taxonomic levels). In: Radiolaria of giant and subgiant
fields in Asia. Nazarov Memorial Volume. (Blueford, J.R. &
Murchey, B.L., Eds.), Micropaleontology, special
Publication vol. 6. Micropaleontology Press, American
Museum of Natural History, New York. pp. 17-21.
Data on the ecology and distribution of modem radiolarian
species and higher taxonomic classification is poor. This paper
reviews published data on the diversity of polycystine radiolarian
assemblages in different regions of the world's ocean and looks at
the ecological distribution of high rank taxa.
Kurimoto, C., Teraoka, Y. & Okamura, K. 1993.
Cretaceous radiolarians from the Shimanto Belt of the Saiki
area, Kyushu. N. Osaka Micropaleont. spec. Vol., 9, 233-
247. (in Japanese)
Kuwahara, K. 1993. Morphological change of late
Permian Radiolaria Albaillella. N. Osaka Micropaleont. spec.
Vol., 9, 35-40. (in Japanese)
Lipman, R.K. 1993. Paleogene Radiolaria of North Eurasia
and their implication for a global correlation. In: Radiolaria
of giant and subgiant fields in Asia. Nazarov Memorial
Volume. (Blueford, J.R. & Murchey, B.L., Eds.),
Micropaleontology, special Publication vol. 6 .
Micropaleontology Press, American Museum of Natural
History, New York. pp. 94-97.
Radiolarians can be useful in developing a global zonal
stratigraphy of Paleogene marine deposits. In Paleogene deposits
approximately 100 species of radiolarians are found that can be
used to correlate strata from North Eurasia to other continents and
other oceanic sediments. A correlation scheme of zonal division of
Paleogene of the North Eurasia and oceanic troughs based on
radiolarians is given and their correlation with zones based on
foraminifers and nannoplankton. This article reviews the Paleogene
radiolarian stratigraphy used by Soviet researchers prior to 1990.
Lipps, J.H. 1993. Fossil Prokaryotes and Protists. ,
Blackwell Scientific Publications Oxford, 342 p.
Fossil Prokaryotes and Protists is a textbook for an advanced
paleontology course dealing with the morphology, systematics,
distribution in time and space, and evolution of single-celled
organisms, as represented in the fossil record. The book assumes a
knowledge of the principles of paleontology or general biology, and
students would be well advised to have taken an introductory course
in paleontology, biology, botany, or zoology before using this book.
No preceding course on systematic paleontology is necessary,
because each group considered here is unique and unlike any of the
multicellular animals or plants. An understanding of basic geology
will be useful, although separate sections on biostratigraphy,
paleoceanography, and paleoenvironments are included because that
is the chief geologic use of most unicellular fossils.
Traditionally, fossils of protists, although not usually those of
prokaryotes, have been taught in courses called micropaleontology,
but just as traditionally, these courses have covered any tiny fossils
that require a microscope for study, including those of many
invertebrate, vertebrate, and plant groups. Tiny fossils of higher
plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates are excluded from this
textbook in order to treat levels of biologic organization together
rather than a particular technique of study. Both approaches have
merit. Microfossils are found together in the same samples
regardless of biologic origin, and the inclusion of the common fossils
likely to be encountered in microscopic examination of samples in a
single text book has some practical value. However, modern
techniques for study of the very wide variety of microfossils are no
longer simple, and nearly every group now requires special
techniques. In addition, paleontology in general is making great
advances by moving towards a more biologic interpretation of
fossils, so textbook treatments of fossils should be usefully
organized by systematic affinities. Fossil Prokaryotes and Protists
does just that by including bacteria and single-celled algae and
protozoa in a single volume. The multicellular invertebrate
microfossils are considered in the companion textbook to this
volume, Fossil Invertebrates, edited by Richard S. Board man, Alan H.
Cheetham, and Albert J. Rowell, and also published by Blackwell
- 99 -
Scientific Publications in 1987. Vertebrate and plant fossils are
considered in any of several modern textbooks.
Some topics in the general field of paleontology have not yet
had major impact on the study of fossil prokaryotes and protists.
Cladistic analysis, for example, has not been applied to unicellular
fossils in any major way, although the method is discussed in this
book with the hope that it will be more widely applied by the next
generation of protistan paleontologists. Molecular phylogeny has
clarified relationships between large groups of prokaryotes and
between some protists and other kingdoms, but these techniques
have not been applied extensively enough to reveal information
useful in the context of this book. So many of the more recent
advances in general paleontology and evolutionary biology have
great but unrealized potential in prokaryotic and protistan
paleontology. Other entire fields are based solidly on unicellular
fossils; for example, paleoceanography. While such topics are useful
in a textbook on these fossils, in recent years they have grown so
much that they too deserve and have textbooks and courses devoted
exclusively to them. The specific goals, then, of Fossil Prokaryotes
and Protists are:
1 to provide an understanding of the fossil record of unicellular
organisms;
2 to provide an understanding of the important role these
organisms have played in Earth and life history;
3 to provide an understanding of the usefulness of these
fossils in solving certain geologic problems;
4 to include enough information about the biology, morphology,
and relationships of prokaryote and protist fossils to enable
students to enter the professional literature, to be conversant with
specialists on each group, or to proceed to more advanced studies of
these groups;
5 to provide a summary of the morphology, systematic
paleontology, biology, and paleontology of unicellular fossils
sufficiently detailed that advanced students can recognize and
develop geologic or biologic research problems in their own programs
that can be addressed using these fossils, given advice from their
professors about topics amenable to study at their institutions.
The book is organized into two parts—one dealing with general
aspects of fossil unicellular organisms, and another describing each
major group. Fossil prokaryotes first appear in the fossil record 3.5
billion years ago (Ga), and so they are close to the very origin of life
on Earth. A single, brief chapter is included on the origin of life,
constrained by reasonable geologic and biochemical evidence, in
order to provide an understanding of how the first unicellular fossils
themselves may have arisen. Another chapter deals with the
problems peculiar to single-celled fossils, and a third covers their
applications to geologic problems because protists play an essential
role in modern geology. A brief evolutionary history of the
prokaryotes and protists and their role in influencing Earth's history
provides a summary in which to place succeeding chapters that deal
with specific groups of organisms.
The 11 major unicellular contributors to the fossil record are
considered in detail in the second part, each written by practising
experts. One or two groups that occur very sparsely in the fossil
record, for example thecamoebians, are omitted. The chapters are
organized similarly: an introduction, history of study, morphology
and systematics, biology, paleobiology, biostratigraphy, and an
evolutionary history of the group. The level of systematic treatment
of each group varies depending on its diversity and complexity. All
chapters include a short list of supplementary reading that can
provide additional information for the students or instructor. The
paleontology of unicellular organisms has grown so much in the past
few decades that no individual can adequately deal with all groups.
Well over 40000 technical papers have appeared on aspects of
single-celled fossils in the last two decades alone. Multiauthored
texts are now standard. This approach has the particular problem
that chapters vary in treatment and style. Partly that cannot be
avoided because each expert has made his or her own judgement
about what material should be included within the objectives and
outline for each chapter, and each has their own style. Even more
important in this book, however, is that each group is quite variable
in its complexity, its geologic or ecologic distribution, and in the
knowledge accumulated about it. For example, foraminifera have
been studied carefully for more than 150 years, have over 60000
described benthic and planktic species, have perhaps as many as
6000 workers in industrial and research institutions worldwide,
range in age from Cambrian to Recent, and live in environments from
fresh water to shallow water of all types, to the deep sea, and from
polar to equatorial regions. Silicoflagellates, in contrast, have been
intensively studied for less than 30 years, have a few hundred
species at most, have a dozen or so workers worldwide, are wholly
planktic in the surficial waters of the oceans, and range in age from
the Cretaceous to the Recent. Naturally, foraminifera will be treated
less inclusively than silicoflagellates, although more pages will be
devoted to them. Such is the nature of paleontology.