AN APPETITE FOR APATITE: THE FIRST 150 YEARS

This is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Christian Heinrich Pander's monograph on Baltic conodonts that initiated studies of these fabulously interesting and useful microfossils. 2006 is also the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Pander Society – the conodont working group named in his honor - that had its first meeting in 1967. The time line of conodont studies can be divided into four stages. The first comprises initial finds and descriptions (1856 to 1930) represented by the works of Pander, Hinde, Jones, Rohon and Zittel, and Ulrich and Bassler that established conodonts as a widespread Paleozoic (and Triassic) fish-tooth-like fossil of unknown affinities. The second age is a period of systematic collection and study (1930 to 1960) by the great pioneers, working mostly in mud rocks, that resulted in conodont discoveries around the globe, represented in works by Branson and Mehl, Eider, Ellison, Furnish, Gunnell, Huddle, Rhodes, Schmidt, Scott, Stauffer, Youngquist, and Zebera. These studies brought conodonts into the mainstream as biostratigraphic tools. A Golden Age followed (1960 to 2000), with numerous researchers at government-, industry-, and university-centers around the world, a volume of the Treatise, and marked by refined biostratigraphy, global correlation, paleoecological studies, use of color alteration as a geothermometer, establishment of affinities, and the start of geochemical studies. The New Age (2000 onward), perhaps a Dark Age as well due to current shifts in government, industry, and university hiring, heralds a continuation of taxonomic and biostratigraphic refinement, studies on physiology, correlation tied to subzonal cycles recognized in sequence stratigraphy, magnetic susceptibility, as well as isotope and trace metal stratigraphy, and the use of smaller and smaller samples with better and better techniques to enable even single denticle geochemistry to solve geological problems. Current work demonstrating that conodont elements faithfully record the geochemistry of ancient oceans gives hope that the New Age will ultimately be one of Enlightenment also, with conodont work resuming its vital role as an essential part of integrated geoscience research. Examples of such recent, innovative conodont-based studies are highlighted in this symposium.