FOSSIL FISHES FROM PALEOZOIC LAGERSTÄTTEN OF OHIO: REVIEWING THE PIONEERING WORK OF JOHN STRONG NEWBERRY

In 1890, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward wrote that “Nearly all of importance that has hitherto been written concerning the Palaeozoic fishes of the United States has proceeded from the pen of Prof. J.S. Newberry...” Between 1853 and 1899, John Strong Newberry named and illustrated approximately 100 North American Paleozoic fish species. Most of these taxa were originally described from the Devonian or Carboniferous of Ohio, and documented as part of the work of the second Geological Survey of Ohio. Newberry served as the Survey’s Chief Geologist from 1869 to 1882, and produced a wealth of information on the general geology of Ohio, its fossil vertebrates and plants, and its coal and other resources. Capitalizing on the skills of the Assistant Geologists E.B. Andrews, Edward Orton, and F.B. Meek, as well as Local and Special Assistants E.D. Cope, G.K. Gilbert, James Hall, Herman Hertzer, O.C. Marsh, R.P. Whitfield, and N.H. Winchell, Newberry’s tenure at the Survey marked the time of greatest documentation of Ohio’s rich fossil heritage. Newberry’s beautifully illustrated papers, along with those of other geological corps members and assistants, published in early Reports of the Geological Survey of Ohio (1873, 1875), stand as a monumental achievement from this early phase in the development of paleontology in North America.

Newberry documented fossil fishes from three noteworthy and important Fossil-lagerstätten: 1, the “Corniferous” (Columbus Limestone-Delaware Limestone; Lower to Middle Devonian); 2, the Ohio Shale (comprising the Huron and Cleveland shale members; Upper Devonian); and 3, the Upper Freeport Coal (Carboniferous: Pennsylvanian) at Linton, Ohio. Combined, the “Corniferous” and Ohio Shale lagerstätten contain one of the most diverse fish faunas from the “Age of Fishes.” The Linton lagerstätte, which is among the richest source of Carboniferous vertebrates worldwide, is dominated by fishes. Newberry described more than two dozen fish species, including chondrichthyans, actinopterygians, and sarcopterygians, from this deposit at the Diamond Coal Mine. Many of the type specimens of taxa that Newberry erected are in the American Museum of Natural History and the Orton Geological Museum, but few have received much subsequent study, and few have been photographically illustrated.