Tag: ichnology

Ichnoplanet at the Inaugural USASK Palaeobiology Society Geoscience Symposium

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Seven members of Ichnoplanet presented original research at the first ever USASK Palaeobiology Society Geoscience Symposium on the University of Saskatchewan campus on March 7th, 2026. The symposium featured keynote speakers Dr. Emily Bamforth from the Phillip Curie Museum and Dr. Anthony Shillito from the University of Saskatchewan presenting their original research on Triceratops from Saskatchewan and the colonization of terrestrial environments, respectively. We had a full and exciting day of presentations on a wide range of topics including dinosaurs, brachiopods, plesiosaurs, and, of course, trace fossils.

We’d like to thank the USASK Palaeobiology Society for organizing this outstanding conference and all of the attendees that came out to see the talks highlighting new findings in paleontology.

The Ichnoplanet research group at the USASK Palaeobiology Society 2026 Geoscience Symposium. From left to right, top: Zane Goodell, Jessica Morstad, Dr. Luis Buatois. Bottom: Dmitri Ponomarenko, Martín Schenardi, Chantelle Edwards, Dr. Anthony Shillito, Dr. Gabriela Mángano, Alejandro Corrales-García, and Miguel Norambuena.

Written by Zane Gabriel Goodell

Ichnoplanet alumni Dr. Maximiliano Paz begins professorship at Oberlin College

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Maxi started a new teaching position in 2024 after finishing his Ph.D. and postdoctoral studies in the Ichnoplanet lab at the University of Saskatchewan. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Oberlin College, a liberal arts college in Ohio, USA. Oberlin is known for its extensive history on abolitionist and progressive ideas, being the first college to provide higher education to women and one of the first to admit African Americans in the United States. Maxi currently teaches Sed-Strat, Paleontology, Historical Geology, and courses about the Energy Transition and Patagonian landscapes. He also created a research lab currently consisting of 4 undergraduate students researching trace fossils from Paleozoic rocks of Asturias (Spain), Brittany (France), Houston (Texas, USA), and Cincinnati (Ohio, USA).

Photo of the trace fossil lab at Oberlin College. From left to right, undergraduate research students Paige Grossenbacher, Anika Roos, and Quinn O’Halloran, and professor Maximiliano Paz.

Congratulations to Maxi for his new position and research group!

Written by Maximiliano Paz and Zane Gabriel Goodell

Psammichnites from the Pennsylvanian Rod El-Hamal Formation of Egypt: revisiting paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic patterns of distribution of late Paleozoic ichnospecies

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New research has just been published in Ichnos by authors Ahmed A. El-Refaiy, Luis Buatois, Magdy M. El Hedeny, Ahmed M. El-Sabbagh, Ahmed N. El-Barkooky and Ahmed S. Mansour on Psammichnites in the Pennsylvanian Rod El-Hamal Formation of Egypt.

The researchers found high density occurrences of three different ichnospecies of Psammichnites preserved in the rippled troughs of sandstones in off-shore transition settings. Global compilation of Psammichnites show its presence in marginal and fully-marine deposits, showing its tolerance to brackish to normal marine salinity conditions. Psammichnites appears to be a cosmopolitan ichnogenus showing a broad latitudinal distribution during the late Paleozoic, having been particularly widespread during the Pennsylvanian.

Figure 3. Psammichnites ichnospecies from the Pennsylvanian Rod El-Hamal Formation, Wadi Araba, Eastern Desert of Egypt. Scale bars are 2.5 cm. (A–D) Psammichnites plummeri (Fenton & Fenton,1937). (E–H) Psammichnites grumula (Romano & Meléndez, 1979). From El-Refaiy et al. (2026).

Learn more about this research published in Ichnos here.

Written by Zane Gabriel Goodell

Delving into the early Cambrian Cranbrook Lagerstätte of western Canada: an ichnologic analysis

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New research from PhD candidate Alejandro Corrales-García, Gabriela Mángano and Jean Benard-Canon was just published on Burgess-shale type deposits from southeastern British Columbia.

A 2015 investigation of a 2.65 m interval recovered 12 ichnotaxa and three types of trace fossils left in open nomenclature, the most frequent including Helminthoidichnites tenuis, Palaeophycus tubularis, Diplocraterion isp., and finger-like structures (FLS). Overall, the Cranbrook assemblages do not present well-defined tiering structures and represent surficial epifauna and shallow-tier infauna that colonized the sea bottoms during brief windows between episodic flows and inhabited dysoxic to relatively well-oxygenated outer shelf environments. This study gives us additional insight into the behavior of soft-bodied organisms in some of the most recognizable deposits representing early animal life.

Figure 2. Trace fossils and physical sedimentary structures in the Diplocraterion isp. Ichnocoenosis. (1) General bedding-plane view of Bergaueria isp. (Be) and Diplocraterion isp. (Di) and close-ups of polished cross section showing typical claystone with thin intercalations of coarser grains in thin and discontinuous laminae displaying starved ripples and associated cross-lamination (yellow arrows), passively filled burrows (white arrow), and ruptured laminae of fine-grained sand (red arrows). (2) Bedding-plane view with close-up of Diplocraterion isp. with fine-grained sand fill. (3) Bedding-plane view displaying Diplocraterion isp. with fine-grained sand fill in incidental association with a Tuzoia carapace. Notice deformation of Tuzoia-bearing laminae by the overprinting burrow. (4) Bedding-plane view displaying stick-like individuals. Notice common individuals having slightly broader ends. All scale bars = 10 mm.

To learn more, check out the paper published in The Journal of Paleontology here.

Written by Zane Gabriel Goodell

Ichnofabrics and temporal disjunction: Miocene continental trace fossils in the Precambrian basement of the Orinoco Oil Belt of Venezuela

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A new paper was published in Ichnos by Luis Buatois, Euridice Solórzano, Williams Rodríguez, and Gabriela Mángano examining Precambrian continental trace fossils in Venezuela.

This study documents a specific type of simple ichnofabric referred to as an unconformity-bound simple ichnofabric. The well cores in this study feature the Precambrian basement of the Orinoco Oil Belt hosting continental ichnofossils attributed to Taenidium. The bioturbation is interpreted to have be produced in the Miocene in a regolith formed on top of the Precambrian basement. The ichnofabric found here is similar to ultracomposite ichnofabrics in that it involves a significant difference in time, but it is still considered a simple ichnofabric due to representing a single bioturbation event. This study highlights the importance of recognizing temporal disjunctions in the stratigraphic record that may mislead researchers about evolutionary events.

Metamorphic basement and monospecific ichnocoenosis of the meniscate backfilled trace fossil Taenidium isp. (Ta) in the Ayacucho area in the Orinoco Oil Belt. (A) Precambrian quartz micaceous schist. (B) Taenidium isp. (Ta) in basement regolith. (C) oil-impregnated sands (OS) from fluvial Miocene Oficina Formation filling Taenidium isp. Figure 3. from Buatois et al., 2026.

Check out the paper in Ichnos here.

Written by Zane Gabriel Goodell