Dear Bob:

At long last here is your report on the McGrath A-5 Quad. clams from Alaska. Thank you very much for your patience, I apologize for not getting this to you sooner. I am now officially out of administration except for some left over odds-and-ends and it feels good to be back in science.

There is nothing among the McGrath pelecypods and rostroconchs which dasagrees with your Eifelian age and for the most part part they are garden variety genera which can be identified from the literature on the Appalachian Devonian. It is very difficult to evaluate Devonian pelecypod species, because almost monographic work has been done since the late nineteenth century. Most of the McGrath material is highly fragmentary and this also hurts species identification.

Indentification are as follows: (see faunal list)

Devonian rostroconchs are not well known either taxonomically or paleogeographically; the Mulceodens type were probably infaunal with the rostrum and third aperture probably projecting above the sediment-water interface.

There are very few articulated or "butterflied" specimens of pelecypods in these collections; most specimens are single valves indicating some transport. However, on some specimens the ornament is well preserved indicating that they were not transported far. As indicated above, the genera in these collections are widespread in North America, but it is not possible to make species level comparison.s

August 10, 1981

Robert B. Blodgett
Department of Geology
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331

Dear Bob:

I have completed my examination of the Alaskan trilobite material from the McGrath Quadrangle of Alaska. Certainly the most interesting result is the presence of the genus Camsiella represented by a new species in at least two of the collections. Heretofore this genus has been known only from the Hume Formation, District of MacKenzie, Northwest Territories. Its presence in these Alaskan collections would tend to strengthen the Hume affinities of other faunal groups from the McGrath Quadrangle collections would support an Eifelian age. I have enclosed a xerox of a photo of this new species of Camsellia which you might be interested to compare with Plate 1, Figures 12 and 13 my 1976 paper. The new species differs from truncata in having a few more axial rings and a slight post-axial notch (larval notch) in the posterior border. Another trilobite worthy of note is the Scutelliud in sample A-1217. The development of the glabellar furrows is consistent with a Frasnian age, but this apparently represents a new genus distinguished by glabellar proportions. There is nothing comparable to this taxon in the literature. This new Scutelliud has a distinctive glabellar shape as reflected by the ratio of anterior to basal glabellar width which is 1.38 for the new genus as compared with rations of two other Frasnian species, costatum at 2.22 or thomasi at 2.20.

The identifiability of the McGrath Quadrangle material is, of course, limited by the relatively poor state of preservation. Thus the comparison to setosa is simply the best I can do with the material available. Were more and better preserved material available, I might be able to diagnose this as a new and distinctive taxon. Here are the identifications I have been able to make: (see faunal list):

I hope that this information will be some use to you and would be happy to look at any more material you may have available from the Lower and Middle Devonian of Alaska.

Best regards,

Allen R. Ormiston

Siegfried Rietschel
Geology Department
Field Museum of Natural History

Robert B. Blodgett
Department of Geology
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon 97331

Dear Mr. Blodgett,

thank you very much for yours letters of March 12 and 19, which I found here, coming back from a two weeks excursion; although the material you've sent arrived safely and I looked at it yesterday, but I found no Scribroporella in it.

So I send back to you the six boxes with undetermined fossils as well as one box specimen of Coelotrochium (79RB4). The fossils, which look a little like Scribroporella are mostly amphiporoids.

I take now with me to Germany the six boxes with Coelotrochium (79RB6, 79RB8, 79RB9, 79RB11, 79RB12 and 79WG184). They should be safe from damage, for I take them in my hand baggage during the flight.

My work at Field Museum seems to be very fruitful and I am not so delighted to leave this week, for there is still a lot of half done work, which I have to finish in near future. But that is in the normal experience of a Museum visit.

So I wish you all the best for your work and your exams.

yours sincerely

Siegfried Rietschel

home address: Landessammlungen fuer Naturkunde,
Postfach 4045,
7500 Karlsruhe 1
WEST GERMANY

Technische Hochschule Darmstadt
Geologisch-Palaontologisches Institut
Schnittspahnstrasse 9
D-6100 Darmstadt

January 21th, 1981

To:
Dr. R.B. Blodgett, Dept. of Geology, Oregon State University, Corvallis/Oregon 97331 U.S.A.

Dear Dr. Blodgett,

The slides with dacryoconarids and tentaculities from mid-Eifelian beds in your dissertation area in Alaska have arrived in good condition. The preservation is not too good, often the shells are corroded or encrusted, some are broken so that the apex is missing. A definitive determination is therefore not possible - which is a pity because every good information on dacs from America would be valuable. The following may be said: (see faunal lists)

There are no biostratigraphical indications that this material would be better than your conodonts or goniatites.

Do you want the slides back or can they stay here for a while in case I need comparison with my Nevada material?

Please give my regards to Dr. Boucot.

Yours sincerely,

Frithjof Lutke

24 April 1980

Dear Robert Blodgett,

Thank you for your letter which arrived yesterday. I had looked over your Alaskan specimens at more leisure and had been intending to write. Determinations seem to have sorted themselves out fairly well and are as follows:

79RB9 Pinacites jugleri (Roemer): one specimen. Foordites sp. juv.; two specimens.

79RB8 Pinacites sp. juv.: three specimens. Foordites cf. pinguior Chlupac and Turek: four specimens. Foordites sp. juv.: probably seven small and incomplete specimens.

The only change on the last letter is that both samples would appear to be 'upper Eifelian' and about the same age. I had puzzled over the Foordites group at first, but some show the sutures clearly and also some show the imperforate umbilicus. F. pinguoir is only known elsewhere from the Chotec Limestone of Czechoslovakia (where P. jugleri also occurs). The species only differs from the much-quoted F. occultus in being fatter. The specimens of Foordites are of interest in giving some information on the ontogeny of the species.

Incidentally, both these faunas should be younger than the Gryoceratites sp. level in the Funeral Range (Palaeontology, v. 6, p. 502, 507). What faunas I saw twenty years ago from the Hume included Givetian types (ref. your date), but I've not followed up name changes of formations to see how they affect the issue.

The determination of these European oddballs in Alaska should really be recorded and if it (House probably meant to write "at" instead of "it") some stage you would write a few paragraphs on setting, I could do the rest and make a brief joint paper, perhaps for the Can. Jl. ES. The ontogenetic information needs airing too. However leave it until you can see whether you can get more.

I have for many years regretted the way in which the non-carbonate facies in eastern N. Am. is neglected. It seems to me that there is a very full L. Dev. to U. Dev. ammonoid records there which can be pieced together from place to place. I hope one day someone will follow it up.

All good wishes,
Yours sincerly,

Michael House

P.s. If you have any coniconchines in the fauna they should be looked at too. I am writing to Chlupac to see if I can get information to dispose of the 'cf.' in F. cf. ping.

Ages are in accordance with your statement of probable ages. 79RB16 is Frasnian by all of our usual criteria and the others are most likely Middle Devonian although late Early Devonian cannot be ruled out in all cases.

If 79RB4, 8, 9, and 12 are all the same age, Eifelian (approximately Hume equivalent) seems most likely.

If you have age data from other sources, especially conodonts will appreciate having this information.

If 79RB4, 8, 9, and 12 are all the same age, Eifelian (approximately Hume equivalent) seems most likely.