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

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

July 28, 1980

To: Mr. Robert B. Blodgett
Department of Geology, O.S.U.
Corvallis, Oregon 97331

Dear Robert:

List below are the identifications of the tabulates from the Alaskan material you sent me: (see faunal lists)

I have compared your material with the illustrations in Churkin and others (1975)(USGS Prof. Paper 823 A,B,C,D,) and the following comparisons appear reasonable:

Favosites sp. A = Favosites sp. (Pl. 20, fig. 1,2)
Pachyfavosites sp. A = Pachyfavosites sp. (Pl. 20, fig. 3,4)
Pachyfavosites sp. B = Pachyfavosites sp. (Pl. 20, fig. 5,6)
Parastriatopora sp. = Parastriatopora sp. (Pl. 20, fig. 9, 10)

Except for the absence of Heliolites your faunas appear similar in generic composition to the fauna listed in Churkin and others (1975) for the McGrath quad. (p. 33, table 14). The one exceptio to this is your 79RB19 which also contains Parastriatopora sp. which Churkin and others (1975) list from the Sleetmute quad (p. 33, table 15).

The tabulates do not indicate a specific age interval, but they are compatible with the Eifelian age suggested by your conodont, brachiopod, and goniatite evidence.

Hope this information is of help to you. Let me know if I can be of any further help.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Flory
Associate Professor of Geology