The Buffalo Association of Professional Geologists (BAPG) is pleased to announce that its monthly dinner meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 19, 2004 at Eddie Ryan’s Restaurant, located at 50 Central Avenue in Lancaster, NY. The topic of presentation and discussion will be“Conodonts in time and space: the form, function, and utility of an amazing microfossil”presented by Dr. Jeffrey Over of SUNY Geneseo.

Conodonts are the millimeter-sized phosphatic tooth-like remains of an extinct eel-like organism currently aligned with the chordates and possibly the oldest vertebrate. While conodonts were originally described in the 1850’s, a whole organism was not discovered and described until 1983, which lead to interesting speculation as to their function and host animal. Conodonts first appear in the Cambrian, represented by simple cone-shaped elements. Later and more sophisticated elements are clearly paired and part of multielement apparatuses that function as graspers, slicers, and mashers in an oral apparatus. Due to relatively rapid evolutionary changes, wide occurrence in marine environments, and ease of collection from clastic and carbonate strata, conodonts have become widely utilized as a standard biostratigraphic tool in Cambrian through Triassic rocks. Conodonts can be recovered from most of the marine strata in western New York, including the famous North Evans “conodont bed” Limestone exposed along Eighteenmile Creek and in several other sites in Erie County. Pristine conodonts are light amber in color, as burial temperature increases the organics turn progressively darker before being completely volatized. The color change is a distinct paleothermometer that can be tied to hydrocarbon potential of strata. Carbon and oxygen isotope studies from conodonts are clues to paleoclimate conditions, and Uranium scavenged on the seafloor may allow radioactive dating of conodonts – a direct tie of relative and absolute dates.

Dr. Over received a BS from Allegheny College, a MSc from the University of Alberta, and a PhD from Texas Tech University. He is currently a professor of geological sciences with 12 years of service at SUNY-Geneseo. His main areas of research are organic-rich mud rocks, microfossil biostratigraphy, and mass extinction events where the goal is to determine the environments in which these rocks form, the causes of global mass extinctions, methods for correlation, and determination of absolute dates of events. This has lead to modifications of the geologic time scale and recognition of event horizons that can be correlated globally. Dr. Over received the Chancellors Award for Excellence in Teaching (1998) and the Chancellors Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2003). He currently lives in Hemlock, New York with wife and daughter.