History of ichnology

Abstract

Carroll Lane Fenton and his wife Mildred Adams Fenton wrote a series of papers in the 1930's comparing the traces made by modern organisms with particular ichnofossils. To the Fentons’ credit, their actualistic approach was almost a decade ahead of popular neoichnology and represented some of the earliest attempts to establish a phylogenetic classification of trace fossils in North America.

Key words:

• actualism
• history of ichnology
• ichnofossils
• phylogenetic interpretation