November
21 , 2003
Front-Page
News
Fossil Fame Mount Holyoke geologist Mark McMenamin
has named a 500-million-year-old genus of fossil after a prominent
Massachusetts teacher and geologist, the Rev. James Skehan, according
to reports in a number of papers including the Metro
West Daily News. The trilobite fossils, very rare in New England, are from
an extinct marine arthropod vaguely resembling the horseshoe
crab. According to the October 13 account by Allison Morgan:
"Until recently, the Rev. James Skehan was known for his contributions
to geology and theology. Now the Weston resident's name is synonymous with
the 500-million-year-old genus of a fossil.
'It's really overwhelming,' said Skehan, professor emeritus
in the geology and geophysics department at Boston College and Jesuit priest,
of having the fossil named in his honor.
Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark A. S. McMenamin named the genus part
of the trilobite fossil Skehanos after Skehan, whom he had only met once before.
The two met when Skehan gave a lecture in Amherst on his book, A
Roadside Geology of Massachusetts, which was published in 2001.
'I had known him by reputation, and I was very impressed with his book,' said
McMenamin, who has been a professor at Mount Holyoke since 1984. 'The idea
to name the fossil after him came to me very quickly.' "
Further, in a presentation on November 2 at the Geological Society of America
annual meeting in Seattle (entitled "Spriggina is a trilobitoid ecdysozoan"),
McMenamin described how the Skehanos trilobite provides critical evidence for
interpreting a well-known Precambrian fossil (Spriggina) as a probable trilobite
ancestor.
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