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Early graptolite research: Eduard Suess and the Bilimek collection

2021; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3140/bull.geosci.1829

1802-8225

B. Hopfensperger, J. Maletz, P. Lukeneder, Petra Heinz, F. Ottner,

Archaeological and Geological Studies

is probably not best known for his graptolite research, but graptolites provided the start of his scientific career and thus, it is interesting and important to have an understanding of this palaeontological work and to be able to investigate the material on which he was working.Suess (Fig. 1A) wrote only a single paper on graptolites (Suess 1851a), but it includes the first descriptions of a number of graptolite taxa.These are still used today, even though the material on which the species were described remained largely unknown.Some of the originals of his illustrations were recently discovered in the collection of Dominik Bilimek (Fig. 1B) and are used as the basis for the understanding of the graptolite work of Suess.A short abstract of a pre sentation on the Graptolite Shales or Utica Shales from 19 April 1851 (Suess 1851b) may indicate that Suess intended more work on graptolites, but this did not materialize, most likely due to the unfavourable critique by Joachim Barrande (see Barrande 1852).When Suess (1851a) described the 'Böhmische Graptolithen', he was one of the first scientists to work in this field, but his start was difficult and when he presented his research to Joachim Barrande prior to his publication in 1850, Barrande immediately rushed to publish his own research on graptolites, for priority reasons, in a still fairly incomplete state as he even noted in his introduction ['dans cet état incomplet': Barrande 1850, p. 3].On the other hand, E. Suess studied Barrande's graptolite collection made available to him by J. Barrande himself.Soon after receiving the publication of Suess in 1851, Bar rande wrote devastating comments about the research of Suess (Barrande 1852, p. 155), describing the paper as a work without content ['inhaltslose Arbeit'] and regarded it as unacceptable, based on poor and incomplete material.He even questioned the scientific competence of Suess and as a result, Suess never again published on graptolites.Suess (1916, pp.