Tribology and Trilobites

Giovanni Pari
Department of Physics, University of Toronto

These 3-D images of trilobites were produced by a friend of mine who works in a tribology lab at the University of British Columbia. Tribology is the field of study dealing with friction and lubrication. To produce these images, the surface is scanned mechanically by a pin which records the elevation along lines across the specimen. The resolution is quite good (of the order of 100 microns) even for rather flat specimens. The mechanical data is fed to a computer which ten produces the 3-D pictures. Can anyone think of useful applications for such techniques? The complete specimen is Elrathia; the cranidium is Triarthrus.

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Trilobites at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University

Fred Collier

Most museum collections tend to grow in particular areas of staff interest. As a result, there has been a hiatus of nearly three decades in the growth of the MCZ trilobite collection. Very little has been added since the ‘50s. The good news is that the hiatus was preceded by about 100 years of sometimes spectacular building into a world class collection highlighted by good variety in post-Cambrian specimens from classical European localities.

The Agassizs, father and son, were voracious collectors and acquisitors of collections of all types, and they did not overlook trilobites in their efforts. The 50 years from 1850 to 1900 was a time when the Museum of Comparative Zoology was being built and almost filled with collections. In one relatively short period, four major invertebrate fossil collections were purchased. The Barrande, von Schary, Walcott-Rust, and F.H. Day collections warrant special attention.

A purchase was made in 1875 directly from Joachim Barrande (a handwritten invoice list still exists, naming trilobites and brachiopods). The carefully totalled 1400 specimens of trilobites included a number of figures specimens. Only a few years later, in 1881, another purchase of Bohemian material was made from the heirs of J.M. von Schary. This collection was estimated by the packer, J. Hamlin, to contain more than 100,000 specimens. Although Hyatt, in bringing together the Schary cephalopods in 1889 estimated 11,000 specimens of orthocerids alone, there were also many hundreds of trilobites in the collections. Together, these two collections stand as the best representation of Bohemian specimens anywhere in the world outside of Prague.

At about the same time as the European specimens were being accessioned, two North American collections arrived. The well-known collection of C.D. Walcott and his fellow collector, Rust, provided a very large number of trilobites from the Trenton, New York area. This collections is still used frequently for research and remains very important in the study of Upper Ordovician trilobites because of the outstanding preservation. The Rust Quarry site, long unworked and known only to local people, has recently been reopened by Tom Whiteley who has started to accumulate large numbers of new specimens. The other North American collection that arrived in the period of expansion was the F.H. Day collection of Silurian fossils from the dolomite quarries around his home in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and from neighboring areas. This collection, recently inventoried at about 15,000 specimens by Don Mikulic, contains many fine trilobites from the reef deposits in the area.

Percy Raymond joined the MCZ staff in 1912. He continued trilobite studies at Cambridge until his death in 1952. Most of his trilobites came from Vermont, New York and the southern Appalachians. His wide-ranging field excursions with students went to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Here he made numerous collections from the Burgess Shale and collected trilobites from other areas including Mt. Stephen and the Mural Glacier area.

Harry Whittington joined the staff just prior to Raymond’s death. Much of his work at Harvard involved study of trilobite ontogeny using silicified faunas. Many of these specimens were sent to the National Museum in Washington, but some remain at the MCZ. His work on Ordovician trilobites of Newfoundland cannot be overlooked. Whittington spent 16 very productive years at the MCZ which resulted in the addition of many new specimens; in addition to organizing, identifying and publishing many in-house specimens, as well as arranging the collections in their present condition.