If you have a set of rocks, what should you call them?
By tradition, palaeontologists use the Linnaean scheme in the classification of fossil organisms. But what about the naming of rocks or sequences of rocks in which those fossils occur; or what about those rocks which never had even a whiff of an organism at the time of their formation? My favourite...
| Published in: | Antarctic Science |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1991
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954102091000019 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0954102091000019 |
| Summary: | By tradition, palaeontologists use the Linnaean scheme in the classification of fossil organisms. But what about the naming of rocks or sequences of rocks in which those fossils occur; or what about those rocks which never had even a whiff of an organism at the time of their formation? My favourite rock name is Charnockite, named from the tombstone of Job Charnock, an employee of the East India Company and the founder of Calcutta, who by legend “after the death of his wife, every year sacrificed a cock to her memory in the mausoleum” (Dictionary of National Biography, 1990) until his own death in January 1693. But it is not individual rock types that form the subject of this note; rather it is larger sets of related rocks, whether sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic in origin. Description of related sets of rocks requires schemes of nomenclature that are widely accepted and used; these, in themselves, must be firmly based on an internationally agreed set of principles, and there must be wide dissemination of additions to the nomenclature. |
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