CHARLES DOWNIE VOLUME

Volume 3 Part 2 September 1984The Journal of the British Micropalaeontological Society, London

The British Micropalaeontological Society

Journal of MicropalaeontologyThe British Micropalaeontological Society was founded in 1970 to further the study of micropalaeontology. Meetings and demonstrations are held regularly throughout the year and the Society now publishes a number of both serial and occasional publications. Membership is open to individuals and to libraries on payment of the appropriate annual subscription. Rates for 1984 are:

Library membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £15Ordinary membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £10Student membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £5

Student members are persons receiving full-time instruction at educational institutions recognised by the Society. Appli-cation forms for membership should be obtained from the Treasurer. The journal will accept original papers and review articles dealing with all aspects of micropalaeontology. Instruction to authors may be obtained on request from the Editor.

EDITOR Dr Lesley M. Sheppard, SSI (UK) Ltd., Tannery House, Tannery Lane, Send, Woking, Surrey GU23 7EF.

OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY Chairman: Dr R. H. Bate, SSI (UK) Ltd., Tannery House, Tannery Lane, Send, Woking, Surrey GU23 7EF. Secretary: Dr P. Weaver, Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Wormley, Godalming, Surrey. Treasurer: Dr J. E. Whittaker, Department of Palaeontology, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD. Editor: Dr Lesley Sheppard, SSI (UK) Ltd., Tannery House, Tannery Lane, Send, Woking, Surrey GU23 7EF. Newsletter Editor: Dr R. L. Austin, Department of Geology, University of Southampton, Southampton, Hants. SO9 5NH.

SERIAL PUBLICATIONS Journal of Micropalaeontology, Volume 1 (1982) – Published annually and issued free to all members. The British Micropalaeontologist, Number 1 (1976) – Newsletter; three issues per year free to all members. A Stereo-Atlas of Ostracod Shells, Volume 1 (1973) – Published biannually. Subscription for 1984: £22 (Libraries £40). Orders to: Dr R.C. Whatley, Department of Geology, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY23 3DB.

OCCASIONAL PUBLICATIONS 1. A stratigraphical index of British Ostracoda

R. H. Bate & J. E. Robinson (Editors) 1978 Available from John Wiley & Sons Limited

2. Stratigraphical Atlas of Fossil Foraminifera D. G. Jenkins & J. W. Murray (Editors) 1981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £28.00

3. Microfossils from Recent and Fossil Shelf Seas J. W. Neale & M. D. Brasier (Editors) 1981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £37.50

4. Fossil and Recent Ostracods R. H. Bate, J. E. Robinson & L. M. Sheppard (Editors) 1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £38.50

5. A Stratigraphical index of Calcareous Nannofossils A. R. Lord (Editor) 1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £33.00

Nos. 2–5 are available to members at list price less 40% discount, plus postage and packing (£1 per book in UK, £1.50 per book over-seas). Order from the publisher (not the Society): Ellis Horwood Limited, Market Cross House, Cooper Street, Chichester, West Sussex P019 1EB., or from John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Baffin Lane, Chichester, Sussex.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This issue of the Journal of Micropalaeontology has been aided by generous financial support from both individuals and organisations; a complete list is given at the end of the volume.

UPS Blackpool Ltd., Stanley Road, Blackpool FY1 4QN Price £15

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EDITORIAL COMMENT

I am very pleased to introduce Volume 3 Part 2, a specially funded issue in honour of Professor Charles Downie of the University of Sheffield. We in the Society have endeavoured to keep this secret from Charles but, short of asking him outright, I do not know whether or not we have succeeded.

I should like to acknowledge the hard work of John Richardson and thank him for soliciting and compiling the present collection of articles. Johnʼs foreword overleaf explains (for those who may not know) just who Charles Downie is and why we considered it just to assemble a collection of works in his honour.

Lesley Sheppard

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FOREWORD

This volume is published in honour of Charles Downie on his retirement as Professor of Geology at the Univer- sity of Sheffield. Charles will continue to teach micropalaeontology in a part-time capacity and we all welcome this and wish him well in his new rô1e. Charles ̓pioneer studies on fossil acritarchs and dinoflagellates have aided in the establishment at Sheffield of the foremost research school in the field of organic-walled microfossils.

First under the chairmanship of Professor Leslie R. Moore and then Charles Downie, micropalaeontology has grown and thrived at Sheffield University: Carboniferous stratigraphy and palynology was the initial major theme under Leslie Moore and his research students and staff inter alia Herbert Sullivan, Roger Neves, Alan Higgins and Bob Wagner. The study of Lower Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cainozoic microplankton formed a second major theme, which was fostered early, and later became dominant. Thus, the Department of Geology at Sheffield has become an internationally recognised centre for palynological research unrivalled in Britain, and by honouring Charles Downie we also pay tribute to Leslie Moore the founder of the school. Both men have played different rôles, and Charles ̓ contributions have been mainly in the study of palynomorphs, usually marine, from the Pre- Cambrian to the Cainozoic, The contents of this volume are largely a reflection of this for there are papers on Pre- cambrian cryptarchs, Palaeozoic acritarchs and fossil and Recent dinoflagellate cysts, all groups that Charles has worked on.

Charles Downie is a first class geologist, a careful and methodical teacher, scientific researcher and observer. His painstaking orderly approach, a rigorous discipline that he imposes on his research students as well as himself, has ensured that his results are always soundly based, thereby opening up new avenues of research. Perhaps to say that he is one of the canniest of Scots says it all.

Charles ̓early work on Lower Palaeozoic acritarchs is classic and, under his supervision, led to the researches of Tony Jenkins, Richard Lister, Ken Fryer, Syed Rasul, Paul Hill, Tim Potter, Graham Booth, Ken Dorning, Charlie Love and Robert Turner. Charles first published on Tremadocian microplankton (acritarchs) in 1958 and has recently (1982) published a work on Lower Cambrian acritarchs. A comparison of these two papers shows how far our knowledge, especially of the biostratigraphical utility of these microfossils, has progressed since the pioneering days of the late 1950s. But to me, the careful methodical approach is epitomised by his work on the acritarchs and spores from the Wenlock (Downie, 1963). This passion for the Palaeozoic is reflected in his “obser- vations on the nature of acritarchs” (Downie, 1972), and it is fitting that one of the papers in this volume is by Anna Volkova from the Soviet Union who, along with the late Boris Timofeev, has pioneered the study of Lower Palaeozoic acritarchs there. Also in this volume the work by Jux, Molyneux, Manger & Owens, and Wicander typifies some modern and traditional approaches to acritarch studies.

Downieʼs publication with Evitt & Sarjeant (1963) was an important step in formulating a viable classification for organic-walled microplankton, particularly the acritarchs. But it also reflects Charles ̓interest in dinoflagellates and the second major aspect of his work at Sheffield namely the study of Mesozoic, Cainozoic, Quaternary and Recent microplankton. Much of this research was undertaken by research students working under his careful guidance and is partly dealt with in Bill Sarjeantʼs first article (this volume), but it is worth emphasising what an impact these students have had, and continue to have, on our knowledge of the biostratigraphy and modern distribution patterns of dinoflagellate cysts. The papers (this volume) by Eaton, Harland, Lewis, Dodge & Tett, and Sarjeant illustrate some of the varied aspects of modern work on dinoflagellate cysts. The paper on techniques by Evitt will be invaluable to many.

The number of Charles Downieʼs publications, many of which are given at the end of Sarjeantʼs first paper, and the list of theses of his research students listed at the end of this volume, testify not only to Charles ̓own creative abilities but to the success he has had in communicating his quiet enthusiasm to students, many of whom have become international figures in their own right. Perhaps the greatest tribute to Charles is that so many of his students have continued their varied palynological research in Institutes of Marine Biology, the Oil Industry, Geological Surveys and Universities.

The response to the request for papers for this tribute was enthusiastic and the volume contains contributions from research workers in Britian, Canada, West Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union, some of them written by former students of Sheffield. I would like to thank all the contributors for their promptness and help but in particular Jane Lewis, our youngest contributor, for the clarity of presentation of her jointly authored paper with Dodge and Tett; and Geoff Eaton for much advice and patient discussion.

Generous financial contributions have been made by many former students and particularly by a number of organisations listed at the end of this volume. Thanks are due to all who contributed but especially to Bernard Owens whose efforts have been unstinting in raising the necessary finance to ensure publication of this special issue of the Journal of Micropalaeontology.

Finally, I should like to thank Mrs. M. Townsend and Mrs. B. Wilson in the Department of Geology, University of Sheffield who had the considerable task of compiling and checking the list of Charles Downieʼs research students and their theses, and I should also like to thank Miss Pat Miller who obtained for us the portrait of Charles.

John B. Richardson