Gastropods are rare fossils in the Cambrian of Wisconsin. They are usually small and flattened. During the summer of 1978, while collecting trilobites along the western side of the state, I discovered a new gastropod in the Crepicephalus zone (as defined by Twenhofel, Raasch, and Thwaites, 1935; Nelson, 1951). It is a three-dimensional fossil represented by external mold and steinkern. This was the only gastropod uncovered during the splitting of over 200 kilograms of sandstone, which also yielded hundreds of trilobite cranidia and pygidia.

Stephen J. Culver was born, nurtured, and educated in the United Kingdom. Both his bachelor's and doctoral degrees are from the University of Wales, Swansea, where he had the good fortune to study with the eminent micropaleontologist Fred Banner. Jobs for paleontologists are, evidently, perennially scarce, and in 1976 when he earned his Ph.D., he was unemployed. Consequently, he began his career by driving a lorry. Fortunately for all of us, he quickly learned that his training did not uniquely qualify him for this endeavor. Within a year he secured a post as Lecturer in Geology at the University of Sierra Leone.

The 1992 Midyear Meeting of the Council of The Paleontological Society convened at 8:35 am, Saturday, 5 May 1992, in the Geology Department of the University of Iowa. The Society is grateful to Brian Glenister for the arrangements that he and his staff provided the Council.

Numerous specimens of the neritid gastropod Nerita (Bajanerita) n. subgen. californiensis (White, 1885) are present in the Upper Cretaceous Rosario Formation at Punta Banda, Baja California, Mexico (Figure 1). Marincovich (1975) assigned these strata to a Late Campanian to Early Maastrichtian age. The strata contain extensive biostromal deposits of the caprinid rudistid bivalve Coralliochama orcutti White, 1885, that probably lived below mean wave base in a shallow-water, low-energy environment periodically affected by storm waves or currents (Marincovich, 1975). The nearby shoreline was apparently defined by steep wave-washed bedrock cliffs and local pocket beaches that formed along the margin of a forearc basin (Yeo, 1984). Scattered about in the sandstone matrix among the rudistid remains are the small-sized specimens of N. (B.) californiensis, which commonly weather out as resistant, complete shells on the surface of the rock. Saul (1970) concluded that the neritid and other shallow-water gastropods at Punta Banda accumulated in sediment-trapping depressions within the Coralliochama buildups. These gastropods had originally roamed over the algal pastures of these buildups. The color patterns preserved on many of the specimens of N. (B.) californiensis also provide evidence that the depth of water was shallow and within the photic zone. Furthermore, Sohl (1971) reported that Campanian and Maastrichtian gastropod assemblages of the Baja California region are mostly associated with rudist buildups, and warm-water rocky intertidal neritids are among the dominant faunal elements. Lowenstam and Epstein (1959), using oxygen-isotope studies of an ammonite, suggested that the Punta Banda rudistids lived at a marginally tropical temperature of about 19°C.

Thank you Marty for your kind words and thank you to The Paleontological Society for this honor. It is rare that one gets the opportunity to thank the people that help a career to develop and prosper and I would simply like to do that today.

In 1904 Osborn named a new species of Mesohippus, M. validus, based on a specimen consisting of a skull, jaws, and portions of the limbs. Osborn identified this specimen as American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) catalog number 680 and provided a brief description, some measurements, and an illustration.

I have known Gerard R. Case for only twelve among his thirty-odd years of work in vertebrate paleontology, but from that relatively limited vantage point, I'd say this year's awardee is a phenomenon, in most of the literal meanings of that word. Jerry is simultaneously an amateur and the prime North American authority on Mesozoic and Paleogene shark taxonomy. That fact says much about Jerry's energies and dedication, and perhaps a bit about the state of our science; nevertheless, I am very pleased that The Paleontological Society has granted the award to him this year for many reasons, not the least of which is that Jerry will now stop asking me whether or not “they're going to give him the award while he's still alive.”

At its midyear meeting in Iowa City, Iowa, on 5 May 1992, Council of The Paleontological Society selected the following candidates for office from nominees proposed by the Nominating Committee:

President-Elect (1993–1994): Craig C. Black, Los Angeles, CA

Treasurer (1993–1996): Johnny A. Waters, Carrollton, GA

Councilor-at-large under 40 (1993–1995): Dana H. Geary, Madison, WI

Upper Silurian and lowermost Devonian fossil plant assemblages are often dominated by fragmentary remains of problematic land plants that are composed of a tubular anatomy. Traditionally, these remains have been divided into two morphotypes: large three-dimensionally preserved axes (the Prototaxites group), and smaller thalloid incrustations referred to the genus Nematothallus Lang. Because of their peculiar anatomy of different combinations of tubular elements, these plants do not appear to be closely related to the Tracheidatae (sensu Bremer et al., 1987). Neither do they fit easily into any extant algal groups (Rossat, 1952; Edwards, 1982; Strother, 1988). For these reasons, when he first described the genus Nematothallus, Lang (1937) constructed an informal class of plants, the nematophytales, to include these fossils. Strother (1988) further emphasized the differences between the nematophytales and both embryophytes and algae by placing them into a new group, the Paraphyta.

At its interim meeting in Iowa City in May 1992, the Paleontological Society Council established the Presidential Citation, which is to be awarded by the President upon approval of the Council. The award is intended to recognize the efforts of people who have gone out of their way to help paleontologists, especially people with little to gain by such assistance.

I started out as a commercial artist and cartoonist. One day, 32 years ago, while working for a printing plant in the art department, I saw large press sheets for a fossil book (it was the second printing, with color plates, of Fenton and Fenton's Fossil Book). I asked one of the printers for copies of the sheets. I brought them back into the department where I worked, and while on my lunch hour, I cut them apart and sewed them together to form a book of sorts.