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Category : Publications

Posted : Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Edited By : Rebekah Grmela
Monday, May 3, 2021

Outstanding Paper Awards

Rebekah Grmela

Each year, the PALAIOS and JSR editorial teams award submissions for the Most Outstanding Papers submitted to their publication. Winners for the 2020 year were selected by committee with certificates awarded at the SEPM Awards Ceremony at AAPG ACE each year. Due to COVID rescheduling these past two events, we would like to take a moment to highlight and congratulate the below author for their outstanding paper, as well as the papers which received honorable mention:  

The winner for most Outstanding Paper appearing in PALAIOS is:

Tracing Origin and Collapse of Holocene Benthic Baseline Communities in the Northern Adriatic Sea
by Gallmetzer et. al.
https://doi.org/10.2110/palo.2018.068

Two papers also received Honorable Mention:

Experimental Preservation of Muscle Tissue in Quartz Sand and Kaolinite
by Newman et. al.

https://doi.org/10.2110/palo.2019.030


Conch Fritters Through Time: Human Predation and Population Demographics of Lobatus Gigas on San Salvador Island, the Bahamas 

by Ruga et. al.

https://doi.org/10.2110/palo.2018.054


The winners for most Outstanding Paper appearing in JSR are co-awarded to:

by O. Remus Lazar; Kevin M. Bohacs; Joe H. S. Macquaker; Juergen Schieber; Timothy M. Demko

by Erica P. Suosaari; R. Pamela Reid; Amanda M. Oehlert; Phillip E. Playford; Carl K. Steffensen; Miriam S. Andres; Gregory V. Suosaari; Gary R. Milano; Gregor P. Eberli

Congratulations to our 2019 winners! 2020 winners will be announced at a later date.
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Member Comments

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Roy Plotnick

I am pleased that SEPM has decided to put out a statement about evolution. It is long, long overdue; other societies, such as the Paleontological Society, posted such statements decades ago Unfortunately, the proposed statement fails on many fronts and should be rethought. The issues involve both structure and content. In terms of structure, it is too long, pedagogic, and academic. There is a huge literature on why evolution is correct and creationism is wrong; a policy statement is not the place to repeat such details. Keep it simple!! Related to this, it is not clear what the intended audience will be. The public? Students? SEPM members? What do you want them to know? As for content: it takes far too simplistic a view of the opposition to the teaching of evolution and the age of the Earth. Eugenie Scott, of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), wrote an excellent essay on the spectrum of creationist beliefs (https://ncse.ngo/antievolutionism-and-creationism-united-states). Young Earth Creationists are only a fringe part of this. The statement misses all of the current tactics used by the creationist community, such as “teach the controversy,” which is also used a method against teaching climate change (https://ncse.ngo/teach-controversy-comes-climate-science). Also, why give the YEC people any credibility by talking about them at all? What would make this much stronger is it focused on topics that are the particular purview of the members of SEPM. For example, why not say that sedimentary geology documents that the history of the Earth shows the joint evolution of its atmosphere, oceans, surface, and life? That dealing with future environmental issues requires understanding this history and that doing so is what members of SEPM work on every day.

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Roy Plotnick