I want to begin by thanking you for giving me the opportunity to serve as President of The Paleontological Society and especially for the boundless cooperation I have received from you, the members. Few scientific societies work as well as The Paleontological Society. Some societies function because of the dedication of a few fully committed members. Others rely on paid, professional staff to conduct the society's business. In contrast, the success of The Paleontological Society stems from the day-to-day enthusiasm for our roles and goals that is distributed uniformly across the membership. Holding this office has been a high privilege, and I am grateful to you for having selected me.

“Ladatheca” cylindrica (Grabau, 1900) was a eurytopic metazoan with a calcareous operculum and an elongate, gently tapering conch up to 15+ cm long and with an apical angle of approximately 0.75–2.0°. This apparent polychaete was geographically widespread in the sub-trilobitic Lower Cambrian of middle latitude, siliciclastic (middle and upper Placentian Series, Avalon Zone) and low latitude, carbonate platform (Tommotian Stage, Siberia(?) and Kazakhstan; and, probably, the upper Meishucunian Stage, southwestern China) sequences.

In situ conchs (vertically to steeply inclined, apex down) of “Ladatheca” cylindrica are common in deep subtidal, siliciclastic mudstones (Chapel Island Formation) and in a peritidal algal mud mound(?) limestone (West Centre Cove Formation) in southeastern Newfoundland. Closely juxtaposed conchs locally form a worm reef at the top of the West Centre Cove Formation. This structure is older than the oldest archaeocyathan build-ups and is the earliest known metazoan-constructed biostrome. “Ladatheca” cylindrica was a dominant element of the sessile benthos prior to its apparent ecological displacement by Coleoloides typicalis Walcott, 1889, in the upper Placentian Series.

Reticulate Hornera reteramae (Bryozoa, order Cyclostomata) have been discovered as free-lying, lyre-shaped colonies in the Castle Hayne Limestone (Eocene) in North Carolina. These specimens represent a striking instance of homeomorphy in colony form with the Late Mississippian genera Lyropora and Lyroporella of the order Fenestrata.

Bryozoans with reticulate growth habit most commonly develop upright colonies. Living representatives generally grow in quiet environments or microenvironments, and fossils are generally found in situ in quiet-water deposits. However, lyre-shaped Hornera reteramae occur in skeletal packstones inferred to have been deposited in a moderate-energy, shallow, open shelf environment near normal wave base. Upper Mississippian lyre-shaped colonies are preserved in skeletal packstones and grainstones in localized channels or on upper surfaces of low-angle cross-bedded sheets interpreted as high-energy, marine shoal deposits. Modification of the reticulate growth habit to low, peripherally weighted, free-lying structures apparently allowed invasion of higher energy sand bottoms, both in Mississippian and Eocene times.

Blocks of sandy limestone dredged from the bottom of a quarry in eastern Lee County, South Carolina, contain a turritelline gastropod-dominated macrofossil assemblage, including age-diagnostic Maastrichtian ammonites. Although turritelline-dominated assemblages are common in other areas and ages, this is the first report of such an assemblage of any age from South Carolina and the first Cretaceous turritelline-dominated assemblage from eastern North America. Whereas the matrix of the turritelline layer is calcareous, the carbonate is present only as cement and the fossil assemblage did not form in a typically carbonate-dominated environment. This fact agrees with the observed absence of “turritella limestones” in the Cretaceous. Such limestones are common in the Paleogene but absent in the Neogene. This pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that turritellines as a group have become less thermophilic since the Cretaceous.

New Mollusca from the shallow marine, highly fossiliferous Wangaloa Formation of southeastern Otago, South Island, New Zealand, are described. This paper reports three new species and one new genus: Leionucula palaioanaxea n. sp. of the Nuculidae, Pyropsis zinsmeisteri n. sp. of the Tudiclidae, and Wangacteon grebneffi n. gen. and sp. of the Acteonidae. These taxa represent new records in New Zealand of apparently endemic taxa. The molluscan fauna of the Wangaloa Formation is important in the understanding of Paleogene biogeography of the Southern Hemisphere and changes in faunal composition of the Cretaceous–Tertiary Gondwana Realm. Genus- and species-level endemism in the “Wangaloan” fauna is marked and is probably a reflection of “greater New Zealand” 's geographic and genetic isolation during the Paleocene. Although deposits containing early Paleogene Mollusca are generally rare in the Southern Hemisphere, comparisons of known Gondwana molluscan taxa and those of similar age in the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the Mollusca of the Wangaloa Formation have Early Paleocene affinities. Microfossil evidence, in addition, supports an Early Paleocene age for the fauna. However, an uppermost Cretaceous age is indicated for the basal part of the Wangaloa Formation stratigraphically below the shell beds, but the K–T boundary has yet to be located.

A new species of planorbid gastropod, Vorticifex taylori, is described from the Late Miocene (Clarendonian) Truckee Formation at its type area in Churchill County, Nevada. Comparison with younger and older species assigned to Vorticifex indicates a high degree of morphologic variation within the genus as contrasted with relatively conservative intraspecific variation, which may reflect ecologic similarities at discrete times during the development of the Great Basin subprovince of the Basin and Range physiographic province.

Diverse bivalve faunules in the Upper Mississippian (Chesterian) Bluestone and Hinton Formations in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia contain 49 species representing 29 genera. Of these, six new species are proposed: Ptychopteria pusilla, Streblochondria mutata, Streblopteria girtyi, Ectogrammysia inaffecta, E. prolata, and Cardiomorpha obovata. The Hinton and Bluestone Formations fall into Mamet's Foraminiferal Zones 18 and 19, respectively.

Cretaceous and early Tertiary Pholadidae (Mollusca: Bivalvia) from the Pacific Slope of North America are rare and only poorly known. Three new species, each the earliest known Pacific Slope representative of its respective genus, are described: Barnea (Anchomasa) saulae n. sp. (Pholadinae) from the Upper Cretaceous (Coniacian and Santonian) Redding Formation near Redding, uppermost Sacramento Valley, Shasta County, northern California; Chaceia fulcherae n. sp. (Martesiinae) from three widely separated areas of outcrop represented by 1) the middle Miocene (“Temblor”) Temblor Formation near Oil City and in Jasper Canyon, western Fresno County, central California, 2) the middle Miocene (“Temblor”) Topanga(?) Group in the northern Santa Ana Mountains, Orange County, southern California, and 3) the upper Miocene (Wishkahan) Montesano Formation on the Middle Fork of the Satsop River, Mason County, western Washington; and Netastoma squiresi n. sp. (Jouannetiinae) from the lowest Eocene (uppermost “Meganos”) part of the Santa Susana Formation north of Simi Valley in the Santa Susana Mountains, Ventura County, southern California.

The Saratoga Chalk of Arkansas yields a rich ammonite fauna of 17 species, referred to the Nostoceras (N.) hyatti zone. Recognition that the northwest European N. (N.) pozaryskii Blaszkiewicz, 1980, is a synonym of N. (N.) hyatti Stephenson, 1941, and N. (N.) helicinum (Shumard, 1861) dates the zone as latest Campanian on the basis of co-occurrence with Belemnitella langei Jeletzky, 1948, in Poland. Most previous estimates of the Campanian–Maastrichtian boundary in the Gulf Coast have been drawn at too low a level, at least in terms of ammonite faunas. Elements of the N. (N.) hyatti zone fauna occur in the United States Western Interior, and show the base of the Maastrichtian there to lie above the Baculites jenseni zone.

Actinocamax cobbani, a new belemnitellid species from the middle Coniacian of Montana and Wyoming, is described, including univariate and bivariate biometric analyses. The species is stout and medium sized, lanceolate or strongly lanceolate in ventral view, and has adorally a low cone-shaped alveolar fracture. It may be granulated. It is compared to species of Actinocamax Miller and Gonioteuthis Bayle from the North American and North European paleobiogeographic provinces. The importance of various morphological characters, such as the shape of the guard and the structure of the adoral end, are discussed. The majority of the belemnitellids of the North American Province are endemic and the stratigraphic distribution is punctuated during the Late Cretaceous, suggesting short-lived migrations of populations from the North European Province.

I he National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), Department 01 Paleobiology, recently received the collection of invertebrate fossils (except Insecta and Patagonia material) formerly housed in the Princeton University, Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences. This fine collection contains approximately 70,000 specimens; type and nontype specimens were stored together in taxonomic order. Current documentation for the entire collection consists of a card catalogue. Following curation, the specimens will be housed taxonomically in standing type and nontype collections. Lists of type specimens received will be published as they are isolated. Borrowers should return specimens to the Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, upon completion of loans.

Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona exposes sediments of late Cenomanian–Turonian age deposited during the transgressive–regressive Greenhorn cyclothem. These sediments contain a diverse selachian fauna that consists of 21 taxa: Hybodus sp., Ptychodus whipplei, P. decurrens, P. cf. P. mammillaris, Chiloscyllium greeni, Chiloscyllium sp., Scapanorhynchus raphiodon, Cretodus semiplicatus, Cretolamna appendiculata, C. woodwardi, Cretoxyrhina mantelli, cf. Leptostyrax sp., Squalicorax falcatus, Rhinobatos sp., Pseudohypolophus mcnultyi, Protoplatyrhina hopii n. sp., Ischyrhiza schneideri, I. avonicola, Onchopristis dunklei, Ptychotrygon triangularis, P. rubyae n. sp., and five types of dermal denticles. Two selachian assemblages, a nearshore and a deeper water assemblage, are present in this fauna. Though there is some provincialism in North Africa, Europe, and North America during the Greenhorn marine cycle, the wide dispersion of some shark taxa and the great similarities between widely separated selachian faunas are striking.

The advent of readily available computer-based clustering packages has created some controversy in the micropaleontological community concerning the use and interpretation of computer-based biofacies discrimination. This is because dramatically different results can be obtained depending on methodology. The analysis of various clustering techniques reveals that, in most instances, no statistical hypothesis is contained in the clustering model and no basis exists for accepting one biofacies partitioning over another. Furthermore, most techniques do not consider standard error in species abundances and generate results that are not statistically relevant. When many rare species are present, statistically insignificant differences in rare species can accumulate and overshadow the significant differences in the major species, leading to biofacies containing members having little in common.

A statistically based “error-weighted maximum likelihood” (EWML) clustering method is described that determines biofacies by assuming that samples from a common biofacies are normally distributed. Species variability is weighted to be inversely proportional to measurement uncertainty. The method has been applied to samples collected from the Fraser River Delta marsh and shows that five distinct biofacies can be resolved in the data. Similar results were obtained from readily available packages when the data set was preprocessed to reduce the number of degrees of freedom. Based on the sample results from the new algorithm, and on tests using a representative micropaleontological data set, a more conventional iterative processing method is recommended. This method, although not statistical in nature, produces similar results to EWML (not commercially available yet) with readily available analysis packages. Finally, some of the more common clustering techniques are discussed and strategies for their proper utilization are recommended.

Distortion of the paleontologic literature in most of the 450 papers bearing V. J. Gupta as author or co-author during the past 30 years has been documented by Agarwal and Singh (1981), Talent (1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c, in press), Talent et al. (1988, 1989, 1990, 1991), Ahluwalia (1989), Bassi (1989, 1990), Brock et al. (1991), and Radhakrishna (1991). Replies to the charges of fabrication and distortion by Gupta (1989, 1990a, 1990b) were futile attempts to distract the reader, rather than to provide information to refute the charges.

Mackenzie Gordon, Jr., 78 (Figure 1), was a geologist and paleontologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for more than 40 years. Mac, as he was affectionately known, died of cardiac arrest at his home on 30 January 1992 after a very brief illness. He is survived by his wife Barbara Walker Gordon of Washington, D.C.