Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to the Lethaia Foundation and, in particular the chairman, Hans Arne Nakrem, for publishing this volume. We are also grateful to Svend Stouge, Editor-in-Chief of Fossils and Strata for his hard efforts in seeing this volume through to production. Sincere thanks must also go to the reviewers of the papers: Per Ahlberg, Brian Chatterton, Euan Clarkson, Andrei Dronov, Thomas Hegna, David Holloway, Michal Mergl, Frank Nikolaisen, Bob Owens, Alan Thomas, Xue-Jian Zhu, Anna Żylińska and three anonymous referees.

Introduction

As the instigator and organizer of the first conference, held in Norway in 1973, I am delighted that others in our very active research community have followed my lead and convened further meetings on trilobites and other early arthropods. All the symposia with associated field trips have given me the chance to become better acquainted with new faces and to forge friendships which have lasted to the present. In this respect, I thank Fred Shaw, Richard Fortey, Derek Siveter and Derek Briggs all of whom were in Oslo in 1973 and have attended all of the meetings with me since then.

A summary of what is written here formed the basis for my talk at the most recent meeting, held in Tallinn in July 2017. It provides a personal account of the five meetings that preceded it.

Oslo, Norway 1973 (July 1–8)

During my Ph.D studies (1962–1965), I had the great privilege of meeting with some of the big names working with trilobites both in Europe and North America. Three in Scandinavia come to mind, Valdar Jaanusson in Stockholm and, in Oslo, Gunnar Henningsmoen and Leif Størmer (Fig. 1). It was Størmer who encouraged me to return to Oslo when I was finished with my thesis and later was behind my employment at the University in 1967. Within a year, the first trilobite meeting was being planned with Leif, Gunnar and Valdar supporting me as organizer. Tutti Størmer and my wife, Anne, took care of the accounts; no mean task as the strength of the dollar changed at the time. This was before pocket calculators were in widespread use and Anne used her slide rule with great success.

The Norwegian scientist Gunnar Randers was, at this time, head of the NATO Scientific Affairs Division, and when approached, he suggested we should apply for funding as Norway had not done this to any great extent and there was plenty of money available. We applied and were awarded USD 10,000. From IUGS, we received USD 1,000 while smaller sums came from the Norwegian Research Council and the IPA.

With this, we were able to invite 60 participants from 13 nations (Fig. 2) and pay all travel and accommodation for the three-day meeting with the addition of an excursion to classic localities in the Oslo Region. The meeting made a profit which covered the publication costs of the proceedings (Martinsson 1975).

I worked with Harry Whittington at Harvard in 1964, and we were together for the second Burgess Shale expedition in 1967 (Bruton 2011). Leif Størmer, who had worked on the Burgess fauna, thought this was a good chance to include this on the programme and thus Harry lectured on the limbs of Olenoides. Also in the programme, John Cisne described the limbs of Triarthrus. This, I think, was the start of a focus on arthropod appendages, their form, function and use in high-level taxonomy which blossomed as further results from the Burgess Shale arthropod fauna became known and the term ‘Trilobitomorpha’ received a new meaning. Richard Fortey’s contribution on trilobite communities later became a classic in the study of community palaeoecology.

The organizers were especially interested in inviting non-trilobite workers and, to this end, contributions on Limulus by Daniel C. Fisher, on eurypterids by Charles D. Waterston and the relations of the trilobitomorpha to the crustaceans by Robert R. Hessler, provided for much discussion. All these are to be found in the extensive volume arising from the meeting (Martinsson 1975).

The meeting sessions and accommodation were in an attractive conference centre high up in the forest and overlooking the city of Oslo. The weather was perfect for an excursion by boat on the Oslo fjord and localities visited both ashore and on islands (Fig. 3). The excursion day ended with an unexpected thunder storm in the late afternoon forcing participants to run through town to board a private tram that took them nonstop to the conference centre. The group photograph (Fig. 2) was taken before the conference dinner and after all had dried out.

The year 1973 precluded participation from China and the fact that the meeting was organized with the aid of NATO money meant that no Soviet palaeontologists attended. However, we were especially fortunate in having Ladislav Marek from Czeckoslovakia and Halszka Ósmolska and Ewa Tomczykowa from Poland. These were the only two women working with trilobites who participated at the meeting, but this changed markedly at future meetings.

Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada 1997 (August 22–25)

This conference which became known by its title ‘Trilobite paleobiology: Past, present and future’ was a North American initiative alone, and the committee was chaired by Steve Westrop. As the photographs (Figs 4–6) show, this was a most popular and well-attended meeting.

For me, this was a chance to meet a large number of those who were only names to me until then. Many made up the organizing committee which included Jonathan Adrian, Brian Chatterton, Greg Edgecombe, Nigel Hughes, Ed Landing, Rolf Ludvigsen, Brian Pratt, Kevin Brett and Dave Rudkin. Rolf will be remembered for editing the trilobite newsletter after me. I remember an entertaining speech by Nigel Hughes who also sang for us at the dinner, and I had the pleasure of meeting up again with Ron Tripp. Ron was one of many gifted British amateur palaeontologists. He had left Britain long after retirement and was the living in Canada with his second wife. I also met up with Bill Fritz who had been a camp leader at Burgess almost 10 years to the day. In fact, I returned to Burgess with my wife after the meeting was over.

Three ambitious field trips were held to the Avalon Terrane (led by Landing and Westrop), the Canadian Rocky Mountains (led by Chatterton and Pratt) and Ordovician stratigraphy and trilobite faunas of south central Ontario (led by Brett and Rudkin; Fig. 6).

The aim of this meeting covered a broad range of then current interests (as now) in the relationship between Cambrian and post-Cambrian clades, the Ordovician radiation of trilobites, what relation there is between the arthropods from the Burgess Shale and a cladistic analysis of Cambrian arachnomorphs. A note from the meeting was later published by Adrain & Westrop (1999a) as a forward to a valuable selection of papers that they edited from the conference (Adrain & Westrop 1999b). As they indicated (Adrain & Westrop 1999a), there had been a long gap since the Oslo meeting; happily, the meetings after that at St. Catharines have been at much shorter intervals.

University of Oxford, England, 2001 (April 3–6)

The title of this meeting was ‘Trilobites and their relatives’ and was organized by a team led by Derek Siveter. It was well supported with a participation of over 120 from 20 nations including Russia, Korea and China.

The themes discussed were much the same as previous meetings and included functional morphology, evolution and palaeogeography and broader aspects of arthropod phylogeny. Proceedings from the meeting later appeared in a handsome publication dedicated to Harry Whittington (Lane et al. 2003).

This was the last meeting Harry attended (Fig. 7). He was then 85 but this did not prevent him travelling to Japan later in 2001 to receive the prestigious Emperor of Japan’s International Biology Prize.

The Oxford meeting brought together many old friends (Figs 7–10). It was held at Eastertime and coincided with a most unfortunate outbreak of ‘foot and mouth’ disease that meant that walking in the countryside was forbidden and both pre- and post-excursions had to be cancelled. We did, however, enjoy a coach trip in pouring rain to the famous Silurian, Wren’s Nest, locality (Figs 11, 12) followed by a reception given by the Mayor of Dudley. The coat of arms of the city once included an outline of the ‘Dudley Bug’, Calymene blumenbachii, now, sadly, missing from the present-day coat of arms of more modern design.

During the 1800s, limestone at Wren’s Nest was mined from the surface but later on, from underground galleries and transported out by canal barges. We had the amusing experience of having to work our way into the ‘Dark Cavern’ with the sterling help of Diego Garcia-Bellido who, so-called, footed the barge using his feet on the tunnel roof while lying on his back. Historically, the Cavern, in 1839, was lit by gas for a lecture on geology by Sir Roderick Murchison for an audience of 15,000.

The conference dinner was held in the impressive surroundings of the dining hall of St John’s College (Fig. 13).

Toledo, Spain, 2008 (June 16–24)

This meeting with the title ‘Trilo 08’ was well organized by Isabel Rábano and Juan Carlos Gutiérrez-Marco with colleagues. Almost 100 participants took part in a meeting historically situated in the majestic city of Toldedo (Fig. 14). We were housed in various scattered hotels which many of us reached, suitcases clattering loudly over the cobbled streets, very late in the evening after a long drive from Arouca, northern Portugal. Here, under the excellent guidance of Artur Sá, we had seen the famous giant trilobites from Canelas during the pre-conference excursion (Fig. 15).

In the quarry, we examined a newly uncovered bedding plane scattered with huge asaphid trilobites and then saw similar specimens on shale slabs that reached in height up to our waists. Lunch in the museum grounds was a memorable affair, and a monument had been erected to our visit inscribed with names in alphabetical order after first names. My wife Anne was embarrassed at being high on the list.

In Arouca, we were also witness to the opening of the Geopark where Richard Fortey made a speech on our behalf and we walked to a roundabout in the nearby highway where there was a monument surmounted with a trilobite model.

The meetings in Toledo were held in Real Fundación de Toledo (Museo Victorio Macho). The programme was the most ambitious, and 45 papers were presented along with numerous posters. In my view, this was trilobite research at its best with remarkable preservations shown on material from Bohemia, Morocco and Beecher’s Trilobite Bed in New York State. New methods combining sliced sections and 3D computer modelling emerged from work in the Hereford (Silurian) Lagerstätte. A total of 75 short papers were published in time for the meeting (Rábano et al. 2008).

Jonathan Adrian held a special session to demonstrate his global species database in preparation for the revised Treatise. We await, with interest, the successors to the first volume in the new series (Whittington et al. 1997).

The mid-conference field trip on June 21 was devoted to the Ordovician trilobites and ichnofossils from the Toledo Mountains led by Juan Carlos Gutiérrez-Marco. A beautifully illustrated field guide was produced by him and his wife, Isabel Rábano. The day was hot, and we oldies were grateful for the tractor and trailer ride to and from an outcrop (Fig. 16). We examined the Amorican quartzite and huge numbers of Cruziana. Slabs of these decorated the walls of a restaurant where we stopped for lunch. This was an extended affair with local dancers who encouraged the more athletic of us to try the tango (Fig. 17).

Prague, Czech Republic, 2012 (July 1–4)

This conference with title ‘On trilobites and their relatives’ was organized in Prague by Petr Budil and Oldřich Fatka. Over 90 participants from more than 20 countries were present at the conference (Fig. 18). Abstracts for 50 lectures were available (Budil & Fatka 2012) together with a field guide at mid-conference (Budil et al. 2012). Throughout the meeting, the emphasis was on trilobite morphology and systematics which was good to see when published (Budil et al. 2014).

For me this was a sort of ‘homecoming’ having lived and studied in Prague in 1962. Things have changed much since then, and it was a shame that the Narodni Museum was closed for refurbishment. While in Prague this time, I was able to celebrate my birthday with close friends (Fig. 19).

The mid-conference excursion entailed a river cruise down the Vltava valley (Figs 20–22Fig. 20Fig. 21

The day ended with a tram ride to the suburb of Barrandov and the village of Klukovice passing the picturesque sites in the Lower and Middle Devonian rocks before stopping in a woodland glade for a grilled sausage and salad lunch.

At the Toledo meeting, as already mentioned, one of the excursions was held outside Spain, in Portugal, while the post-conference excursion in connection with the Prague meeting was held in Sardinia and organized by Gian Luigi Pillola from July 5 to 8 (Pillola 2012a,b).

On separate days, we saw rocks and sections named for those who had worked on and described the faunas and stratigraphy. The coastal sections were most impressive with Lower Cambrian faunas in the Serra Scoris section near Gonnesa where we spent two nights. Later, we saw a Franco Rasetti locality at Porto di Canalgrande (Fig. 23) where the lunch stop was combined with a glorious swim in the clear sea. The last stop gave us the chance to meet Francesco Leone who took us to the type section of the Riu Is Arrus Member of the Monte Argentu Formation (Upper Ordovician) yielding exoskeletons of the nektaspid arthropod Tariccoia arrusensis.

‘Gigi’ was a wonderful guide and host. The heat was enervating as we left the capital Cagliari by train to the north of the island and flight home the following day from Olbia.

Trilobite research has continued to blossom since the first conference in 1973, new research themes have emerged, and new problems have been identified. The conferences, including the very successful sixth meeting in Tallinn in 2017 organized by Helje Pärnaste, have provided a valuable and friendly opportunity for trilobite workers to gather, present new results and exchange ideas. I am sure that all will agree this must continue and I wish future organizers all the very best.

Acknowledgements

I extend warm thanks to Hans Arne Nakrem and Karl Bruton for their help with photographs used here. Apart from my own collection, these have come from Helje Pärnaste, Dave Rudkin, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez-Marco, Petr Budil and Gian Luigi Pillola. Each has helped to identify those present, together with Derek Siveter, Diego Garcia-Bellido and Nigel Hughes.