by John A. Harper and Kathy J. Flaherty

Pennsylvania Geological Survey

Pennsylvania Geology v. 25 (3), 1994

How often have you seen or heard of a sponge being honored by a city, officials from local, state, and federal governments, the petroleum industry, a scientific research facility, and history buffs, all at the same time? In all likelihood, such an event had never occurred prior to August 27, 1993, when a new historical marker was unveiled on Union Street in Titusville, Pa. The plaque (Figure 1) commemorates the discovery and naming of an ancient fossil sponge found in the bed of Church Run in Titusville over 60 years ago.

Yes, a sponge! One of those lowly, primitive life-forms that consists of a semigelatinous blob held together by either a network of collagen fibers or a fairly rigid skeleton of siliceous or calcareous elements called spicules. A member of the phylum that you might have bought at the hardware store recently to wash your car or your bathroom walls.

Yet, as ridiculous as it might sound at first, the Devonian sponge Titusvillia drakei (Figure 2 and cover illustration) is unique and important enough to have been honored at the ceremony by the Titusville High School Marching Band, the pastor of St. Walburga Church, a member of the Titusville City Council, Titusville's "Man of the Year," representatives of the Pennsylvania and West Virginia Geological Surveys and the Bureau of Oil and Gas Management of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources, the Chief of the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey, the President of the Penn Grade Crude Oil Association, the Director of the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, N.Y., the President of the Board of The Colonel, Inc., and a diverse audience of Crawford County and Venango County citizens. The attendance by so many people confirms the significance of the fossil. However, the marker and the event honored not just a sponge; included in the compliment were the scientist who found and identified it, the city of Titusville, the accomplishments of Colonel Edwin L. Drake, founder of the modern petroleum industry, and the petroleum industry itself.

Figure 1. Some of the people present at the unveiling of the Titusvillia historical marker included, from left to right, Kathy J. Aaherty, Pennsylvania Geological Survey; Warren Allmon, Director of the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, N.Y.; John Pojeta, Chief of the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey; Samuel T. Pees, President of the Board of The Colonel, Inc.; John H. Bryner, President of the Penn Grade Crude Association; Pat Johns, West Virginia Geological Survey; and Larry D. Woodfork , State Geologist of West Virginia. Photograph courtesy of Jim Farling, Quaker State Corporation.

THE MARKER:The hoopla surrounding the dedication of the historical marker took place at an annual event called Drake Day, in honor of the day in 1859 when Colonel Edwin L. Drake's oil well finally "came in." The day typically consists of a variety of festivities, including live entertainment, a banquet, and a keynote address. The historical marker is the brainchild of Samuel T. Pees, a well-known consulting geologist and oil-field historian from Meadville, Crawford County. The placement and unveiling of the plaque were sponsored by The Colonel, Inc., a dynamic organization whose members help support exhibits, education, and preservation of oil-field history.

The dedication on the historical marker (Figure 1) reads, "In ancient sea bottom rocks exposed in this stream, the holotype specimen of a rare fossil sponge was found by paleontologist Kenneth E. Caster. In 1939 in recognition of the support which brought the sciences of geology and paleontology to such eminence he named this new species in honor of the oil industry's birthplace and its founder." (A holotype is a specimen considered by the describer to be typical of the species, and to which all other specimens are to be compared.) In the paper in which he described the fossil, Caster (1939, p. 9) wrote, ''The name Titusvillia drakei is given in recognition of the place of discovery of the holotype specimen and for the founder of the oil industry in Pennsylvania, without the ramifications of whose enterprise geology and paleontology could not have reached the station of eminence they hold today." Caster had created the name to honor the very dynamic interactions of the paleontological/geological community and the petroleum industry that has employed so many of its members over the past century. Many of the concepts that have shaped the science of geology as we know it today originated with oil-field geologists, paleontologists, geochemists, and geophysicists.

THE SPONGE: Titusvillia drakei is a member of the Hexactinellida, a class of sponges of highly variable shape that originated about 500 million years ago. These wholly marine animals are characterized by skeletons of six-pronged siliceous spicules. The glass sponge called "Venus's flower basket" is a good modern example of this class. Unlike other hexactinellids, Titusvillia consisted of a branching supercolony of individual cuplike animals (cover illustration). Colonies (branches) diverged from a central axial colony at regular intervals in a spiral pattern. One especially interesting facet of this sponge was the tendency for some colonies to reverse the orientation of the cups-some are oriented outward from the axis, whereas others are oriented inward. Caster (1939, p. 8) speculated that this phenomenon occurred when the supercolony became too

Figure 2. Three slabs of rock containing specimens of TitusviIla drakei Caster collected by Samuel T. Pees from an outcrop of Corry Sandstone at the Drake Well Museum. The pen at the bottom Indicates the scale. Photograph courtesy of Samuel T. Pees.

massive for the skeleton to support all of the branches in a normal upright fashion. Then the branches drooped and the cups grew upward, that is, toward the axis, or horizontally along the seafloor. Collectors should be aware that a close look at a specimen with a hand lens or microscope may be required to see the network of spicules on the surface of the fossil.

Caster collected the type specimens of Titusvillia drakei in 1931, in the bed of Church Run about 50 yards north of the Union Street bridge over the creek. He included in his collections specimens from the areas around Johnsonburg in Elk County, Kushequa in McKean County, Pleasantville in Venango County, and Tidioute and Warren in Warren County. Another well-known locality is the outcrop of Corry Sandstone across the tracks from the railroad station at the Drake Well Museum (Hoskins and others, 1983). Caster thought that his specimens represented a strange form of fossil worm trail having unique nodes on it when he first found them. It was only when he began preparing a paper on Late Devonian trace fossils seven years later that he realized what he had discovered (Caster, 1939, p. 7).

THE SCIENTIST: Kenneth E. Caster (Figure 3) was a native Pennsylvanian, born in New Albany, Bradford County, in 1908. He spent a considerable part of his formative years in Ithaca, N.Y., where he developed an early interest in natural history. While studying for a bachelor's degree in zoology at Cornell University, which he received in 1929, he came under the influence of the eminent paleontologist Gilbert D. Harris (Holland, 1989). Among Harris' numerous contributions to the science of paleontology were the founding of the Paleontological Research Institution at Ithaca and its major publication series, the Bulletins of American Paleontology, considered one of the premier paleontological monograph series in the world. Caster helped Harris with the Institution collections, as well as with typesetting, preparing plates, and printing the Bulletins. This practical experience proved to be useful when he published his senior thesis on Late Devonian fossils from Pennsylvania and New York (Caster, 1930) as one of the Bulletins.

Caster's doctoral dissertation on the stratigraphy and paleontology of the Upper Devonian and Lower Mississippian of the New York Pennsylvania border area also was published as one of the Bulletins of American Paleontology (Caster, 1934). 1t remains to this day one of the seminal publications dealing with Appalachian stratigraphy, particularly the facies concept.

Figure 3. Eminent paleontologist and stratigrapher Kenneth E. Caster, 1908-1992, with his wife and coresearcher, Anneliese (Annie). Photograph courtesy of David L. Meyer, University of Cincinnati.

Caster's descriptions and discussions of Titusvillia and other Devonian sponges are considered groundbreaking because the paper was one of the earlier works that dealt with the biology and ecology of the organisms as well as their taxonomy and biostratigraphy. He is also credited with being one of the pioneers in the study of fossil animal tracks and trails (Holland and Pojeta, 1994}.

Caster was interested in people as well as fossils. Considering the importance of science education, his influence on numerous amateur geologists and paleontologists in the Cincinnati area may have been his greatest contribution to society and the sciences. He was a helpful teacher and doting mentor to his many students. During his Drake Day keynote address, Dr. John Pojeta, Chief of the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey (Figure 1, third from left) and one of Caster's former students, spoke of Caster's keen sense of humor and his delight in his students' practical jokes. Pojeta cited as an example a birthday card full of confetti that fell onto Caster's lap, desk, and chair.

"Ken would have been delighted to know about today's Titusvillia drakei marker presentation," said Pojeta. "So, Ken, wherever you are, this marker's for you!" 

REFERENCES

Caster, K. E. (1930), Higher fossil faunas of the Upper Allegheny, Bulletins of American Paleontology, v. 15, no. 58, 174 p.

__________ (1934), The stratigraphy and paleontology of northwestern Pennsylvania, Part 1: Stratigraphy, Bulletins of American Paleontology, v. 21, no. 71, 185 p.

__________ (1939), Siliceous sponges from the Mississippian and Devonian strata of the Penn-York embayment, Journal of Paleontology, v. 13, no. 1, p. 1-20.

Holland, F. D. (1989), Kenneth E. Caster, honorary member of Sigma Gamma Epsilon, The Compass, v. 67, p. 7-10.

Holland, F. D., and Pojeta, J. (1994), Memorial to Kenneth Edward Caster, 1908 - 1992, Geological Society of America, Memorial, p. 15-17.

Hoskins, D. M., lnners, J. D., and Harper, J. A. (1983), Fossil collecting in Pennsylvania, 3rd ed., Pennsylvania Geological Survey, 4th ser., General Geology Report 40, 215 p.