Ellis Yochelson, at 77; diligence helped solve a paleontological mystery
By Joe Holley, Washington Post | September 12, 2006WASHINGTON -- Ellis L. Yochelson, 77, a Museum of Natural History paleontologist who helped resolve the decades-old mystery of the fossilized "motorcycle tracks," died Aug. 30 of heart disease at his apartment in the District of Columbia. He had previously lived for many years in Bowie, Md.
Dr. Yochelson was the founder of the North American Paleontological Convention and author of a two-volume biography of renowned paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott. Dr. Yochelson specialized in fossil mollusks, particularly snails and their relatives. He devoted the latter half of his career to climactichnites, soft-bodied animals half a billion years old whose fossil imprints resembled dual motorcycle tracks laid out across soft sand.
The creature's chevron-shaped tracks were discovered in 1860 in a quarry in Ontario, but no one knew what had made them. More than a century later, Dr. Yochelson and a Russian colleague traveled across eastern North America to examine every known climactichnite fossil -- more than 100 in all -- and in 1993 constructed a detailed sketch of the animal. They deduced that it was about the size of a human foot and perhaps represented a very early form of movement on land.
``It's like no other animal we know," Dr. Yochelson told the Independent, a British newspaper. ``This was certainly one of the earliest attempts to get on to land, if not the first attempt."
He theorized that since the climactichnite had no bones or hard parts, it crawled about by gripping the sand with two muscular flaps on each side of its body and heaving itself along with flaps at the front. The animal created the double row of chevron furrows when it raised up and flopped back down.
``It was an experiment that worked remarkably well for a short time," Dr. Yochelson told the Independent, noting that by ``short time" he meant 5 million to 10 million years before the creature became extinct.
The research, writing, and publication of Dr. Yochelson's book, ``Charles Doolittle Walcott, Paleontologist" (1998), took a ``short time" in the same sense. It was a 40-year labor of love about a man who joined the US Geological Survey in 1879 and rose to become its director in 1894. Walcott also was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution for 20 years.
Cornell historian Michele L. Aldrich, in presenting Dr. Yochelson with the History of Geology Award for 2003, noted in good nature that because of his consuming interest, ``we have had Walcott sliced, diced, curried, chicken-fried, sauteed, sweet and sour, mole, marsala, Florentine, hash, stew, and Walcott Wellington. A history of geology session was incomplete without a Yochelson paper on some aspect of Walcott."
Douglas H. Erwin, a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History, said that his friend and former colleague made significant contributions in a number of paleontological areas.
``Ellis was idiosyncratic -- or maybe a better word is `quixotic,' " he said. ``He took great pleasure in putting a lot of research into projects that other people couldn't understand why he considered them so important."
From The Washington Post, December 28, 2005 -
Sally Witt Yochelson, 75, a homemaker and former administrator with the National Museum of Natural History, died of breast cancer Dec. 23 at her home in Bowie.Mrs. Yochelson was born in the District and graduated from Coolidge High School in 1948. She received her undergraduate degree from Bowie State University in 1964.
In Bowie, where she moved in 1962, she was a founding member and president of the One Hundred Club, a group of young homemakers devoted to charitable efforts. She also was active in the local PTA.
From 1966 to 1971, she worked under contract at the National Museum of Natural History, where she administered summer institutes in systematics. She also administered a 1972 writing conference for the museum that prepared "America's Systematics Collections: A National Plan." In 1973, she was in charge of the First International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology, held in Boulder, Colo.
She was briefly a volunteer editor at the American Geological Institute before working for the Scientific Manpower Commission for nearly a decade.
In 1984, she returned to the National Museum of Natural History to administer the First International Symposium on Grass Systematics and Evolution and subsequently helped edit the volume of the proceedings.
Survivors include her husband of 55 years, Ellis Yochelson of Bowie; two sisters, Harriet Raine of Rockville and Judi Fried of Tamarac, Fla.; three children, Jeffrey Yochelson of Baltimore County, Abby Yochelson of the District and Charles Yochelson of Sheridan, Ore.; and five grandchildren.