Reviewed by Casey Burns (California Academy of Sciences)

Delson, E., M. Faure, and C. Guérin, eds. 2025. Senèze: Life in Central France Two Million Years Ago. Paleontology, Geochronology, Stratigraphy and Taphonomy. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. ($129.99 cloth, $99.00.)

In the Fall of 1970, I was invited to be a part of the OMSI's Student Research Center, an NSF-funded research institute for high school students who wanted to get a jump on their science careers in an environment that fostered this type of thing. We had an earth science lab where paleontology and, to a lesser extent archeology, was the primary focus. Connected to this was Camp Hancock, now a part of the vertebrate-fossil-rich John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

For two summers, I participated in the dig of the Clarno Mammal Quarry that was first excavated by Lon Hancock in the 1950s. The largest beast was a titanothere that was missing its skull. Lon Hancock found the first specimen in the 1960s. The 2nd was discovered and mostly excavated by the time I got there, except for the elusive skull. My cabinmate Danny and I discovered that element the 2nd summer, sometime after midnight. Once discovered, we carefully covered it up with burlap, loose matrix, plywood and then our sleeping bags as pads and a bit of us staring up at the stars. Eventually our lanterns ran out of gas and our eyes drooped shut. A few hours later we were awaken by a sound of something falling and opened our eyes 15 deer staring down at us. We both shuttered and screamed, causing the deer to explosively vanish leaving us even more rattled awake. The titanothere skull remained in its deep sleep until we finally jacketed and removed it a week later. The titanothere was finally described about a decade ago.

Since then, I mostly became an echinoderm paleontologist focusing on the nearby Mist Crinoid Locality in the Keasey Formation of NW Oregon. This has been a 55-year pursuit that is currently accelerating. The locality and its' diversity of preserved paleoenvironments, huge biodiversity, and taphonomic aspects is more than anyone can spend a lifetime on. What this locality needs is a multidecadal team-approach to come anywhere near to explaining its whole story.

My interest in reviewing this book about the paleontology of Senèze in the Central Massif of France was inspired by my musical life, part of which has been studying the folk music played on bagpipes and hurdy gurdies from Auvergne and nearby districts. I thought that it would be fun to be paleontologically grounded in an area that I am likely to visit sooner than later.

None of my own paleontological life really came into play when I first browsed through it. That is until I read the Introduction of this book, which chronicles what this book actually represents example-wise. The paleo of Senèze has been studied ever since Farmer John stumbled upon some mammoth bones while plowing. For a while, this became a commodity because why not? This was a common practice. But then the science grew up over the many decades and, along with it, the recognition that such finds are part of a larger prehistoric legacy. That deserves to be preserved and studied.

Eventually, in 2000, everything became focused for many who had dipped in and out of this site. They all joined forces and simulated additional participation and it became a major effort. One endresult is this very beautiful book, which starts out describing in detail how this collaboration came together (this is the most important part) followed by the reports from each team in their corresponding categories. This is reintegrated into the larger paleoecological details.

The site was previously a lake where animals got bogged down in the shores about 2.1 to 2.2 million years ago. The lake itself resulted from the creation of a Maar in the Pliocene around 2.3-2.6 ma. It reminds me of a lake just north of Portland, Oregon called Battleground Lake. The basin was formed by a Maar eruption. For those unfamiliar with how these form: they are essentially the results of large eruptions where lava meets water quickly enough to pressurize and then explode with megatonnage equivalency. These are commonly bigger than the craters from the atomic bomb tests in Nevada. I grew up surrounded by the Columbia River Basalt and the younger Pliocene Boring Volcanic Field (BVF), named for the Boring Brothers who ran a pioneer sawmill in Boring, Oregon. After a trip to Hawai'i and especially after reading about the BVF, I realized that this formation is anything but boring. Ah, if it only had echinoderm fossils. But fortunately, we found some really old ones of a certain kind (this is all I can say about it) in the Crescent Terrane. I wonder what animals may be preserved in that lake bottom!

Back to Senèze: what this volume represents to me is that it proudly and artistically displays the amazing amount of science that can be done when many people come together and attempt to tackle a project in unison. This goes beyond a GSA volume of related papers originating from a 3-day symposium, although there is certainly the background work involved herein. What is special about this team was the narrow scope of the project and its result of showing what much of Europe was like 2 million years ago.

What I will get most out of it is the idea that I can muster a team of local paleontologists to look at Mist with new eyes and new energy. That has actually been happening last summer and there is a possibility that I may be able to muster a large team of avocational and professional paleontologists to work on this site together in the near future.

I cannot really scientifically evaluate the chapters on the various topics as I am not a vertebrate paleontologist, paleobotanist, or palynologist. Paleoecology and taphonomy is my thing. Most of this is beyond my job description though I can understand it. However, these chapters are just … beautiful.

To the many authors and participants: Bravo! Bien joué!