LOCAL FOSSIL RESEARCH ON TV

A program scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Wednesday on the Discovery Channel will include a segment on Mammoth Cave National Park and three Southeast Missouri residents who studied it.

Tammy Eifert, formerly of Jackson, Dr. John Holbrook of Cape Girardeau and Phillip Statler of Patton investigated some unusually large and uniquely well preserved chertified burrow structures, also called trace fossils, at the park.

According to the three, the Mammoth Cave burrows are complex feeding traces left behind by a marine burrowing animal. Scientists say burrowing behavior in such animals wasn't prevalent until 65 to 245 million years ago.

The fossilized structures at Mammoth Cave may represent the earliest confirmable evidence for large, marine burrow producers, and authorities say the research is a significant contribution to understanding the animals' paleontological record.

Eifert, teaching assistant and graduate student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, presently studies invertebrate paleontology. Statler is a senior majoring in geosciences at Southeast Missouri State University, where Holbrook is a faculty member.