Trace fossil classification

In trace fossil nomenclature a Latin binomial name is used, just as in animal and plant taxonomy, with a genus and specific epithet.

There is also potential for the three plant traces (cecidoichnia, corrosichnia and sphenoichnia) to gain recognition in coming years, with little attention having been paid to them since their proposal.

Martinsson[12] has provided the most widely accepted of such systems, identifying four distinct classes for traces to be separated in this regard: Other classifications have been proposed,[2][13][14] but none stray far from the above.

Early paleontologists originally classified many burrow fossils as the remains of marine algae, as is apparent in ichnogenera named with the -phycus suffix.

Alfred Gabriel Nathorst and Joseph F. James both controversially challenged this incorrect classification, suggesting the reinterpretation of many "algae" as marine invertebrate trace fossils.