scholarly journals The ‘Last Hurrah of the Reigning Darwinulocopines’? Ostracoda (Arthropoda, Crustacea) from the Lower Jurassic Moenave Formation, Arizona and Utah, USA

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 648-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas S. Antonietto ◽  
Lisa E. Park Boush ◽  
Celina A. Suarez ◽  
Andrew R.C. Milner ◽  
James I. Kirkland

AbstractAn ostracode fauna is described from lacustrine sediments of the Hettangian, Lower Jurassic, Whitmore Point Member of the Moenave Formation. The Moenave is well known for its rich, Late Triassic?–Early Jurassic fossil record, which includes fossil fishes, stromatolites, ostracodes, spinicaudatans, and a diverse ichnofauna of invertebrates and vertebrates. Four ostracode species, all belonging to the suborder Darwinulocopina, were recovered from these sediments:Suchonellina globosa,S. stricta,Whipplella? sp. 1, andW.? sp. 2. The diversity and composition of the Whitmore Point Member ostracode fauna agree with previous interpretations about Lake Dixie and nearby paleoenvironments as shallow lakes inhabited by darwinulocopine species that survived the effects of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province and the subsequent end-Triassic extinction and quickly recolonized these areas, thanks to asexual reproduction by parthenogenesis. The Lake Dixie region, in its geographical isolation, could represent the last episode of darwinulocopine dominance in nonmarine environments before the Late Jurassic diversification of the cypridocopine/cytherocopine modern ostracodes.

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 2075-2110 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Paris ◽  
Y. Donnadieu ◽  
V. Beaumont ◽  
F. Fluteau ◽  
Y. Goddéris

Abstract. The Triassic-Jurassic boundary (TJB) is associated with one of the five largest mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic. A deep carbon cycle perturbation and a carbonate production crisis are observed during the late Triassic. The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP), one of the most important large igneous provinces of the Phanerozoic, emplaced at the TJB. To understand the carbon cycle perturbations observed at the TJB, we investigate the consequences of CO2 degassing associated to the CAMP emplacement on atmospheric and oceanic carbon cycle. The CO2 input within the atmosphere due to volcanism has been modeled using a global biogeochemical cycle box model (COMBINE) coupled with a climate model (FOAM). Weathering fluxes and CO2 equilibrium are constrained by the Rhaetian paleogeography and different scenarios of the CAMP emplacement are modeled. The study focuses (1) on the geological record and the carbonate productions crisis and (2) on the sedimentary carbon isotope record. For point (1), comparison of different modeling scenarios shows that a Gaussian CO2 emission distribution over the duration of the main activity phase of the CAMP fails in reproducing any of the geological observations, mainly the carbonate production crisis observed in the late Rhaetian sediments. Contrastingly, intense degassing peaks lead to successive decrease in carbonate production as observed in the geological record. For point (2), the perturbations of carbon cycle due to the degassing of CO2 with a mantellic carbon isotopic composition of −5‰ do not reproduce the intensity of the observed carbon isotope excursions. This was achieved in our model by assuming a mantellic carbon isotopic composition of −20‰. Even if this hypothesis requires further investigations, such low values may be associated to degassing of carbon from pools of light isotopic carbon located at the transition zone (Cartigny, 2010), possibly linked to setting of large igneous provinces (LIP's). Breakdown of biological primary productivity can also partially account for the sedimentary carbon isotope excursions and for the observed increase of atmospheric pCO2.


2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula B Göhlich ◽  
Luis M Chiappe ◽  
James M Clark ◽  
Hans-Dieter Sues

Macelognathus vagans was described by O.C. Marsh in 1884, based on a mandibular symphysis from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming. Often considered a dinosaur but later tentatively referred to the Crocodylia, its phylogenetic identity has until now been enigmatic. New material of this species from the Morrison Formation of western Colorado demonstrates its affinities with basal crocodylomorphs commonly grouped together as the Sphenosuchia, which are characterized by a gracile postcranial skeleton with erect limb posture. Macelognathus shares features with Kayentasuchus from the Lower Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona and Hallopus, which may be from the Morrison Formation of eastern Colorado. The new material constitutes the youngest definitive occurrence of a sphenosuchian, previously known from the Late Triassic to the Middle or Late? Jurassic.


Palaios ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-93
Author(s):  
ALLISON R. VITKUS ◽  
KAREN CHIN ◽  
JAMES I. KIRKLAND ◽  
ANDREW R.C. MILNER ◽  
EDWARD L. SIMPSON ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Two types of unusual concretions with similar biotic contents but markedly different shapes and distributions were found in close stratigraphic proximity within the Lower Jurassic Whitmore Point Member of the Moenave Formation in St. George, Utah. Both types of concretions formed in lacustrine sediments and contain abundant ganoid fish scales, numerous ostracode carapaces, and apparent rip-up clasts. Elongate, cylindrical concretions developed in parallel and regularly spaced rows in one horizon, and comparatively flat and irregularly shaped and distributed concretions formed in an overlying layer only a few centimeters above. Microprobe and Raman analyses of concretion samples reveal abundant hematite in both concretions as well as groundmass minerals dominated by silica in the cylindrical concretions and dolomite in the flat concretions. The abundance of fish skeletal debris in concretions from two consecutive horizons may suggest recurring fish mass mortality in ancient Lake Dixie, the large lake that occupied the St. George area during the Early Jurassic. We propose a model for the formation of the concretions based on their shapes, distributions, and chemistry. In this model, accumulations of disarticulated fish debris were colonized and consolidated by microbial mats and shaped by oscillatory flow (in the case of the cylindrical concretions) or lack thereof (in the case of the flat concretions). Then, after burial, groundwater chemistry and possibly the metabolic activities of microorganisms led to the precipitation of minerals around and within the masses of fish material. Finally, diagenetic alteration changed the mineral makeups of the cylindrical and flat concretions into what they are today.


2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1772) ◽  
pp. 20132057 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo N. Martínez ◽  
Cecilia Apaldetti ◽  
Carina E. Colombi ◽  
Angel Praderio ◽  
Eliana Fernandez ◽  
...  

Sphenodontians were a successful group of rhynchocephalian reptiles that dominated the fossil record of Lepidosauria during the Triassic and Jurassic. Although evidence of extinction is seen at the end of the Laurasian Early Cretaceous, they appeared to remain numerically abundant in South America until the end of the period. Most of the known Late Cretaceous record in South America is composed of opisthodontians, the herbivorous branch of Sphenodontia, whose oldest members were until recently reported to be from the Kimmeridgian–Tithonian (Late Jurassic). Here, we report a new sphenodontian, Sphenotitan leyesi gen. et sp. nov., collected from the Upper Triassic Quebrada del Barro Formation of northwestern Argentina. Phylogenetic analysis identifies Sphenotitan as a basal member of Opisthodontia, extending the known record of opisthodontians and the origin of herbivory in this group by 50 Myr.


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Cheilletz ◽  
Dominique Gasquet ◽  
Fouad Filali ◽  
Douglas A. Archibald ◽  
Massimo Nespolo

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Munier ◽  
Jean-François Deconinck ◽  
Pierre Pellenard ◽  
Stephen P. Hesselbo ◽  
James B. Riding ◽  
...  

Abstract. High resolution clay mineral and stable isotope (C, O) data are reported from the upper Sinemurian (Lower Jurassic) of the Cardigan Bay Basin (Llanbedr [Mochras Farm] borehole, northwest Wales) and the Paris Basin (Montcornet borehole, northern France) to highlight the prevailing environmental and climatic conditions. In both basins, located at similar palaeolatitudes of 30–35° N, the clay mineral assemblages comprise chlorite, illite, illite-smectite mixed-layers (R1 I-S), smectite and kaolinite in various proportions. Because the influence of burial diagenesis and authigenesis is negligible in both boreholes, the clay minerals are interpreted to be derived from the erosion of the Caledonian and Variscan massifs, including their basement and pedogenic cover. In the Cardigan Bay Basin, the variations in the proportions of smectite and kaolinite are inversely related to each other over the entire upper Sinemurian succession. As in the Pliensbachian, the stratigraphical distribution reveals an alternation of kaolinite-rich intervals reflecting strong hydrolysing conditions, and smectite-rich intervals indicating a semi-arid climate. Kaolinite is particularly abundant in the upper part of the obtusum Zone and in the oxynotum Zone, suggesting more intense hydrolysing conditions likely coeval with warm conditions responsible for an acceleration of the hydrological cycle. This interval is also marked by a negative excursion of δ13Ccarb and δ18Ocarb, which may confirm a warmer palaeoclimate, although these excursions may be exaggerated or overprinted by the carbonate diagenesis. In the north of the Paris Basin, the stratigraphical succession is much thinner compared to the Cardigan Bay Basin site, and the oxynotum Zone is either absent or highly condensed. The clay assemblages are dominantly composed of illite and kaolinite without significant stratigraphical trends, but a smectite-rich interval identified in the obtusum Zone is interpreted as a consequence of the emersion of the London-Brabant Massif following a lowering of sea-level. A long-term decrease of δ13Corg from the late oxynotum/early raricostatum zones is also recorded in the two sites and may precede or partly include the negative carbon-isotope excursion of the Sinemurian/Pliensbachian Boundary Event, recognised in most basins worldwide, and interpreted as a late pulse of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province volcanism.


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