Permo-Triassic arthropod trace fossils from the Beardmore Glacier area, central Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek E.G. Briggs ◽  
Molly F. Miller ◽  
John L. Isbell ◽  
Christian A. Sidor
Keyword(s):  
Bedding Plane ◽  
Trace Fossils ◽  
Glacier Area ◽  
Fluvial System ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
Transantarctic Mountains ◽  
Leaf Impressions

AbstractPermian and Triassic lacustrine and fluvial-system deposits in the Beardmore Glacier area of the Transantarctic Mountains preserve a superb record of continental environments and evidence of life on extensive bedding plane exposures. They yielded the first invertebrate trackways reported from continental Permo-Triassic deposits of Antarctica, here assigned to the ichnogenera Diplichnites and Diplopodichnus, which were probably produced by myriapodous arthropods. A resting trace is compared to Orbiculichnus and interpreted as generated by a jumping insect. Plant life is represented by leaf impressions, fossil forests and peat, vertebrates by body and trace fossils, and invertebrate shallow infauna by near surface burrows. The small number and diversity of trackways recovered from the large bedding plane exposures suggest that trackway-producing arthropods were rare at these high southern palaeolatitudes.

scholarly journals Upper Paleozoic Trace Fossils from the Transantarctic Mountains as Indicators of Gondwana Paleoclimate

1996 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 275-275
Author(s):  
Molly F. Miller ◽  
John L. Isbell ◽  
Stephen E. Smail ◽  
Susan Giller
Keyword(s):  
Trace Fossils ◽  
Upper Paleozoic ◽  
Transantarctic Mountains

Devonian depositional environments in the Darwin Mountains: Marine or non-marine?

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken J. Woolfe
Keyword(s):  
Fresh Water ◽  
Depositional Environment ◽  
Trace Fossils ◽  
Depositional Environments ◽  
Trace Fossil ◽  
Glacier Area ◽  
Red Beds ◽  
Fossil Assemblage ◽  
Considerable Debate

The depositional environment of the Devonian Taylor Group has been subject to considerable debate for over 30 years. The debate stems largely from a belief that the abundant and diverse trace fossils represent a marine ichnofauna, whereas sedimentary features, including palaeosols, desiccation polygons and red beds, are more typical of a non-marine setting. The debate is reconciled by a reinterpretation of the trace fossil assemblage which shows that the trace fossils comprise a typical fresh water (Scoyenia ichnofacies) assemblage, and their occurrence in the Taylor Group in the Darwin Glacier area is entirely consistent with deposition in a mixed fluvial-lacustrine-subaerial environment.

A BIOLOGICAL PROOF OF PETROLEUM EMANATIONS

Geophysics ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-282
Author(s):  
V. Thyssen‐Bornemisza
Keyword(s):  
Physical Structure ◽  
Earth’S Crust ◽  
Mineral Deposits ◽  
Surface Layers ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
Decomposition Of Organic Matter ◽  
Earth's Crust ◽  
The Many ◽  
Plant Components

“It cannot be denied that the chemical‐physical structure of the near surface layers of the earth’s crust reflect their physical characteristics and chemical composition in the plant life that covers them, in spite of the many retractions and changes which the science of Botany has had to make in this matter. The fact that many plants and plant components can store up metals has been recognized and utilized by miners and geologists, in that they correlate the occurrence of certain trace elements such as gold and lead in certain plants with corresponding mineral deposits. On the other hand the science of Applied Geophysics has long sought a useful method for proving and possibly determining quantitatively the presence of hydrocarbons which have migrated through the overlying formations to the earth’s surface. Hydrocarbons are found almost universally in the earth’s crust near the surface layers usually irrespective of whether or not an appreciable deposit of oil exists in the vicinity. For example, methane is formed as the result of the decomposition of organic matter. Evidence of the actual effects of mineral deposits is therefore generally either obscured or cannot be proved.

Trace Fossils with Spreiten from the Late Ediacaran Nama Group, Namibia: Complex Feeding Patterns Five Million Years Before the Precambrian–Cambrian Boundary

2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis A. Macdonald ◽  
Sara B. Pruss ◽  
Justin V. Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Shallow Water ◽  
Feeding Habits ◽  
Bedding Plane ◽  
Trace Fossils ◽  
Trace Fossil ◽  
Outer Tube ◽  
Feeding Patterns ◽  
Large Complex

Here we describe large, complex trace fossils in the late Ediacaran Omkyk Member of the Zaris Formation, Nama Group, southern Namibia. The horizontal trace fossils are preserved on a number of talus blocks from a bedding plane of a cm-thick sandstone lens from a single stratigraphic horizon less than 100 m below an ash bed dated at 547.3 ± 0.7 Ma. The forms consist of overlapping U-shaped spreiten elements with parallel limbs surrounded by an outer tube. Individual U-shaped elements are 0.2 to 1 cm in diameter, the outer tube is less than 3 mm in diameter, and the forms as a whole range from 5 to 30 cm long and 3 to 10 cm wide. The specimens commonly show a change in direction and change in diameter. The morphology of these trace fossils is comparable to backfill structures, particularly specimens of Paleozoic Zoophycos from shallow water environments. Here we interpret these horizontal spreiten-burrows to record the grazing of the trace-maker on or below a textured organic surface. The identification of large late Ediacaran trace fossils is consistent with recent reports of backfilled horizontal burrows below the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary and is suggestive of the appearance of complex feeding habits prior to the Cambrian trace fossil explosion.

Early Palaeozoic history of the upper Beardmore Glacier area: implications for a major Antarctic structural boundary within the Transantarctic Mountains

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.J. Rowell ◽  
Margaret N. Rees
Keyword(s):  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Glacier Area ◽  
Late Cambrian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic ◽  
Transantarctic Mountains ◽  
Early Palaeozoic ◽  
Middle And Late Cambrian ◽  
Structural Boundary ◽  
Early Late

The central and western Transantarctic Mountains appear to be divided longitudinally by one or more terrane boundaries that separate two regions characterized by different Lower Palaeozoic successions. Re-examination of the upper Beardmore Glacier area and reinterpretation of its Early Palaeozoic stratigraphy emphasizes the strong similarity between it and the Byrd Group outcrops in the area between the Byrd and Nimrod glaciers. This similarity demonstrates that for several hundred kilometres the Cambrian succession of an inboard region is largely devoid of volcanic rocks but includes fossiliferous Lower Cambrian platformal limestones that are overlain unconformably by coarse basin-fill deposits. The latter probably include beds of Middle and perhaps early Late Cambrian age that were themselves deformed prior to the Devonian. Erratic blocks indicate that comparable successions may have been developed as far west as the Whichaway Nunataks. The inferred geological history of this part of the continental margin, which is commonly regarded as autochthonous, stands in contrast to that of more outboard regions where thick volcanic sequences occur in expanded stratigraphic sections that include shallow-marine Middle and Late Cambrian deposits. We consider that these regions, predominantly the Queen Maud and Theil mountains and the Neptune Range of the Pensacola Mountains, constitute one or more displaced crustal blocks. The boundary between them and the inboard sequence adjacent to the craton is probably a series of large strike-slip faults that may have been initiated during the Early Palaeozoic and have been active episodically since then.

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