Trace Fossils in Quaternary, Bahamian-Style Carbonate Environments: The Modern to Fossil Transition

1992 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 105-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Allen Curran

Tracemaking organisms are common and diverse components of the fauna and flora of tropical, shallow-marine and coastal carbonate environments. In the shallow subtidal zone, the burrowing activity of callianassid shrimp commonly is the dominant process in the modification of original depositional fabrics (Tudhope and Scoffin, 1984; Tedesco and Wanless, 1991). Both borers and burrowers have great potential to leave their mark in tropical carbonate sediments and rocks and to become part of the fossil record.

2003 ◽  
Vol 48 (1part2) ◽  
pp. 535-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Carol Stephens ◽  
Eric M. Louchard ◽  
R. Pamela Reid ◽  
Robert A. Maffione

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (21) ◽  
pp. 5323-5331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison C. Daley ◽  
Jonathan B. Antcliffe ◽  
Harriet B. Drage ◽  
Stephen Pates

Euarthropoda is one of the best-preserved fossil animal groups and has been the most diverse animal phylum for over 500 million years. Fossil Konservat-Lagerstätten, such as Burgess Shale-type deposits (BSTs), show the evolution of the euarthropod stem lineage during the Cambrian from 518 million years ago (Ma). The stem lineage includes nonbiomineralized groups, such as Radiodonta (e.g., Anomalocaris) that provide insight into the step-by-step construction of euarthropod morphology, including the exoskeleton, biramous limbs, segmentation, and cephalic structures. Trilobites are crown group euarthropods that appear in the fossil record at 521 Ma, before the stem lineage fossils, implying a ghost lineage that needs to be constrained. These constraints come from the trace fossil record, which show the first evidence for total group Euarthropoda (e.g., Cruziana, Rusophycus) at around 537 Ma. A deep Precambrian root to the euarthropod evolutionary lineage is disproven by a comparison of Ediacaran and Cambrian lagerstätten. BSTs from the latest Ediacaran Period (e.g., Miaohe biota, 550 Ma) are abundantly fossiliferous with algae but completely lack animals, which are also missing from other Ediacaran windows, such as phosphate deposits (e.g., Doushantuo, 560 Ma). This constrains the appearance of the euarthropod stem lineage to no older than 550 Ma. While each of the major types of fossil evidence (BSTs, trace fossils, and biomineralized preservation) have their limitations and are incomplete in different ways, when taken together they allow a coherent picture to emerge of the origin and subsequent radiation of total group Euarthropoda during the Cambrian.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrej Čerňanský ◽  
Nicole Klein ◽  
Ján Soták ◽  
Mário Olšavský ◽  
Juraj Šurka ◽  
...  

AbstractAn eosauropterygian skeleton found in the Middle Triassic (upper Anisian) Gutenstein Formation of the Fatric Unit (Demänovská dolina Valley, Low Tatra Mountains, Slovakia) represents the earliest known occurrence of marine tetrapods in the Western Carpathians. The specimen represents a partly articulated portion of the postcranial skeleton (nine dorsal vertebrae, coracoid, ribs, gastral ribs, pelvic girdle, femur and one zeugopodial element). It is assigned to the Pachypleurosauria, more precisely to theSerpianosaurus–Neusticosaurusclade based on the following combination of features: (1) small body size; (2) morphology of vertebrae, ribs and femur; (3) tripartite gastral ribs; and (4) microanatomy of the femur as revealed by μCT. Members of this clade were described from the epicontinental Germanic Basin and the Alpine Triassic (now southern Germany, Switzerland, Italy), and possibly from Spain. This finding shows that pachypleurosaur reptiles attained a broader geographical distribution during the Middle Triassic, with their geographical range reaching to the Central Western Carpathians. Pachypleurosaurs are often found in sediments formed in shallow, hypersaline carbonate-platform environments. The specimen found here occurs in a succession with vermicular limestones in a shallow subtidal zone and stromatolitic limestones in a peritidal zone, indicating that pachypleurosaurs inhabited hypersaline, restricted carbonate ramps in the Western Carpathians.


2021 ◽  
pp. SP522-2021-69
Author(s):  
H. Allen Curran ◽  
Bosiljka Glumac

AbstractThe rosetted trace fossil Dactyloidites ottoi (Geinitz, 1849) is reported and described for the first time from late Pleistocene (MIS 5e) carbonates of the Bahama Archipelago in shallowing-upward, shelly calcarenites from Great Inagua and Great and Little Exuma islands. The distinctive, fan-shaped D. ottoi specimens from the Bahamas, while not preserved in fine detail and not revealing a shaft, compare favourably in shape and size with specimens from other localities around the world, including the oldest well-documented specimens from the Jurassic of Argentina. D. ottoi is interpreted as a fodinichnion formed by the activity of a deposit-feeding worm, probably a polychaete, consuming marine-plant remains within host sediment. The late Pleistocene palaeodepositional environment of these carbonate sediments is interpreted as within the lower foreshore-upper shoreface zone in full marine, tropical waters. This discovery of D. ottoi marks an addition to the Bahamian shallow-marine ichnocoenose within the Skolithos ichnofacies.


Author(s):  
Reinhard Förster

ABSTRACTThe fossil record of unquestionable decapod remains dates back to Permo Triassic times. Evaluation of all available data from the fossil record, trace fossils and facies reveals various trends within the evolution of Mesozoic decapods, and its relation to their ecology. One of these trends is the protection of the long vulnerable abdomen. The most successful method, gradual reduction and inflection of the abdomen against the ventral cephalothorax, led to the Brachyura. Brachyurans exhibit the broadest spectrum of habitat adaptions.


Author(s):  
Anne C. Crook ◽  
Maria Long ◽  
David K.A. Barnes

In Ireland the purple sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus (Echinoidea) typically inhabits intertidal bored holes. At Lough Hyne, Co. Cork, a population occurs associated with rock scree in the shallow subtidal zone. This study provides unequivocal quantitative evidence to demonstrate diurnal migration in a population of P. lividus at Lough Hyne, Ireland. Most size groups/age-classes did not to migrate, the youngest always and oldest never occurring under rocks. Those that did migrate between the lower and upper surface of rocks (2+, 3+ and 4+ age categories) did so in exactly the reverse circadian pattern to those described from the Mediterranean Sea.


Author(s):  
Vahid Sepahvand ◽  
Alireza Sari ◽  
Hassan Salehi ◽  
Seyed-Mohammad-Bagher Nabavi ◽  
Seyed-Ghasem Ghorbanzadeh

The mud shrimps of Iran are not well known. Material for the present study was collected from 21 out of 51 intertidal localities from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, Iran. In total, 11 species were found along the Iranian coast. These were belonging to three families, including Upogebiidae (Upogebia carinicauda, U. darwinii and U. pseudochelata), Callianassidae (Neocallichirus jousseaumei, N. calmani, Callichirus masoomi, Corallianassa coutierei, Michaelcallianassa indica, Paratrypaea bouvieri and Gourretia coolibah) and Callianideidae (Callianidea typa). Geographical distributions of the species were considered and the results show that each species is totally dependent on a special type of habitat. Comparing different types of habitat, sandy and muddy substrates of the intertidal and shallow subtidal zone are found as the dominant habitat type for all species, but some species have a preference for boulder dominated coasts or occupy already existing holes and crevices in the boulder and bedrocks. In addition, the world distribution of each species was considered, and according to their present recorded localities, these are grouped into two distributional categories including the Indo-West Pacific region and one in a broader area of the Indo-Pacific.


2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 721-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zain Belaústegui ◽  
Allan A. Ekdale ◽  
Rosa Domènech ◽  
Jordi Martinell

AbstractA well-preserved omission surface (sedimentary discontinuity) in an outcrop near Alcoi in southeastern Spain displays trace fossils and body fossils that reflect a dynamic benthic community during the Miocene (Langhian–Tortonian). This outcrop, besides being the type locality of Spongeliomorpha iberica Saporta, 1887, exhibits other abundant trace fossils, such as Glossifungites saxicava Łomnicki, 1886 and Gastrochaenolites ornatus Kelly and Bromley, 1984. These trace fossils are restricted to a single stratigraphic horizon and constitute a typical firmground ichnoassemblage of the Glossifungites ichnofacies. The interiors of some of the Glossifungites and Spongeliomorpha burrows were occupied by encrusting balanomorph barnacles (Actinobalanus dolosus Darwin, 1854). This paper is the first report of cryptic barnacles colonizing the interior of open burrows that constitute a typical firmground ichnocoenose in the fossil record. Detailed ichnologic study demonstrates that the ichnospecies Glossifungites saxicava stands as a valid ichnotaxon and is not a synonym of the ichnogenus Rhizocorallium, as has been suggested by some previous workers.


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