bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Conodont paleontology of the Providence Limestone Member of the Dugger Formation (Pennsylvanian, Desmoinesian) in the southern part of the Illinois Basin
Authors: Brown Lewis M. , Rexroad Carl B. , Eggert Donald L. , Horowitz Alan S. 
Published: August 2016

The Providence Limestone member of the Dugger Formation in Indiana and its lithologic correlatives in the southern part of the Illinois Basin are thin lime mudstones to packstones lying stratigraphically between the Herrin and Hymera Coal Members of the Dugger Formation and their equivalents. The purposes of the study are to describe and correlate the Providence conodont fauna and to apply biofacies analysis and petrographic study to interpreting the paleoenvironments.Providence conodonts are dominated by representatives of the Idiognathodus-Streptognathodus plexus. Hindeodus is abundant; Neognathodus is common; and Idioprioniodus, Adetognathus, and Diplognathodus are common only in some sections. Aethotaxis is a minor constituent.Conodont biofacies reflect a shallow, nearshore, low- to moderate-energy marine environment. The Idiognathodus-Streptognathodus plexus indicates quiet to moderately elevated energy levels. Hindeodus replaces part of the Idiognathodus-Streptognathodus plexus in higher energy conditions. Diplognathodus has an affinity for low to slightly elevated energy conditions. Migration during ontogeny to quite, organic-rich water from a more open, slightly higher energy environment is indicated for Streptognathodus oppletus.Assignment to the Neognathodus dilatus-N. roundyi zone indicates a middle Desmoinesian age. The new species Diplognathodus indianaensis is morphologically intermediate between the early Desmoinesian D. coloradoensis and the late Desmoinesian D. illinoisensis and allows refinement of a Diplognathodus-based zonation.
Limnopus trackways from the Conemaugh Group (Late Pennsylvanian), southern West Virginia
Authors: Martino Ronald L. 
Published: August 2016

Abundant and well-preserved tetrapod footprints have been discovered in the Glenshaw Formation (Lower Conemaugh Group) in Wayne County, West Virginia. The tracks occur along at least three horizons within a 30-cm-thick stratigraphic interval about 15 m (50 ft) above the Brush Creek Limestone; they are of Missourian age. The tracks are preserved mainly as casts on the underside of thin-bedded, ripple cross-laminated sandstones and less commonly as molds in intervening dark-gray shales. Associated body fossils include Spirorbis worm tubes and washed-in plant debris. Facies characteristics indicate the tracks were formed along the margins of an ephemeral lake in a flood basin setting adjacent to delta plain fluviodeltaic channel systems. Short-lived lacustrine conditions were likely to have resulted from a seasonal tropical to subtropical climate.Most of the tracks can be assigned to the ichnogenus Limnopus, making them one of the earliest known occurrences. At least five trackways are discernible with an external width ranging from 320 to 400 mm. Limnopus glenshawensis, a new ichnospecies, is herein proposed and various morphologic and locomotion parameters are quantified. Mean values include stride/manus, 407 mm; stride/pes, 411 mm; oblique pace/manus, 313 mm; oblique pace/pes, 317 mm; pace angle/manus, 82.4 degrees; pace angle/pes, 80.5 degrees; glenoacetabular distance, 329 mm; manus length, 87.2 mm; manus width, 104.2 mm; pes length, 121.4 mm; pes width, 112.7 mm. The tracemaker was most likely an eryopoid amphibian with a total length of slightly over 1 m.
Systematics and paleobiogeography of Late TriassicGryphaea(Bivalvia) from the North American Cordillera
Authors: Mcroberts Christopher A. 
Published: August 2016

Evaluation of previously undescribed collections of Late TriassicGryphaeafrom the North American Cordillera increases the temporal range and geographic distribution of the genus.Gryphaea(Gryphaea)arcuataeformisKiparisova,G.cf.G.(Gryphaea)keilhauiBöhm, and a new species,G.(Gryphaea)nevadensis, occur in lower Carnian to upper Norian strata from Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, and Nevada. The distribution is mostly primary with respect to the Upper Triassic North American Craton, and requires long-distance larval dispersal along the latitude of far-eastern Panthalassa. Unlike most modern oysters, the distribution of these Triassic gryphaeids may have been restricted to cool and deeper water environments.An early Carnian age ofGryphaea(Gryphaea)arcuataeformisplaces this species as the oldest knownGryphaea. When combined with late Carnian and Norian occurrences from the North and South American Cordillera, these data indicate that a low-latitude origin for the genus cannot be overlooked. Gryphaeids survived the end-Triassic extinction event presumably by living in refugia.
Late Triassic thalamid sponges from Nevada
Authors: Senowbari-Daryan Baba , Stanley George D. 
Published: August 2016

A study of Upper Triassic (Norian) thalamid sponges (“sphinctozoans”) from the Pilot Mountains, Garfield Hills, and East Range, Nevada, reveals an abundance of calcified sponges of the suborder Porata Seilacher. Two new species, Polycystocoelia silberlingi n. sp. and Neoguadalupia? norica n. sp., are added to our knowledge of five thalamid sponge taxa previously known from Nevada. All specimens have been neomorphically altered to calcite in a manner implying an original aragonite mineralogy.At the species level, the sponges show a restricted distribution. Nevadathalamia cylindrica (Seilacher) is a species also occurring in Sonora, Mexico, and previously known from the Yukon of Canada, but all other species are endemic to west-central and northwestern Nevada. At the generic level, similarities exist with species known from the Tethyan Realm, the Yukon, and south China. The genus Polycystocoelia has been known previously only from Hubei, China, and from the Yukon Territory, Canada. Neoguadalupia was previously known only from the Lower and Upper Permian of China. The occurrence of this genus in Nevada constitutes the first record of the genus outside of the Permian System of China.
A new tube-builder hydractinian, symbiotic with hermit crabs, from the Cretaceous of Antarctica
Authors: Olivero Eduardo B. , Aguirre-Urreta Maria B. 
Published: August 2016

An Upper Cretaceous (early Maastrichtian) tube-building hydractinian (Psammoactinia antarctica n. gen. and sp.) from Sanctuary Cliffs, Snow Hill Island, believed to live in association with hermit crabs, is described for the first time from Antarctica. Psammoactinia forms thick, concentric, globular colonies that encrust gastropod shells and extend the shell aperture by forming an open spiral tube. The colony consists of concentric layers with chambers and pillars made of silt and very fine sand grains agglutinated by collophane, which is interpreted as a diagenetic modification of an original chitinous phosphatic material. On the basis of the additional finding of isolated claws of pagurid crabs, assigned to Paguristes sp., the functional analysis of the hydractinian structure, and a comparison with modern and fossil analogous structures it is concluded that the peculiar hydractinian tube is a carcinoecium that housed a symbiotic hermit crab.Paleoenvironmental and paleoecological inferences suggest that the Psammoactinia–Paguristes association is mainly controlled by a fine-grained substrate and by a lack of abundant gastropod shells of different sizes. These factors do not necessarily correlate with absolute water depth, and favorable environments could include either offshore, relatively deep water or shallow restricted depositional settings.
BranchingHeliophyllum(Devonian rugose corals) from New York and Ohio
Authors: Oliver William A. , Sorauf James E. 
Published: August 2016

Solitary species ofHeliophyllumare the most common form of the genus but branching and massive colonies do occur, especially in Middle Devonian strata of eastern North America.Heliophyllum delicatumn. sp. offsets laterally and has a dendroid, broad bushy growth form. The species is known only from western and west-central New York and appears to be limited to the lower part of the Deep Run Shale Member of the Moscow Formation (middle Givetian); specimens are common within this restricted geographic and stratigraphic range. The skeleton ofH. delicatumwas poorly designed for the common coral environments of the Devonian, but seems to have been well adapted to muddy, carbonate-poor conditions where its thin skeletal elements required less calcium carbonate and its unsupported branches were not subject to vigorous water movement.Heliophyllum stewartin. sp. is based on a single specimen from the Tenmile Creek Dolomite (middle Givetian) in northwestern Ohio. The colony is phaceloid but each branch is an astreoid cluster without walls between individual corallites. In addition, the apparent protocorallite is turbinate with a larger diameter than any of the ceratoid offsets although offset lengths are several times that of the protocorallite.
Conodont paleoecology of the Lower Ordovician St. George Group, Port au Port Peninsula, western Newfoundland
Authors: Ji Zailiang , Barnes Christopher R. 
Published: August 2016

The St. George Group in western Newfoundland is nearly 600 m thick and is subdivided into the Watts Bight, Boat Harbour, Catoche, and Aguathuna Formations. The group is a nearly complete Lower Ordovician succession representing about 15–20 m.y. The depositional environment of the St. George Group is represented by three main lithofacies (supratidal, peritidal, and subtidal), expressed as two first-order cycles and five second-order cycles.In the study of St. George Group conodonts, over 70 multielement species are represented in 45,000 conodont specimens from 432 samples of 10 sections. Computer cluster analysis of most of those samples on the basis of similarity of conodont species was used to determine conodont community structure. Both the principal coordinate analysis (PCA) partitioning method and the agglomerative method (UPGMA with Bray-Curtis) were chosen for the statistical analysis. The four lithological formations and five secondary lithological cycles in the St. George Group emerge as distinct entities when the samples are clustered together on the basis of conodont data for analysis of first-order and second-order variations in community composition.Two deeper water, five shallow-water, and five intermediate communities through this time interval are recognized. The majority of conodonts from these communities are of Midcontinent Realm affinities, but some species represent strong North Atlantic Realm influxes during the transgressive periods.
Upper Placentian—Branchian series of mainland Nova Scotia (middle-upper Lower Cambrian): Faunas, paleoenvironments, and stratigraphic revision
Authors: Landing Ed 
Published: August 2016

Lithostratigraphy and depositional and epeirogenic history of the upper Placentian Series (Cuslett-Fosters Point Formations of the Bonavista Group) and Branchian Series (Brigus Formation) are identical in the northern Antigonish Highlands; Cape Breton Island; and eastern Placentia Bay, southeastern Newfoundland. Preliminary evidence suggests that the lower Middle Cambrian is present in the field area. A unified, uppermost Precambrian–Lower Cambrian, formation- and member-level nomenclature is appropriate to Avalonian North America, and the stratigraphic nomenclature of southeastern Newfoundland is applied in northern mainland Nova Scotia.Latest Placentian shoaling and deposition of a peritidal carbonate lithosome and unconformable onlap of the trilobite-bearing Branchian Series occurred in shallow Avalonian shale basins from eastern Massachusetts to central England.Uppermost Placentian Series faunas are very diverse in the Fosters Point Formation. Limited similarities with the South Australian Lower Cambrian are indicated by the presence ofCamenellasp. cf.C. reticulosa, Conotheca australiensis, andHyptiothecasp., but these forms do not contribute to highly resolved correlation.Twenty-eight taxa are illustrated from the upper Placentian and Branchian Series.Caveacus rectusn. gen. and sp., a phosphatic problematicum, is limited to the upper Placentian Series. The oldest, skeletalized, macrophagous predators are the Pseudoconodontida and the later appearing Protoconodontida (n. orders). The Pseudoconodontida includes the Protohertzinacea n. superfamily and Strictocorniculacea n. superfamily (with the Rhombocorniculidae and Strictocorniculidae n. families).Strictocorniculum vanallerumn. gen. and sp. is described. The tommotiid family Sunnaginiidae emend. includesEccentrotheca, Sunnaginia, Kulparina, andJayceia deltiformisn. gen. and sp.
Mississippian coral latitudinal diversity gradients (western interior United States): Testing the limits of high resolution diversity data
Authors: Webb Gregory E. , Sando William J. , Raymond Anne 
Published: August 2016

Analysis of high resolution diversity data for Mississippian corals in the western interior United States yielded mild latitudinal diversity gradients despite the small geographic area covered by samples and a large influence on diversity patterns by geographic sampling intensity (sample bias). Three competing plate tectonic reconstructions were tested using the diversity patterns. Although none could be forcefully rejected, one reconstruction proved less consistent with diversity patterns than the other two and additional coral diversity data from farther north in Canada would better discriminate the two equivalent reconstructions.Despite the relatively high sampling intensity represented by the analyzed database, diversity patterns were greatly affected by sample abundance and distribution. Hence, some effort at recognizing and accounting for sample bias should be undertaken in any study of latitudinal diversity gradients. Small-scale geographic lumping of sample localities had only small effects on geographic diversity patterns. However, large-scale (e.g., regional) geographic lumping of diversity data may not yield latitudinally sensitive diversity patterns. Temporal changes in coral diversity in this region reflect changes in eustacy, local tectonism, and terrigenous sediment flux, far more than they do shifting latitude. Highest regional diversity occurred during the interval when the studied region occupied the highest latitude. Therefore, diversity data from different regions may not be comparable, in terms of latitudinal inference. Small-scale stratigraphic lumping of the data caused a nearly complete loss of the latitudinal diversity patterns apparent prior to lumping. Hence, the narrowest possible stratigraphic resolution should be maintained in analyzing latitudinal diversity gradients.
Review ofEohiodon(Teleostei: Osteoglossomorpha) from western North America, with a phylogenetic reassessment of Hiodontidae
Authors: Guo-Qing Li , Wilson Mark V. H. , Grande Lance 
Published: August 2016

Review of recently collected material ofEohiodonfrom North America suggests that there are two valid species,E. rosei(Hussakof) andE. woodroffiWilson.Eohiodon falcatusGrande is identical toE. woodruffiin known skeletal features and nearly all meristic features and is treated as a junior synonym of the latter. The fossil genusEohiodonCavender differs fromHiodonLesueur, which is known from both fossil and extant species, in numerous meristic and osteological features. The caudal skeleton inEohiodonis nearly identical to that inHiodon.The traditionally accepted Notopteroidei, containing Lycopteridae, Hiodontidae, and Notopteridae, is a polypheletic group. The Asian fossil family Lycopteridae is not more closely related to Hiodontidae than it is to other taxa in the Osteoglossomorpha, but is sister to all other Osteoglossomorpha. The Hiodontiformes sensu stricto, including only the family Hiodontidae, is the sister-group of the Osteoglossiformes. This family is not more closely related to notopterids than to other taxa in Osteoglossiformes. The Notopteridae are most closely related to the Mormyroidea; together they and the fossil family Ostariostomidae constitute the sister-group of the Osteoglossoidei.Fossil records of Hiodontiformes sensu stricto and Notopteroidei indicate a widespread pre-Neogene biogeographic range of these freshwater teleosts, suggesting that extinction must have been involved in the Cenozoic evolution of these two osteoglossomorph sublineages.
Triassic corals and spongiomorphs from Hells Canyon, Wallowa terrane, Oregon
Authors: Stanley George D. , Whalen Michael T. 
Published: August 2016

Twenty-one species of corals and three species of spongiomorphs occur in a series of richly fossiliferous, molluscan-dominated beds with silicified bioclasts in the Upper Triassic Martin Bridge Limestone of Hells Canyon, Oregon. Two of these,Maeandrostylis grandiseptusandRecticostastraea wallowaensisare new species.Recticostastraeais designated as a new genus.The fauna is early Norian and occurs in the island arc Wallowa terrane, one of many tectonostratigraphic terranes in western North America. Like other examples, it appears to have developed independently of the North American craton and to have links with Wrangellia. The fossil corals and spongiomorphs are para-autochthonous, occurring in a series of tempestite beds. They are interpreted to have inhabited a shallow-water carbonate platform that developed around a tropical island arc following cessation of volcanic activity. The corals and spongiomorphs are associated with abundant gastropods and a diverse epifaunal suspension-feeding bivalve fauna. Relative to the corals, branching spongiomorphs,Spongiomorpha ramosa, are more abundant and occur with relatively common branching, sheet to plate-like, colonial corals. Solitary corals are relatively rare. The associated bedded limestone includes a variety of shallow-water microfacies but throughout the Hells Canyon sequence, reef structure is absent.Together, the 24 coral and spongiomorph taxa show mixed paleogeographic affinities with Upper Triassic faunas known only from alpine regions of the western Tethys (five species), the Pamir Mountains, U.S.S.R. (two species), and the island of Timor (one species). Five additional species are pan-Tethyan and exceptionally cosmopolitan, but 11 species (45.8%) occur only in displaced terranes. Of these, a significant component (six species) is endemic to the Wallowa terrane. At least four Hells Canyon taxa, previously thought endemic to North American terranes, have recently been reported from the high-latitude Koryak terrane of northeastern U.S.S.R., a displaced tropical volcanic terrane of the northwestern Pacific. For Triassic corals, this is the first example of a clear link between western Pacific and eastern Pacific terranes. Less similarity exists with the Wrangell Mountains, Alaska, where identical age lower Norian silicified corals and spongiomorphs are known.
First record of the Tethyan genus Volutilithes (Gastropoda: Volutidae) in the Paleogene of the Gulf Coastal Plain, with a discussion of Tethyan molluscan assemblages in the Gulf Coastal Plain and Florida
Authors: Givens Charles R. 
Published: August 2016

Lapparia sp. A of Toulmin (1977), from the early Eocene Hatchetigbee Formation of Alabama, is referable to the Tethyan genus Volutilithes and is conspecific with Voluta clarae Harris. This is the first certain record of Volutilithes in the Paleogene of the Gulf Coastal Plain and only the third record of the genus in North America. Trans-Atlantic migration of this tropical genus to the New World apparently occurred during the early Eocene. Its northward expansion into the higher latitudes of Alabama and southern California was probably in response to early Eocene climatic warming.In addition to Volutilithes, many other molluscs with Tethyan affinities are present in the Paloegene deposits of the Gulf Coastal Plain. These Tethyan elements, however, differ from those reported from the Eocene of peninsular Florida. The presence of a filter-bridge barrier, the Suwannee Channel, between the eastern Gulf shelf and the Floridian carbonate platform during the Paleogene may account for this difference.
Redeposited Elvinia Zone (Upper Cambrian) trilobites from the Collier Shale, Ouachita Mountains, west-central Arkansas
Authors: Hohensee Steven R. , Stitt James H. 
Published: August 2016

Trilobites assigned to the Elvinia Zone (Lower Franconian, Upper Cambrian) have been recovered from the Collier Shale in the Ouachita Mountains of west-central Arkansas. The trilobites are preserved as disarticulated exuviae, and are found in both dark-colored limestone clasts and dark, thinly-bedded carbonate layers. Field observations and petrologic/petrographic evidence indicate that these trilobites were originally deposited in a deep-water, outer shelf setting, and that shortly after deposition they were transported by sediment gravity flows to the continental slope or basinal plain.The faunal assemblage is very similar taxonomically and taphonomically to faunas of the Elvinia Zone previously reported from North American shelf environments. Two distinctive trilobite assemblages occur in the Collier Shale. Most common is a diverse fauna that is correlative with the middle to upper part of the Elvinia Zone in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. One locality yielded numerous trilobites characteristic of the Irvingella major Subzone, which occurs at the top of the Elvinia Zone in these areas. These Elvinia Zone trilobites belong to the North American Faunal Province, a largely endemic group restricted to shelf environments around the perimeter of the North American craton. Their occurrence in the Collier Shale strongly indicates that the original site of Collier deposition was proximal to the Upper Cambrian shelf margin and that the Ouachita sedimentary section is not an exotic terrane.More than 7,900 trilobites were identified during this study; they are assigned to 26 genera and 27 species. The family Cliffidae is proposed for a group of trilobites that includes species of Cliffia Wilson, Aphelotoxon Palmer (junior synonym Ponumia Hu), Drabia Wilson, and possibly Elyaspis Kurtz. Three new genera are erected (Kymagnostus, Pyttstrigis, and Jessievillia) and 10 new species are described and illustrated (Apachia genaitholix, Cliffia magnacilis, Dellea planafrons, Iddingsia hapsis, Jessievillia radiatus, Kymagnostus harti, Neoagnostus? dilatus, Aphelotoxon lumaleasa, Pulchricapitus fetosus, and Pyttstrigis dicilia).
Lyre-shaped hornerid bryozoan colonies: homeomorphy in colony form between Paleozoic Fenestrata and Cenozoic Cyclostomata
Authors: McKinney Frank K. , Taylor Paul D. , Zullo Victor A. 
Published: August 2016

Reticulate Hornera reteramae (Bryozoa, order Cyclostomata) have been discovered as free-lying, lyre-shaped colonies in the Castle Hayne Limestone (Eocene) in North Carolina. These specimens represent a striking instance of homeomorphy in colony form with the Late Mississippian genera Lyropora and Lyroporella of the order Fenestrata.Bryozoans with reticulate growth habit most commonly develop upright colonies. Living representatives generally grow in quiet environments or microenvironments, and fossils are generally found in situ in quiet-water deposits. However, lyre-shaped Hornera reteramae occur in skeletal packstones inferred to have been deposited in a moderate-energy, shallow, open shelf environment near normal wave base. Upper Mississippian lyre-shaped colonies are preserved in skeletal packstones and grainstones in localized channels or on upper surfaces of low-angle cross-bedded sheets interpreted as high-energy, marine shoal deposits. Modification of the reticulate growth habit to low, peripherally weighted, free-lying structures apparently allowed invasion of higher energy sand bottoms, both in Mississippian and Eocene times.