Late Triassic gastropods from the Martin Bridge Formation (Wallowa Terrane) of northeastern Oregon and their paleogeographic significance

2003 ◽  
Vol 228 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Alexander Nützel ◽  
Robert B. Blodgett ◽  
George D. Jr. Stanley
1987 ◽  
Vol 61 (S22) ◽  
pp. 1-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathryn R. Newton ◽  
Michael T. Whalen ◽  
Joel B. Thompson ◽  
Nienke Prins ◽  
David Delalla

Early Norian silicified bivalves from Hells Canyon in the Wallowa terrane of northeastern Oregon are part of a rich molluscan biota associated with a tropical island arc. The Hells Canyon locality preserves lenses of silicified shells formed as tempestites in a shallow subtidal carbonate environment. These shell assemblages are parautochthonous and reflect local, rather than long-distance, transport. Silicification at this locality involved small-scale replacement of original calcareous microstructures, or small-scale replacement of neomorphosed shells, without an intervening phase of moldic porosity. This incremental replacement of carbonate by silica contrasts markedly with void-filling silicification textures reported previously from silicified Permian bivalve assemblages.The bivalve paleoecology of this site indicates a suspension feeding biota existing on and within the interstices of coral-spongiomorph thickets, and inhabiting laterally adjacent substrates of peloidal carbonate sand. The bivalve fauna is ecologically congruent with the reef-dwelling molluscs associated with Middle Triassic sponge-coral buildups in the Cassian Formation of the Dolomites (Fuersich and Wendt, 1977). Hells Canyon is a particularly important early Norian locality because of the diversity of substrate types and because the site includes many first occurrences of bivalves in the North American Cordillera. These first occurrences include the first documentation of the important epifaunal families Pectinidae and Terquemiidae in Triassic rocks of the North American Cordillera.The large number of biogeographic and geochronologic range extensions discovered in this single tropical Norian biota indicates that use of literature-based range data for Late Triassic bivalves may be very hazardous. Many bivalve taxa formerly thought to have gone extinct in Karnian time have now been documented from Norian strata in this arc terrane. These range extensions, coupled with the high bivalve species richness of the Hells Canyon site, suggest that the Karnian mass extinction in several literature-based compilations may be an artifact of incomplete sampling. Even for the Norian, present compilations of molluscan extinction may have an unacceptably large artifactual component.Thirty-five bivalve taxa from the Hells Canyon locality are discussed. Of these, seven are new: the mytilid Mysidiella cordillerana n. sp., the limacean Antiquilima vallieri n. sp., the true oyster Liostrea newelli n. sp., the pectinacean Crenamussium concentricum n. gen. and sp., the unioid Cardinioides josephus n. sp., the trigoniacean Erugonia canyonensis n. gen. and sp., and the carditacean Palaeocardita silberlingi n. sp.


1998 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baba Senowbari-Daryan ◽  
George D. Stanley

The sponge Neoguadalupia oregonensis new species is described from the Upper Triassic Martin Bridge Formation in the southern Wallowa Mountains, Oregon. It is the first authenticated Triassic occurrence of the genus Neoguadalupia, previously known from the Permian of South China and suspected to occur in Upper Triassic of Nevada. This discovery provides evidence at the generic level of survival of a Lazarus taxon in an island-arc terrane of western North America.


2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-147
Author(s):  
George D. Stanley ◽  
Thomas E. Yancey ◽  
Hannah M.E. Shepherd

One of the most distinctive components of the Late Triassic warm-water biota are alatoform, reclining bivalves of the genus Wallowaconcha. Wallowaconcha raylenea was first described from shallow-water, fine-grained Upper Triassic carbonate rocks of the Wallowa terrane, northeastern Oregon, and later found in coeval limestone in the Yukon. Fossils of the family Wallowaconchidae are easily recognized and readily distinguished from other fossil groups by their large size (over a metre in length), alatoform morphology, and especially the chambered wing-like extensions likely associated with photosymbiosis. Several different taxa of Norian age inhabited lagoon and reef-related settings on four separate terranes of western North America (Antimonio terrane, Sonora, Mexico; Wallowa terrane, northeastern Oregon; Stikine terrane in the Yukon; Chulitna terrane of Alaska), which during Triassic time existed as volcanic islands in the eastern Panthalassa Ocean. Outside eastern Panthalassa in the eastern Tethys, two other species of Wallowaconcha come from distant localities in Asia and Arabia. We here report for the first time, in presumed Rhaetian limestone of the upper part of the Parson Bay Formation, Vancouver Island, newly discovered examples of Wallowaconcha. They are from Wrangellia and, based on size and shape of the chambers, are assignable to W. raylenea but unlike other examples they appear to be Rhaetian in age. This species of giant bivalve inhabited warm-water locales outboard of North America during the Late Triassic, and its presence provides possible paleobiogeographic links of Wrangellia with both Stikinia and the Wallowa terrane.


1989 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Flügel ◽  
Baba Senowbari-Daryan ◽  
George D. Stanley

An Upper Triassic metaspondyle dasycladacean alga,Diplopora oregonensisn. sp., is described from the Hurwal Formation, southern Wallowa Mountains, northeastern Oregon. It occurs in the accreted Wallowa terrane, which is interpreted as far-travelled relative to the craton of North America. The fossil alga is found in limestone clasts within a limestone–chert–volcanic clast conglomerate of the Hurwal Formation. The new species is related toDiploplora borzaiBystricky, known from the Upper Triassic of the Carpathian Mountains and Sicily, but is distinguished by very small branches and a distinct segmentation of the thalli.Diplopora oregonensisis the first Triassic dasycladacean alga known from the United States, and perhaps from all of North America. The absence of calcareous green algae from rocks of cratonal North America, as well as from most Triassic displaced terranes of the eastern and western Pacific, is in stark contrast to counterparts in the former Tethys region of central Europe, where dasycladacean algae were abundant and contributed significantly to the sediment. This paucity of algae may be related to differences in environment, but more likely is linked to the paleogeographic situation and dispersal abilities of the algae. The similarity of the Oregon dasyclads to species in western Europe, coupled with the lack of dasyclad algae in any other part of North America, is evidence in support of a far-travelled nature for the Wallowa terrane.


Facies ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Nützel ◽  
Douglas H. Erwin

PalZ ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Nützel ◽  
Douglas H. Erwin

1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (03) ◽  
pp. 419-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baba Senowbari-Daryan ◽  
George D. Stanley

Two Upper Triassic sphinctozoan sponges of the family Sebargasiidae were recovered from silicified residues collected in Hells Canyon, Oregon. These sponges areAmblysiphonellacf.A. steinmanni(Haas), known from the Tethys region, andColospongia whalenin. sp., an endemic species. The latter sponge was placed in the superfamily Porata by Seilacher (1962). The presence of well-preserved cribrate plates in this sponge, in addition to pores of the chamber walls, is a unique condition never before reported in any porate sphinctozoans. Aporate counterparts known primarily from the Triassic Alps have similar cribrate plates but lack the pores in the chamber walls. The sponges from Hells Canyon are associated with abundant bivalves and corals of marked Tethyan affinities and come from a displaced terrane known as the Wallowa Terrane. It was a tropical island arc, suspected to have paleogeographic relationships with Wrangellia; however, these sponges have not yet been found in any other Cordilleran terrane.


Author(s):  
H. Mohri

In 1959, Afzelius observed the presence of two rows of arms projecting from each outer doublet microtubule of the so-called 9 + 2 pattern of cilia and flagella, and suggested a possibility that the outer doublet microtubules slide with respect to each other with the aid of these arms during ciliary and flagellar movement. The identification of the arms as an ATPase, dynein, by Gibbons (1963)strengthened this hypothesis, since the ATPase-bearing heads of myosin molecules projecting from the thick filaments pull the thin filaments by cross-bridge formation during muscle contraction. The first experimental evidence for the sliding mechanism in cilia and flagella was obtained by examining the tip patterns of molluscan gill cilia by Satir (1965) who observed constant length of the microtubules during ciliary bending. Further evidence for the sliding-tubule mechanism was given by Summers and Gibbons (1971), using trypsin-treated axonemal fragments of sea urchin spermatozoa. Upon the addition of ATP, the outer doublets telescoped out from these fragments and the total length reached up to seven or more times that of the original fragment. Thus, the arms on a certain doublet microtubule can walk along the adjacent doublet when the doublet microtubules are disconnected by digestion of the interdoublet links which connect them with each other, or the radial spokes which connect them with the central pair-central sheath complex as illustrated in Fig. 1. On the basis of these pioneer works, the sliding-tubule mechanism has been established as one of the basic mechanisms for ciliary and flagellar movement.


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