scholarly journals Middle Ordovician Aparchitidae and Schmidtellidae: the significance of ‘featureless’ ostracods

1995 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Williams ◽  
Jean M. C. Vannier

Abstract. Schmidtellidae and Aparchitidae form a common element of North American middle Ordovician ostracod faunas. Characterized by relatively simple morphology with few obvious diagnostic features they are conventionally assigned to the Leiocopa. Their simple morphology has led to numerous species being referred to as ‘bag gencra’ such as Aparchites or Schmidtella. Aparchitids differ markedly from schmidtellids in the nature and degree of valve overlap, shell thickness and development of dorsal and ventral valve modifications. Schmidtellids may be more closely related to leperditellaceans. Kayina, previously assigned to the leiocope Family Jaanussoniidae and recorded from the middle Ordovician of North America, does not conform to leiocope morphology and is probably a leperditellacean. Aparchitaceans (Aparchitidae and Jaanussoniidae) may represent the root-stock from which the Paraparchitacea evolved later in the Palaeozoic. In North America schmidtellids and aparchitids have potential for middle Ordovician stratigraphic correlation. They co-occur in normal marine shelf depositional environments but were absent from marginal marine depositional settings.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Dong-Yu Zheng ◽  
Si-Xuan Wu

Abstract Textures are important features of sandstones; however, their controlling factors are not fully understood. We present a detailed textural analysis of fluvio-lacustrine sandstones and discuss the influences of provenance and depositional environments on sandstone textures. The upper Permian – lowermost Triassic Wutonggou sandstones in the Bogda Mountains, NW China, are the focus of this study. Sandstone thin-sections were studied by point counting and their textures were analysed using statistical and principal component analysis. Fluvial lithic, fluvial feldspathic, deltaic lithic, deltaic feldspathic, littoral lithic and littoral feldspathic sandstone were classified and compared. These comparisons indicate that lithic and feldspathic sandstones from the same depositional settings have significant differences in graphic mean, graphic standard deviation and roundness; in contrast, sandstones from different depositional settings but with similar compositions have limited differences in textures. Moreover, three principal components (PCs) are recognized to explain 75% of the total variance, of which the first principal component (PC1) can explain 44%. In bivariate plots of the PCs, sandstones can be distinguished by composition where lithic and feldspathic sandstones are placed in different fields of the plots along the axis of PC1. However, sandstones from different depositional settings overlap and show no clear division. These results indicate that provenance, mainly the source lithology, is the most significant controlling factor on sandstone texture, whereas the depositional environment has limited influence. This study improves our understanding of textural characteristics of fluvio-lacustrine sandstones and their controlling factors, and shows the potentiality of principal component analysis in sandstone studies.


1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Sprinkle ◽  
Gregory P. Wahlman

Four specimens of blastozoan and crinozoan echinoderms are described from the Lower Ordovician El Paso Group in the southern Franklin Mountains just north of El Paso, west Texas.Cuniculocystis flowerin. gen. and sp., based on two partial specimens, appears to be a typical rhombiferan in most of its morphologic features except that it lacks pectinirhombs and instead has covered epispires (otherwise known only from Middle Ordovician eocrinoids) opening on most of the thecal plate sutures. The covered epispires inCuniculocystisindicate that some early rhombiferans had alternate respiratory structures and had not yet standardized on pectinirhombs, a feature previously used as diagnostic for the class Rhombifera.Bockia?elpasoensisn. sp. is a new eocrinoid based on one poorly preserved specimen that has a small ellipsoidal theca and unbranched brachioles attached to a flat-topped spoutlike summit. It is the earliest known questionable representative of this genus and the only one that has been described from North America.Elpasocrinus radiatusn. gen. and sp. is an early cladid inadunate crinoid based on a single well-preserved calyx. It fits into a lineage of early cladids leading to the dendrocrinids and toCarabocrinus.Several additional separate plates, stem segments, and a holdfast of these and other echinoderms are also described.


1991 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus M. Key

The Bromide Formation of the Middle Ordovician Simpson Group of Oklahoma contains one of the oldest diverse bryozoan faunas in North America. The early divergence of many trepostome clades is revealed in these rocks. Three trepostome bryozoan species belonging to family Halloporidae are described from this fauna. Discriminant analysis is used to define the following halloporid species: Diplotrypa schindeli n. sp., Tarphophragma karklinsi n. sp., and Tarphophragma macrostoma (Loeblich). Preliminary cladistic analysis indicates that the family Halloporidae was already a distinct lineage by the Middle Ordovician. This suggests that by this time, many of the major trepostome clades were already established.


Check List ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Rung

A new psyllid pest of ficus, Macrohomotoma gladiata (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Psylloidea), is reported for the first time from North America (California, U.S.A.). Notes on another adventive psyllid species that has been collected from ficus in California, Homotoma ficus, are given, together with a list diagnostic features that separate between M. gladiata and H. ficus.


Terr Plural ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. e2119456
Author(s):  
Elvio Pinto Bosetti ◽  
◽  
Lucinei Jose Myszynski Junior ◽  
Daniel Sedorko ◽  
Luana Oliveira ◽  
...  

The urban area of Ponta Grossa (PR) occurs on one of the most abundant fossiliferous fields in the country, which records an endemic fauna that occurred in the Devonian of the Paraná Basin. The growing urbanization of the city increasingly buries these outcrops, and new works must be accompanied by a specialized team to safeguard the paleontological heritage. This is the case of the Bosque Mistral project, which exposed many layers of the Ponta Grossa Formation, rich in fossils and trace fossils. This study reports the main fossiliferous occurrences in the section, correlates the section with classical outcrops from the literature, and interprets the main depositional environments as well stratigraphic cycles using an integrated analysis of sedimentology and ichnology. The ichnological distribution also evidences the retrogradation pattern, and, particularly, the occurrence of ichnofabrics dominated by Zoophycos at the top of the section is a signature of high-frequency cycles associated with the transgressive systems tract. Macrofossill biodiversity varies according to the facies, in the sandy and silty layers different organisms from the muddy layers occur. In the former, the epibiont fauna (mainly trilobites and brachiopods) is predominant while in the muddy layers the predominance is the endobiont and semi-endobiont fauna (bivalve mollusks and infaunal brachiopods). In other words, the distribution of taxa across the layers is not random.


Geosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1042-1057
Author(s):  
N.R. Riggs ◽  
T.B. Sanchez ◽  
S.J. Reynolds

Abstract A shift in the depositional systems and tectonic regime along the western margin of Laurentia marked the end of the Paleozoic Era. The record of this transition and the inception and tectonic development of the Permo-Triassic Cordilleran magmatic arc is preserved in plutonic rocks in southwestern North America, in successions in the distal back-arc region on the Colorado Plateau, and in the more proximal back-arc region in the rocks of the Buckskin Formation of southeastern California and west-central Arizona (southwestern North America). The Buckskin Formation is correlated to the Lower–Middle Triassic Moenkopi and Upper Triassic Chinle Formations of the Colorado Plateau based on stratigraphic facies and position and new detrital zircon data. Calcareous, fine- to medium-grained and locally gypsiferous quartzites (quartz siltstone) of the lower and quartzite members of the Buckskin Formation were deposited in a marginal-marine environment between ca. 250 and 245 Ma, based on detrital zircon U-Pb data analysis, matching a detrital-zircon maximum depositional age of 250 Ma from the Holbrook Member of the Moenkopi Formation. An unconformity that separates the quartzite and phyllite members is inferred to be the Tr-3 unconformity that is documented across the Colorado Plateau, and marks a transition in depositional environments. Rocks of the phyllite and upper members were deposited in wholly continental depositional environments beginning at ca. 220 Ma. Lenticular bodies of pebble to cobble (meta) conglomerate and medium- to coarse-grained phyllite (subfeldspathic or quartz wacke) in the phyllite member indicate deposition in fluvial systems, whereas the fine- to medium-grained beds of quartzite (quartz arenite) in the upper member indicate deposition in fluvial and shallow-lacustrine environments. The lower and phyllite members show very strong age and Th/U overlap with grains derived from Cordilleran arc plutons. A normalized-distribution plot of Triassic ages across southwestern North America shows peak magmatism at ca. 260–250 Ma and 230–210 Ma, with relatively less activity at ca. 240 Ma, when a land bridge between the arc and the continent was established. Ages and facies of the Buckskin Formation provide insight into the tectono-magmatic evolution of early Mesozoic southwestern North America. During deposition of the lower and quartzite members, the Cordilleran arc was offshore and likely dominantly marine. Sedimentation patterns were most strongly influenced by the Sonoma orogeny in northern Nevada and Utah (USA). The Tr-3 unconformity corresponds to both a lull in magmatism and the “shoaling” of the arc. The phyllite and upper members were deposited in a sedimentary system that was still influenced by a strong contribution of detritus from headwaters far to the southeast, but more locally by a developing arc that had a far stronger effect on sedimentation than the initial phases of magmatism during deposition of the basal members.


1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Rohr

Gastropods are abundant in the Middle Ordovician (Whiterockian) Antelope Valley Formation of Nevada. Because Whiterockian rocks are absent in much of central and eastern North America, these Nevada gastropods play a significant role in understanding the Early to Middle Ordovician transition of the class. The shell and operculum of a new genus and species of macluritoid, Monitorella auricula, is described. New euomphaloid taxa include Walcottoma frydai n. gen. and sp., Rossospira harrisae n. gen. and sp., Barnesella measuresae n. sp., Helicotoma gubanovi n. sp., Lytospira yochelsoni n. sp., and Malayaspira hintzei n. sp.


2001 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. Brower

Three flexible crinoids occur in the Upper Ordovician Maquoketa Formation of Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota:Protaxocrinus girvanensisRamsbottom, 1961,Clidochirus anebosnew species, andProanisocrinus oswegoensis(Miller and Gurley, 1894).Protaxocrinus girvanensisis also found in the Upper Ordovician of Scotland which indicates that the ocean was narrow enough to allow at least one crinoid species to cross the barrier. The Upper Ordovician of North America and Scotland also share many common crinoid genera. Both phenetic and cladistic methods result in similar phylogenies of flexible crinoids.Protaxocrinuswas derived from a cupulocrinid ancestor during the Middle Ordovician.Clidochirusevolved fromProtaxocrinusor its ancestral stock prior to the Richmondian of the Late Ordovician. The RichmondianProanisocrinusand later anisocrinids are most closely related toClidochirusor its immediate predecessor. Thus, three major lineages of flexible crinoids,Protaxocrinus(taxocrinid group),Clidochirus(icthyocrinid), andProanisocrinus(anisocrinids and homalocrinids), appeared during the Ordovician. Despite their rarity during the Ordovician, all three flexible lineages survived the Latest Ordovician extinction, whereas their more abundant and successful cupulocrinid ancestors were eliminated.


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