Article: Lower Carboniferous conodont faunas from south-west Ireland

Lower Carboniferous conodonts have been recovered from the Cork Beds at several localities situated between Cork and Bantry Bay in south-west Ireland. They are all of Tournaisian age. Faunas with siphonodellids and gnathodids suggest comparison with the late Kinderhookian and early Osagean of the U.S.A., and with the upper Siphonodella crenulata Zone of Germany. Some small faunas from lower in the Cork Beds succession are tentatively referred to the neighbourhood of the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary.A criticism of Rhodes, Austin, and Druce's work on the Avonian conodonts shows that there is, as yet, no good basis for detailed correlations with the Lower Carboniferous of the Bristol-South Wales region. A previous suggestion that the Cork Beds resemble the Pilton Beds of Devonshire receives support from the new Irish evidence. The Lower Carboniferous portion of the Cork Beds can be shown to be much thicker in south Cork than at Bantry Bay. It can also be shown that this Cork Beds wedge is in general older than the major development of carbonates (including bank-limestone facies) found to the north of the Cork-Kenmare line.