Archive

An examination of ammonites from the Doulting Conglomerate Bed (Doulting, Somerset, England) has shown that this bed is Subfurcatum rather than Garantiana Zone in age. This is only the second fully authenticated area of outcrop of this Upper Bajocian Zone in England. The ammonites are described, and their bearing on the correlation of the Upper Inferior Oolite from the Mendips north to the Cotswolds is discussed.

• Read more about Ammonites from the Doulting Conglomerate Bed (Upper Bajocian, Jurassic) of Somerset

Five species of Nummulites and four forms of Operculina are described and illustrated from the Lower Eocene Thebes Limestone Member of the Thebes Formation, Gebel Gurnah, Luxor, Egypt. Operculina aegypliaca, 0, jiwani gebelensis, and O. libyca thebensis are described as new.

• Read more about Larger Foraminifera from the Lower Eocene of the Gebel Gurnah, Luxor, Egypt

A review of discontinuity hardgrounds shows that an ecological succession can be recognized accompanying the gradual increase in lithification. The burrowing, boring, and encrusting biota is divided into five groups: soft to firm substrate burrowers, animals that penetrate firm or cemented substrates, borers restricted to cemented substrates, non-restricted encrusters on firm to cemented substrates, and encrusters restricted to cemented substrates.

• Read more about Ecological succession in intraformational hardground formation

Two species of fossil plant (Spongiophyton nanum Krausel, S. lenticulare (Barbosa) Krausel) preserved as compression fossils with cuticles, are described from the ?Middle Devonian of Ghana. S, nanum, first described from the Devonian of Parana, Brazil, is a plant of dorsiventral thalloid organization, branching dichotomously, and with a series of large pores on the presumed upper surface. It has a cuticle far thicker than that of most vascular land plants. On its inner surface the outlines of cells of the underlying tissue may be seen. Nothing else is known of the inner tissue of the plant.

• Read more about Non-vascular land plants from the Devonian of Ghana

A trionychid turtle, Trionyx silvestris sp. nov., is described from a skull found in the Blackheath Beds (Lower Ypresian, Lower Eocene) of Abbey Wood, Kent. Comparisons are made between this, the first certain example of Trionyx from the Lower Eocene of Britain, and other fossil and Recent members of the Trionychidae.

• Read more about A new trionychid turtle from the Lower Eocene of Kent

Based on collections totalling some thousands of specimens, the distribution of conodont elements in three main and several other subsidiary sections in the Carboniferous of New South Wales is summarized in terms of seven successive conodont faunas, six of which are regarded as indicating biostratigraphic zones. In upward succession these are individually characterized by (a) Siphonodella spp., (b) Gnathoduspunctatus, (c) Gnathodus semiglaber, (d) Gnathodus sp. A, (e) Scaliognathus anchoralis, (f) Pseudopolygnathus cf. nodomarginatus, and (g) Patrognathus ? cf.

• Read more about Lower Carboniferous conodont biostratigraphy of New South Wales

Actinotocarcinus chidgeyi gen. et sp. nov. from the Waiauan or Middle Miocene of North Canterbury, New Zealand, is a long-spined, spider-crab belonging to the family Majidae Samouelle, 1819. While it shows a mosaic of individual features present within other subfamilies of the Majidae it differs from all in its total combination of characters, and a new subfamily Actinotocarcininae subfam. nov. is erected to contain it.

• Read more about A new spider-crab from the Miocene of New Zealand

• Read more about Environmental factors determining the distribution of brachiopods

Eight trilobite species based on type material from the Sholeshook Limestone are redescribed and two new species erected. For the first time a topotype pygidium is illustrated for Stenopareia bowmanni (Salter). Tretaspis moeldenensis Cave is retained as a distinct species; a topotype pygidium of this form is also figured for the first time and histograms given of selected fringe characters. The previously undescribed pygidium of Lehua? princeps (Reed), is very similar to that of the type species L.

• Read more about Trilobites from the Sholeshook Limestone (Ashgill) of South Wales

Five major marine benthonic communities, the (1) Salopina, (2) Homoeospira/Sphaerirhynchia, (3) Isorthis, (4) Dicoelosia, and (5) Visbyella communities occupied clastic sediments laid down in areas of increasing depth from the shoreline to deep areas in Wales and the Welsh Borderland during Wenlock and Ludlow times. The communities are described statistically and are shown to be completely intergrading in composition. They are dominated by epifaunal brachiopods, and so differ markedly from modern benthonic communities which are primarily infaunal.

• Read more about Wenlock and Ludlow marine communities in Wales and the Welsh Borderland