Chitinozoans and the age of the Soom Shale, an Ordovician black shale Lagerstätte, South Africa

Vandenbroucke, Thijs R.A.; Gabbott, Sarah E.; Paris, Florentin; Aldridge, Richard J.; Theron, Johannes N.

doi:10.1144/jm.28.1.53

Cited by 43 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…But it is a particularly valuable Konservat-Lagerstätte because, in contrast to most other Ordovician examples (see Box 1), the fauna represents a fully marine biota, 2006), Beecher's Trilobite Bed (Katian: Briggs et al 1991;Farrell et al 2009), William Lake and Airport Cove, Manitoba (Katian: Young et al 2007), and the Soom Shale (Hirnantian or even earliest Silurian: Aldridge et al 1994Aldridge et al , 2001Vandenbroucke et al 2009), all of which yield restricted assemblages from marginal environments. However, a marrellomorph resembling Furca, a signature taxon of the Fezouata biota, was recently reported from the early Ordovician Floresta Formation of Argentina (Aris & Palomo 2014), raising the possibility that other normal, fully marine exceptional faunas of this age may be present elsewhere (see Box 1).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fezouata fossils of Morocco; an extraordinary record of marine life in the Early Ordovician

Roy

Briggs

Gaines

2015

JGS

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The discovery of the Fezouata biota in the latest Tremadocian of southeastern Morocco has significantly changed our understanding of the early Phanerozoic radiation. The shelly fossil record shows a well-recognized pattern of macroevolutionary stasis between the Cambrian Explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, but the rich soft-bodied Fezouata biota paints a different evolutionary picture. The Fezouata assemblage includes a considerable component of Cambrian holdovers alongside a surprising number of crown group taxa previously unknown to have evolved by the Early Ordovician. Study of the Fezouata biota is in its early stages, and future discoveries will continue to enrich our view of the dynamics of the early Phanerozoic radiation and of the nature of the fossil record.Supplementary material:A complete faunal list is available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18843.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fezouata fossils of Morocco; an extraordinary record of marine life in the Early Ordovician

Roy

Briggs

Gaines

2015

JGS

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Indeed, in well Nl-2, cores 29 and 30 from the upper part of the M'Kratta Formation yield a chitinozoan assemblage representative of the Spinachitina oulebsiri biozone, including the index species itself, but also Spinachitina verniersi, a species recently described by Vandenbroucke et al (2009) in the Soom shale, in South Africa. This species is identical to the specimens recorded in Moussegouda (Fig.…”

Section: Chitinozoansmentioning

confidence: 93%

Late Ordovician-earliest Silurian palynomorphs from northern Chad and correlation with contemporaneous deposits of southeastern Libya

Hérissé¹,

Paris²,

Steemans³

2013

Bull. Geosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Well preserved assemblages of cryptospores, chitinozoans, acritarchs, leiospheres, tasmanitids, colonies of Gloeocapsomorpha, scolecodonts and eurypterid fragments from 23 core samples of the Moussegouda core hole in the Erdi Basin, northern Chad, and from two samples from well KW-2 in Kufra Basin, South East Libya are investigated. These palynomorphs were recovered from the southernmost North African marine deposits of Late Ordovician and possibly early Silurian age. The palaeoenvironment evolves from late Hirnantian glacio-marine diamictites to silt-dominated sequences suggesting a marginal marine environment of possibly latest Hirnantian to earliest Rhuddanian age (post-elongata-pre-fragilis chitinozoan assemblages). The recovered palynomorph assemblages are compared and correlated with contemporaneous assemblages recorded in other northern Gondwana localities (Mauritania, Morocco Algeria, Libya, Africa, Saudi Arabia, Jordan), and in South Africa, in order to evaluate possible effects of the ice cap melting on palynomorph assemblages and sedimentation. Our goal is also to improve the regional biostratigraphy across the Ordovician-Silurian boundary. The composition of the recovered palynomorph assemblages, with mixed terrestrial and marine microflora, suggests that the topmost Ordovician or earliest Silurian in northern Chad and southeastern Libya, reflects nearshore conditions, with obvious fresh water influences. The lack of black shale or grey shale in the uppermost Ordovician and of "hot shale" in the lower Silurian in these areas, and their replacement by siltstones, are probably related to an isostatic readjustment that rapidly starved the marine sedimentation in the areas previously overlain by a thick ice cover during the climax of the Hirnantian glaciation. Tasmanites tzadiensis Le Hérissé sp. nov. and Euconochitina moussegoudaensis Paris sp. nov., two new palynomorphs of biostratigraphical interest are described and illustrated.•

show abstract

“…The highest resolution dating of the Soom Shale Member (and also the Cedarberg Formation) is provided by chitinozoans (Spinachitina and its morphotypes). The presence of S. oulebsiri restricts the age to a 1 myr interval of late Hirnantian to Rhuddanian time (Vandenbroucke et al 2009). The absence of S. fragilis chitinozoans suggests that it underlies Silurian (Rhuddanian) strata.…”

Section: Location Stratigraphy and Agementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The absence of S. fragilis chitinozoans suggests that it underlies Silurian (Rhuddanian) strata. Thus, a late Hirnantian age is most likely (Vandenbroucke et al 2009). …”

Section: Location Stratigraphy and Agementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstätte: an extraordinary post-glacial fossil and sedimentary record

Gabbott

Browning

Theron

et al. 2016

JGS

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fossils of the Late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstätte are characterized by exceptional preservation of their soft tissues in clay minerals. The low-diversity community lived in an unusual cold-water setting, dominated by anoxic bottom waters, in the immediate aftermath of the Hirnantian glaciation. Giant conodonts represented by complete tooth sets, and one with trunk musculature and liver preserved, unarmoured jawless fish, lobopods and enigmatic taxa are some of the more important fossils. Furthermore, this Lagerstätte also preserves biomineralized Ordovician taxa such as brachiopods, orthoconic nautiloids and trilobites. It is important in capturing the only known examples of many taxa, extending temporal ranges of others and providing a unique glimpse of a post-glacial refugium, at a time when other Lagerstätten are unknown.

show abstract

Chitinozoans and the age of the Soom Shale, an Ordovician black shale Lagerstätte, South Africa

Cited by 43 publications

References 37 publications

The Fezouata fossils of Morocco; an extraordinary record of marine life in the Early Ordovician

The Fezouata fossils of Morocco; an extraordinary record of marine life in the Early Ordovician

Late Ordovician-earliest Silurian palynomorphs from northern Chad and correlation with contemporaneous deposits of southeastern Libya

The late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstätte: an extraordinary post-glacial fossil and sedimentary record

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About