Upper Miocene endemic lacustrine gastropod fauna of the Turiec Basin: addressing taxonomic, paleobiogeographic and stratigraphic issues

Abstract

The present work displays the first detailed taxonomic study on the freshwater gastropod fauna of the Upper Miocene Lake Turiec. Apart from several mentions of species and genus names in the literature, the mollusc fauna has been poorly studied up to now. Some of the cited genera implied peculiar paleobiogeographic relationships, urging a taxonomic investigation to either prove or revise such arising claims. Variable degrees of preservation, however, limited the possibility to identify all the fossils at species level. The fauna includes at least ten species, of which five turned out to be new to science. Four of those were sufficiently well preserved to be described as new species, namely Viviparus pipiki Neubauer & Harzhauser nov. sp., Melanopsis glaubrechti Neubauer & Harzhauser nov. sp., Tournouerina turiecensis Neubauer & Harzhauser nov. sp., and Radix kovaci Neubauer & Harzhauser nov. sp. Additionally, the new genus Popovicia Neubauer & Harzhauser nov. gen. is introduced for the primary homonym Metohia Popović, 1964 non Absolon, 1927. Most importantly, this taxonomic study revises many of the names cited in the literature and proves most of the alleged paleobiogeographic relationships wrong. The only biogeographic and stratigraphic surprise is the record of Popovicia cf. compressa, a species described from lower Pliocene deposits of the Metohia Basin in Kosovo. The majority of the fauna, however, has only been documented for the Turiec Basin, once more confirming the high degree of its endemicity. The faunal relationships indicate a latest Middle to early Late Pannonian (Middle to Late Tortonian) age, which is in agreement with available age models.

The late middle Miocene non-marine mollusk fauna of Vračević (Serbia): filling a gap in Miocene land snail biogeography

“…Given the geographic ranges of these pulmonate gastropods across hydrologically unconnected regions, the most probable long-distance dispersal vector seems to be waterfowl. Several examples of bird-mediated dispersal have been adduced for both recent (e.g., Green & Figuerola 2005;Kappes & Haase 2012;van Leeuwen & van der Velde 2012;van Leeuwen et al 2012avan Leeuwen et al , b, 2013 and fossil freshwater snails (Wesselingh et al 1999, Neubauer et al 2015c. In fact, dispersal via waterfowl may have been a much more common mode for gastropod to expand their ranges than assumed so far.…”

The Serbian Lake System: a stepping stone for freshwater molluscs in the middle Miocene

“…The similarly shaped Tournouerina turiecensis Neubauer & Harzhauser in Neubauer et al . (2015c) from the late Miocene of the Turiec Basin is of similar size and shares the convex whorls but differs in the extremely bulbous last whorl and well discernible umbilicus.…”

Application of the authigenic 10Be/9Be dating to constrain the age of a long-lived lake and its regression in an isolated intermontane basin: The case of Late Miocene Lake Turiec, Western Carpathians

“…The Martin Formation comprises a major part of the syn-rift basin fill reaching a thickness of up to 900 m, and consists predominantly of open lacustrine muds with intercalations of sands deposited by storm or gravity currents. The bathymetric differences of the paleolake are implied by the frequent occurrence of coal seams, water plants and plant detritus, by endemic mollusk and ostracod fauna (Pipík et al, 2012;Neubauer et al, 2015), as well as by the presence of freshwater limestone beds (Fendek et al, 1990;. The lowermost part of the Martin Formation intercalates with tuffs and tuffites of the Jastrabá Formation, which has been dated by K/Ar and Rb/Sr methods to 12.2-11.4 Maaround the Middle to Late Miocene boundary (Lexa et al, 1998;Chernyshev et al, 2013).…”

“…The biostratigraphic age estimates for the Martin Fm. to the Late Miocene (apart from its basal part) are based on endemic mollusk and ostracod fauna and hence are tentative Pipík et al, 2012;Neubauer et al, 2015).…”