Wood‐fall associations from Late Cretaceous deep‐water sediments of Hokkaido, Japan

Abstract

: Wood-fall associations from Late Cretaceous deep-water sediments of Hokkaido, Japan. Lethaia , Vol. 42, Sunken wood (wood-fall) in the deep sea today is colonized and consumed by diverse invertebrate communities that show phylogenetic relationships to the chemotrophic fauna on whale carcasses, hydrothermal vents and hydrocarbon seeps. Here we document Late Cretaceous examples of wood-fall communities from deep-water sediments of the Yezo Group on Hokkaido, Japan, consisting of provannid, skeneiform, and patelliform gastropods, and thyasirid and nuculanid bivalves. These species are similar or identical to those found on plesiosaur bones and at hydrocarbon seeps in the same sediments, showing that many members of the modern chemotrophic deep-sea fauna colonized this range of habitats at least since Late Cretaceous time. We also document for the first time faecal chimneys in boreholes in these wood fragments, which were presumably built by xylophagain bivalves. ᮀ Chemosynthetic communities , deep sea ,

Fossil traces of the bone-eating worm Osedax in early Oligocene whale bones

“…Bone diseases do not result in circular holes on the bone's surface (11), and the few other deep-water organisms boring into hard substrates produce borings of distinctly different shape. Xylophagain bivalves typically bore into wood, but have also been reported to have bored into gutta-percha sheaths of deep-sea cables (12), and their wood-boring behavior is known as far back as the late Cretaceous (13). Borings of xylophagains are elongate-conical to pear-shaped and thus unlike the borings reported here.…”

Paleocene methane seep and wood-fall marine environments from Spitsbergen, Svalbard

“…We speculate that some of the invertebrates found in the Fossildalen seep carbonates (munidid crustaceans, mytilid bivalves, naticiform gastropods) could also be attracted to the site by food, shelter and substrate provided by the sunken wood (Wolff, 1979). However, the fauna does not contain any species typically associated with sunken driftwood of similar age (Kiel and Goedert, 2006;Kiel, 2008a;Kiel et al, 2009), and the overall influence of wood on the faunal community of Fossildalen seep carbonates is at the moment difficult to ascertain.…”

“…A set of characters of the sunken wood-bearing sandstone bed like i) high degree of fragmentation and prevailing small size of the wood fragments, ii) deformation of fossils associated with the wood fragments, iii) association of the wood-bearing sandstone with 20 turbidite beds, suggest that the sunken driftwood is redeposited from its initial resting place (Kiel, 2008a;Kiel et al, 2009). The chaotic assembly of the shells and their deformations suggest that thyasirids associated with the wood are also redeposited, although the transport was likely not very long as all the fossils are articulated and the damage is restricted to fracturing and deformations, without defragmentation and disarticulation.…”

“…wood-rich phecal linings of the inner walls of the borings (Kiel et al, 2009). As in the case of calcareous linings, the latter is not determinant, and could simply be a preservation issue and a matter of loss of phecal chimneys due to taphonomy.…”

Two new species ofRetiskenea? (Gastropoda: Neomphalidae) from Lower Cretaceous hydrocarbon-seep carbonates of northern California

“…The fossil record of molluscs from chemosynthetic environments has been traced back to the Silurian (Little et al 1997;Campbell 2006), but the abun− dance and diversity of bivalves and gastropods in chemo− synthesis−based communities increased significantly during the Jurassic and Cretaceous (Campbell and Bottjer 1995a;Lit− tle and Vrijenhoek 2003;Kiel 2010). The earliest occurrences of many modern seep− and vent−restricted bivalve and gastro− pod genera was in the late Mesozoic (Little and Vrijenhoek 2003;Campbell 2006;Kiel and Little 2006;Kaim et al 2008aKaim et al , 2009Kiel 2010), a pattern also seen in sunken wood and ver− tebrate bone environments (Kaim et al 2008b(Kaim et al , 2011Kiel et al 2009). Although Upper Cretaceous chemosynthesis−based communities have been relatively well studied recently (e.g., Jenkins et al 2007aJenkins et al , b, 2008Kaim et al 2008aKaim et al , b, 2009Kaim et al , 2010Kiel et al 2008b), their Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous counterparts remain less well known (e.g., Sandy and Campbell 1994;Kiel and Campbell 2005;Camp− bell et al 2008;Kiel et al 2008aKiel et al , 2010Hammer et al 2011;Kaim 2011).…”