BioOne.org will be down briefly for maintenance on 17 December 2024 between 18:00-22:00 Pacific Time US. We apologize for any inconvenience.
How to translate text using browser tools
1 January 2018 A LATE ORDOVICIAN PLANKTIC ASSEMBLAGE WITH EXCEPTIONALLY PRESERVED SOFT-BODIED PROBLEMATICA FROM THE MARTINSBURG FORMATION, PENNSYLVANIA
MIKE B. MEYER, G. ROBERT GANIS, JACALYN M. WITTMER, JAN A. ZALASIEWICZ, KENNETH DE BAETS
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Here we report a locality containing exceptionally preserved (soft-bodied) fossils of mid-Late Ordovician age from the geologically complex Martinsburg Formation in central Pennsylvania. The fossils, which resemble specimens from Burgess Shale-type deposits, include enigmatic specimens (problematica) and phyllocarid arthropods (with preserved appendages) which are associated with graptolites. The locality is notable for preservation of a low diversity community of soft-bodied planktic animals, likely captured and rapidly buried by a turbidity current. The problematica lack sufficient anatomical detail for confident systematic placement; however, they can be superficially compared to a number of possible metazoans including: nominally/non- shelled mollusks (including veligers), cnidarians, lophophorates, or possibly aberrant tube-dwelling priapulids or polychaetes. Overall, the problematica may belong to one (or several) extinct clades or some unknown clade of animal life. The complex geologic history of the region has reduced the resolution of the problematica's original exceptional preservation, yet the fossils retain many key features. Hence, this locality has implications for our understanding of exceptional preservation, its alteration over geological history, and the planktic communities of “The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event” (GOBE) in the planktic realm.

Copyright © 2018, SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology)
MIKE B. MEYER, G. ROBERT GANIS, JACALYN M. WITTMER, JAN A. ZALASIEWICZ, and KENNETH DE BAETS "A LATE ORDOVICIAN PLANKTIC ASSEMBLAGE WITH EXCEPTIONALLY PRESERVED SOFT-BODIED PROBLEMATICA FROM THE MARTINSBURG FORMATION, PENNSYLVANIA," PALAIOS 33(1), 36-46, (1 January 2018). https://doi.org/10.2110/palo.2017.036
Received: 27 April 2017; Accepted: 25 November 2017; Published: 1 January 2018
JOURNAL ARTICLE
11 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top