A Tournaisian (earliest Carboniferous) conglomerate-preserved non-marine faunal assemblage and its environmental and sedimentological context.

ABSTRACT: A conglomerate bed from the Tournaisian Ballagan Formation of Scotland preserves a rich array of vertebrate and other nonmarine fossils providing an insight into the wider ecosystem and paleoenvironment that existed during this pivotal stage of Earth history. It challenges hypotheses of a long-lasting post-extinction trough following the end-Devonian extinction event. The fauna recovered includes a wide size range of tetrapods, rhizodonts, and dipnoans, from tiny juveniles or small-bodied taxa up to large adults, and more than one taxon of each group is likely. Some fauna, such as actinopterygians and chondrichthyans, are rare as macrofauna but are better represented in the microfossil assemblage. The fauna provides evidence of the largest Carboniferous lungfish ever found. The specimens a

SUBMITTER: Clack JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6321757 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature