Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T02:27:42.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Glencartholm revisited: describing for the first time Stan Wood's discovery and excavation of Mumbie Quarry, adjacent to the important Palaeozoic fossil site of Glencartholm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2018

Margaret Wood
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Glencartholm in Dumfries and Galloway, Southern Scotland, is one of the most important Palaeozoic fossil fish sites in the world, with a fauna containing more than 30 species. Originally discovered in the bank of the River Esk in 1879, further collecting in the 1930s removed all the accessible fossiliferous strata. These strata were not known to occur elsewhere and despite the site's international importance, details of the section including the fossil bearing beds have not been described. An excavation of a new exposure at Mumbie, 50 metres east of the original site, was undertaken by Stan Wood in the 1990s. Sediments were logged over an 18-metre section. Three separate fish beds were identified and more than 200 specimens of ray-finned fish collected, including one possible new species. Differences in scale colour enables fishes from the different horizons to be distinguished. This should allow material collected previously to be more accurately assigned and assist palaeoecological analysis of the site. In addition to ray-finned fish, cartilaginous fishes were collected together with plants, bivalves, crustaceans, scorpions and horseshoe crabs which have not previously been reported from Glencartholm.

Keywords

ActinopterygiansCarboniferous fishchondrichthyanscrustaceansXiphosura
Type
Articles
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 108 , Issue 1: A Legacy in Fossils: a Tribute to Stan Wood , March 2017 , pp. 47 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Society of Edinburgh 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

5. References

Andrews, S. M., Browne, M. A. E., Panchen, A. L. & Wood, S. P. 1977. Discovery of amphibians in the Namurian (Upper Carboniferous) of Fife. Nature 265, 529–532.Google Scholar
Clark, N. D. L. 2013. Tealliocaris: a decapod crustacean from the Carboniferous of Scotland. Palaeodiversity 6, 107–133.Google Scholar
Coates, M. I. & Gess, R. 2007. A new reconstruction of Onychoselache traquairi, Comments on early chondrichthyan pectoral girdles and hybodontiform phylogeny. Palaeontology 50, 1421–1446.Google Scholar
Dineley, D. L. 1999. British Carboniferous fossil fish sites. In Dineley, D. L. & Metcalf, S. J. (eds) Fossil Fishes of Great Britain. Geological Conservation Review Series 16, 263–312. Peterborough: Joint Nature Conservation Committee. 675 pp.Google Scholar
Finarelli, J. & Coates, M. I. 2012. First tooth-set outside the jaws in a vertebrate. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, Series B 279, 775–779.Google Scholar
Finarelli, J. & Coates, M. I. 2014. Chondrenchelys problematica (Traquair, 1888) redescribed: a Lower Carboniferous, eel-like holocephalan from Scotland. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 105, 35–59.Google Scholar
Gardiner, B. G. 1985. Actinopterygian fish from the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 76, 61–66.Google Scholar
Geikie, A. 1881. A recent ‘find' in British palaeontology. Nature 25, 1–3.Google Scholar
George, T. N., Johnson, G. A. L., Mitchell, M., Prentice, J. E., Ramsbottom, W. H. C., Sevastopulo, G. D. & Wilson, R. B. 1976. A Correlation of Dinantian rocks in the British Isles. The Geological Society, London, Special Report 7. 87 pp.Google Scholar
Ginter, M. 2009. The dentition of Goodrichthys, a Carboniferous ctenacanthiform shark from Scotland. Acta Zoologica (Stockholm) 90 Suppl. 1), 152–158.Google Scholar
Lumsden, G. I., Tulloch, W., Howells, M. F. & Davies, A. 1967. The Geology of the Neighbourhood of Langholm. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.Google Scholar
Lumsden, G. I. & Wilson, R. B. 1961. The stratigraphy of the Archerbeck Borehole. Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Great Britain 181, 1–89.Google Scholar
Moy-Thomas, J. A. 1934. The structural affinities of Tarrasius problematicus Traquair. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1934, 367–376.Google Scholar
Moy-Thomas, J. A. 1935. The structure and affinities of Chondrenchelys problematicus Traquair. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1935, 91–403.Google Scholar
Moy-Thomas, J. A. 1936. On the structure and affinities of the fossil elasmobranch fishes of the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Glencartholm, Eskdale. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1936, 761–788.Google Scholar
Moy-Thomas, J. A. & Bradley Dyne, M. 1938. Actinopterygian fishes from the Lower Carboniferous of Glencartholm, Eskdale, Dumfrieshire. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 59, 437–480.Google Scholar
Peach, J. 1882a. On some new Crustaceans from the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Eskdale and Liddesdale. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 30, 73–91.Google Scholar
Peach, J. 1882b. On some new species of fossil scorpions from the Carboniferous rocks of Scotland, with a review of the genera Eoscorpius and Mazonia of Messrs Meek and Worthen. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 30, 397–412.Google Scholar
Peach, B. N. & Horne, J. 1903. The Canonbie coalfield: its geological structures and relations to the Carboniferous rocks of the north of England and central Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 40, 835–877.Google Scholar
Schram, F. 1983. Lower Carboniferous biota of Glencartholm, Eskdale, Dumfriesshire. Scottish Journal of Geology 19, 1–15.Google Scholar
Smithson, T. R., Wood, S. P., Marshall, J. E. A. M. & Clack, J. A. 2012. Earliest Carboniferous tetrapod and arthropod faunas from Scotland populate Romer's Gap. Proceeding of the National Academy of Science 109, 4532–4537.Google Scholar
Smithson, T. R. & Rolfe, W. D. I. 2018. What made Stan Wood a great collector? Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 108(for 2017), ███–███.Google Scholar
Stone, P., McMillan, A. A., Floyd, J. D., Barnes, R. P. & Phillips, E. R. 2012. British Regional Geology: South of Scotland (Fourth edition). Keyworth, Nottingham: British Geological Survey.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. H. 1881. Report on fossil fishes collected by the Geological Survey of Scotland in Eskdale and Liddlesdale. Part 1, Ganoidei. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 30, 15–71.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. H. 1884. Description of a fossil shark (Ctenacanthus costellatus) from the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Eskdale, Dumfriesshire. Geological Magazine 1, 3–8.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. H. 1890. Observations on some fossil fishes from the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Eskdale, Dumfriesshire. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 6, 249–252.Google Scholar
Wood, S. P. 1975. Recent discoveries of Carboniferous fishes in Edinburgh. Scottish Journal of Geology 11, 251–258.Google Scholar
Wood, S. P. 1982. New Basal Namurian (Upper Carboniferous) fishes and crustaceans found near Glasgow. Nature 297, 574–577.Google Scholar
Wood, S. P., Panchen, A. L. & Smithson, T. R. 1985. A terrestrial fauna from the Scottish lower Carboniferous. Nature 314, 355–356.Google Scholar
Wood, S. P. & Rolfe, W. D. I. 1985. Introduction to the palaeontology of the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 76, 1–6.Google Scholar