Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T15:54:18.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Palaeoecology of the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

E. N. K. Clarkson
E. N. K. Clarkson
Affiliation:
Grant Institute of Geology, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, Scotland.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Foulden Fish Bed was deposited in a semi-permanent brackish water lake on a floodplain between a northerly mountain range and the sea. The lake supported a rich biota mainly of swimming animals (fish and crustaceans) with a benthos of trace fossils only in the earlier and later stages of the lake's development. Xiphosurans are very rare. This biota changed according to the physical conditions of the lake. Salinity, fluctuating according to water level, was a dominant control. Early in the lake's history there was a dominant benthos of euryhaline bivalves; at the same time, large rhizodonts lived in the lake as the top carnivores. Subsequently, crustaceans were the dominant nektobenthos, in a probable brackish-water regime, the rare Bairdops preying on the common Belotelson; there was a limited infauna. Following this, palaeoniscids abound in the middle part of the sequence, perhaps due to a higher water level but crustaceans are absent at this horizon. During the last stages before final silting-up following a mass-mortality episode, biotic diversity reached a maximum with many fishes and crustaceans and some trace fossils, due to optimal salinity conditions.

Comparisons are made with other Carboniferous biotas and with the Jurassic Solnhofen limestone.

Keywords

Carboniferouscrustaceanfishsalinity fluctuation.
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , 1985 , pp. 97 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1985

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

Anderton, R. 1985. Sedimentology of the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 7–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrews, S. M. 1985. Rhizodont crossopterygian fish from the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland, with a reevaluation of this group. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 67–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barthel, K. W. 1970. On the deposition of the Solnhofen lithographic limestone (Lower Tithonian, Bavaria, Germany). N JB GEOL PALAONT MH 1972, 133–45.Google Scholar
Belt, E. W., Freshney, E. C. & Read, W. A. 1967. Sedimentology of Carboniferous cementstone facies, British Isles and Eastern Canada. J GEOL 75, 711–21.Google Scholar
Briggs, D. E. G. & Clarkson, E. N. K. 1983. The Lower Carboniferous Granton Shrimp Bed, Edinburgh. In Briggs, D. E. G. & Lane, P. D. (eds) Trilobites and other early arthropods: papers in honour of Professor H. B. Whittington F.R.S. 69–88SPEC PAP PALAEONT 30.Google Scholar
Briggs, D. E. G. & Clarkson, E. N. K. 1985. Malacostracan Crustacea from the Dinatian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 35–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clayton, G. 1985. Plant miospores from the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 00–00.Google Scholar
Fisher, D. 1979. Evidence for subaerial activity of Eurpoops danae (Merostomata, Xiphosurida). In Nitecki, M. (ed.) Mazon Creek Fossils, 379–447. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francis, E. H. 1983. Carboniferous. In Craig, G. Y. (ed.) Geology of Scotland (2nd edn), 253–96. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gardiner, B. 1985. Actinopterygian fish from the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 61–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeder, M. R. 1974. Lower Border Group (Tournaisian) fluvio-deltaic sedimentation and palaeogeography of the Northumberland basin. PROC YORKSHIRE GEOL SOC 40, 129–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nitecki, M. (ed.) 1979. Mazon Creek Fossils. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Peach, B. N. 1908. A monograph of the higher Crustacea of the Carboniferous rocks of Scotland. MEM GEOL SURV G B PALAEONTOL.Google Scholar
Pollard, J. E. 1985. Coprolites and ostracods from the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 00–00.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rolfe, W. D. I., Schram, F. R., Pacaud, G., Sotty, D. & Secretan, S. 1983. A remarkable Stephanian biota from Montceau-les-Mines. PALEONTOL 56, 426–8.Google Scholar
Schram, F. R. 1979. British Carboniferous Malacostraca. FIELDIANA GEOL 40, 1–129.Google Scholar
Schram, F. R. 1981. Late Palaeozoic crustacean communities. J PALEONTOL 55, 126–37.Google Scholar
Schram, F. R. 1983. Lower Carboniferous biota of Glencartholm, Eskdale, Dumfriesshire. SCOTT J GEOL 19, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, T. E. 1967. A preliminary study of sandstone sedimentation in the Carboniferous of Berwickshire. SCOTT J GEOL 3, 282–305.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. S. 1901. On the distribution of fossil fish remains in the Carboniferous of the Edinburgh district. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH 50, 690–712.Google Scholar
Waterston, C. D. 1985. Chelicerata from the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 25–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, S. P. & Rolfe, W. D. I. 1985. Introduction to the palaeontology of the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland. TRANS R SOC EDINBURGH EARTH SCI 76, 1–6.Google Scholar