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Shrimp-bearing sedimentary successions in the Lower Carboniferous (Dinantian) Cementstone and Oil Shale Groups of northern Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

J. M. L. Cater ,
D. E. G. Briggs  and
E. N. K. Clarkson
J. M. L. Cater
Affiliation:
J. M. L. Cater, Earth Sciences and Resources Institute, University of Bristol, 86 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, U.K.
D. E. G. Briggs
Affiliation:
D. E. G. Briggs, Department of Geology, University of Bristol, Queen's Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, U.K.
E. N. K. Clarkson
Affiliation:
E. N. K. Clarkson, Grant Institute of Geology, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, Scotland, U.K.
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Abstract

The Lower Carboniferous of northern Britain is dominated by non-marine sequences which yield fish and crustacean faunas. These are rarely preserved and occur in thin layers. The sedimentology of twelve shrimp-bearing localities is described, in most cases for the first time, to shed light upon the habitats occupied by eumalacostracan crustaceans during their early Carboniferous adaptive radiation. Nearly all these sequences were deposited in coastal delta-plain settings or in interdistributary bays, environments of transitional salinity. The Gullane shrimp bed, however, was laid down in a thermally stratified non-marine lake, and its sole crustacean representative, Tealliocaris, seems to have been generally confined to waters of low salinity. None of the shrimp-beds was deposited in a fully marine environment, though most show evidence of at least some marine influence. Crustacean diversity increases with salinity, and the lack of shrimps in fully marine sediments is largely due to taphonomic factors rather than an environmental control.

Keywords

Carboniferouscrustaceanenvironmentsalinity.
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , 1989 , pp. 5 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1989

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