Microforaminiferal linings assigned to 10 known genera have been recovered from Early Devonian (Lochkovian to Late Emsian) limestones from Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland. These organic linings have been identified by comparison with normal-sized agglutinated foraminiferan genera known to occur in the associated sediments. Microforaminiferal linings with smooth walls and reticulate sculptured walls were present and the possible implications of these (diagenetic, relict structure, naked homeomorphs, or processing artifact) are discussed. Evidence is presented that Ordovicina may have a bilamellar organic wall lining.

All aspects of stromatolites can be quantified, encompassing morphologic, dimensional, material, and positional attributes. Numerical data obtained by electronic image analysis or otherwise can facilitate taxonomy, classification, and studies of evolutionary tendencies in stromatolites, and bridge the language barriers as well. Consensus on basic attributes for recognizing taxa at different levels of hierarchy still needs to be developed; quantitative data can promote reduction or elimination of disagreements.

More than 40 species of siliceous microfossils are present in both T-3 core Fl-437 (Cretaceous) and in core Fl-422 (Eocene) from the central Arctic Ocean. Previous identifications of the silicoflagellates were the basis of the ages for these cores, but diatoms of the two cores, previously unidentified, suggest that Fl-437 could be as old as Campanian rather than middle to late Maastrichtian and that Fl-422 may be early to middle Eocene rather than middle to late Eocene. Identification of archaeomonads and ebridians completes the cataloging of the known biosiliceous assemblages of the older Arctic Ocean.

Strong seasonality for the Late Cretaceous and early Cenozoic Arctic Ocean is suggested from alternating layers of vegetative cells and resting spores in both cores. The abundance of fossils is interpreted as evidence for seasonal upwelling in a nutrient-rich and much warmer Arctic Ocean. No evidence of seasonal ice or of ice-rafting is present. The profound climate change from the warmer older Arctic Ocean to the ice-covered condition of the present occurred after deposition of the sediment of Fl-422.

To document evolutionary patterns in late Cenozoic Caribbean reef corals, we compiled composite stratigraphic ranges of 49 genera and 175 species using Neogene occurrences in the Cibao Valley sequence of the northern Dominican Republic and faunal lists for 24 Miocene to Recent sites across the Caribbean region. This new compilation benefits in particular from increased sampling at late Miocene to early Pleistocene sites and from increased resolution and greater taxonomic consistency provided by the use of morphometric procedures in species recognition.

Preliminary examination and quantitative analysis of origination and extinction patterns suggest that a major episode of turnover took place between 4 and 1 Ma during Plio-Pleistocene time. During the episode, extinctions were approximately simultaneous in species of all reef-building families, except the Mussidae. Most strongly affected were the Pocilloporidae (Stylophora and Pocillopora), Agariciidae (Pavona and Gardineroseris), and free-living members of the Faviidae and Meandrinidae. At the genus level, mono- and paucispecific as well as more speciose genera became regionally extinct. Many of the extinct genera live today in the Indo-Pacific region, and some are important components of modern eastern Pacific reefs. Global extinctions were concentrated in free-living genera. During the turnover episode, no new genera or higher taxa arose. Instead, new species originated within the surviving Caribbean genera at approximately the same time as the extinctions, including many dominant modern Caribbean reef-building corals (e.g., Acropora palmata and the Montastraea annularis complex).

Excluding this episode, the taxonomic composition of the Caribbean reef-coral fauna remained relatively unchanged during the Neogene. Minor exceptions include: 1) high originations in the Agariciidae and free-living corals during late Miocene time; and 2) regional or global extinctions of several important Oligocene Caribbean reef builders during early to middle Miocene time.

Anthaspidellid sponges are reported from the La Laja Formation in the Chica de Zonda Range in the Precordillera Oriental, Argentina. These are generically unidentifiable fragments of trabs and more or less well-defined dendroclone spicules. They occur as skeletal elements in small transported fragments and are the only Cambrian occurrence of anthaspidellids known thus far from South America.

Walcott (1920) proposed to include an array of dissociated spicules, including triradiate prodiaenes, hexactines, and probable monactine spicules, in the genus Kiwetinokia. Assemblages tentatively identified as Kiwetinokia utahensis? Walcott, 1920, are reported from the Estancia San Martin Formation, of latest Early Cambrian and early Middle Cambrian age from San Isidro Gulch near Mendoza. Similar spicule assemblages occur in the La Laja Formation from the Chica de Zonda Range, in the Precordillera Oriental near San Juan, and in the Los Sombreros Formation in the Tontal Range of the Precordillera Occidental.

Sclerites of the sponge-like Chancelloria eros Walcott, 1920, are described from the upper Lower to lower Middle Cambrian La Laja Formation. Chancelloria sclerites are also reported here from rocks of the Middle Cambrian Glossopleura Zone in the San Isidro Formation in Empozada Gulch in the San Isidro area of the Precordillera Austral, west of Mendoza, in Mendoza Province. Sponges and chancelloriids from the Cambrian of Argentina are known basically from dissociated skeletal elements.

Disklike, firm, bilaterally symmetrical fossils recovered from the middle Lower Cambrian Amouslek Formation of the Moroccan Anti-Atlas are described under the name Microschedia amphitrite n. gen. and sp. Their systematic affinity, particularly to brachiopods and cnidarians, and resemblance to existing taxa are discussed. Although interpretation as a brachiopod appears to be more convincing, their morphology does not permit a precise determination of systematic position.

Until the late 1960's, most of Nicholson's types of Paleozoic bryozoans were not available for study. We present a set of coded characters of many of Nicholson's types, which should assist in bringing his species into conformity with current taxonomic standards so that his species can be consistently recognized and used in biostratigraphic, paleobiogeographic, and evolutionary studies.

Cladistic and phenetic analyses of these species permit comparisons between inferred phylogenies of Nicholson specimens, adaptive morphospace, and treatise-based systematic relationships. Specimen-based cladistic and phenetic analyses of Nicholson's species both produce clusters that are congruent with existing family-level taxonomic assignments of species in the collection. However, cladistic analysis more fully retrieves the pattern of branching, or degree of relatedness, among higher taxa. Phenetic clusters represent adaptive peaks in morphospace for these specimens, but higher level “phenons” are strongly affected by multiple evolution of the same character states.

The lingulid brachiopod species Bicarinatina kongakutensis n. sp. is recorded here from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Ulungarat unit in Arctic Alaska. A restudy of the type species, Bicarinatina bicarinata (Kutorga) from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) of Eastern Europe, suggests close affinities to the Ordovician genus Pseudolingula and gives good reason to assign Bicarinatina to the family Pseudolingulidae. There are no important points of difference in the morphologies of Bicarinatina and the Early Carboniferous lingulid genus Liralingua and, thus, both genera have been synonymized.

Cryptonella? cailliaudi Barrois, 1889, from the Lower Devonian of the Armorican Massif, is tentatively assigned to the athyridid brachiopod genus Planalvus Carter, thus far known only from the Lower Carboniferous of eastern North America. In addition, a new species, Planalvus rufus, is described from the Bois-Roux Formation (Pragian) of Brittany, France. These French species are small brachiopods with complex spiralial and jugal structures, which permit assignment to the order Athyridida.

Three novel features are described in steinkerns of Hypomphalocirrus rugosus Linsley from the Middle Devonian Rogers City Limestone of Michigan. The first feature is located about one-half a volution adapertural of the terminal septum. It has the appearance of a typical molluscan muscle attachment scar and is interpreted as such. The two other features are more enigmatic. They have a less stereotyped appearance and location. The first is interpreted as a field of mantle point-attachments and the other as a product of partial shell dissolution. Comparisons with extant and fossil molluscs confirm that the two features ascribed to biologic origins are within the scope of molluscan soft-part and shell attachment morphologies.

The Chesterian (Upper Mississippian) Imo Formation in north-central Arkansas contains an abundant, diverse, and well-preserved gastropod fauna, comprising 35 species referrable to 21 genera and subgenera. Bellerophontaceans and pleurotomariaceans show the greatest species diversity. New taxa proposed include: Euphemites chesterensis, E. whirligigi, Retispira yochelsoni, Patellilabia rhombadella, P. sulcata, Straparollus (Euomphalus) konobasis, S. (E.) variabilis, Trepospira (Angyomphalus) desultoria, Glabrocingulum (Glabrocingulum) parasolum, G. (G.) parvanodum, G. (G.) coronulum, Naticopsis (Marmolatella) macgordoni, N. (M.) imoensis, Globozyga mediocris, and Girtyspira microspirula.

Relicts of color patterns are present on four taxa. Repair of broken shells is common. Borings of acrothoracic barnacles and possibly that of a gastropod are present. Coprolites with gastropods attached may indicate a coprophagous habit, only grazing on the algae and bacteria growing on the coprolite, or may just be a circumstance of preservation.

Foliomena folium (Barrande) and other very small, thin-shelled brachiopods from the Pyle Mountain Argillite in Aroostook County, Maine, provide the only record of the presence of the Foliomena fauna in North America. Associated fossils include numerous small trilobites and a few specimens of other groups. An Ashgill age is established by the presence of graptolites of the Climacograptus spiniferous Zone in the underlying Winterville Formation.

Most of the 190 specimens are small strophomenaceans and plectambonitaceans. One of the most numerous is the christianiid Nubialba forbesi n. gen. and sp. that has ribs and elaborately developed internal features. In the absence of evidence to contradict previous interpretations that the Foliomena fauna records cold-water environments, the presence of one or more deep basins along the southeastern margin of the trans-equatorial North American paleoplate occupied by cool peri-Gondwanan waters during a short segment of Ashgill time is implied.

Patanacta pedina n. gen. and sp. is interpreted as a medusoid from the late Ordovician or early Silurian of Jämtland, central Sweden. The unique specimen is from the Kyrkås Quartzite Formation, a poorly fossiliferous, allochthonous sequence of metasediments in a lower nappe of the frontal zone of the Scandinavian Caledonides. A marginal marine depositional environment is inferred for the Kyrkås facies.

The widespread occurrence and local abundance of corbulid bivalves in Neogene deposits of the northern Dominican Republic provide an opportunity to evaluate physical controls on species distributions and intraspecific variability in this group. First and last appearances of species probably do not record speciation and extinction, but instead represent migrations into and out of the study area, and reflect corbulids' preference for marginal-marine and shallow-marine conditions. Corbula cercadica and C. viminea show patterns of intraspecific morphologic variability over time and space. Corbula cercadica shows continuous morphologic variability along a paleoenvironmental gradient of salinity, depth, and bioclastic fabric, whereas variation in C. viminea is morphologically clinal from west to east in roughly contemporaneous sediments, with variability related to sediment type and bioclastic fabric. Ecophenotypic variation or genetic differences, rather than taphonomic processes, seem to control geographic variability within C. cercadica and C. viminea. Although it is not possible to determine whether intraspecific morphologic variability was under genetic control, its stronger relationship with paleoenvironmental conditions relative to stratigraphic position suggests lack of anagenetic morphological evolution.

Several specimens of the small hexactinellid, Cyathophycus mackenziensis n. sp., were collected from pale brown, shaly mudstone of the Road River Formation. The sponges are of Wenlock age and were collected from near Avalanche Lake, Mackenzie Mountains, Northwest Territories, Canada. The small, steeply obconical sponges have skeletons in crudely ranked quadrules to at least third-order, with first-order openings generally 2 mm high and 1 mm wide. Successive orders decrease in stages approximately half that of larger elements. A moderately irregular dermal(?) layer with circular parietal gaps is suggested in some specimens. The new species is consistently finer textured than either the type species Cyathophycus reticulatus Walcott, 1879, or the later described Cyathophycus quebecensis Dawson, 1889.

A new genus and species of obolellid brachiopod, Brevipelta chouberti, is described from the Early Cambrian of Morocco. It is a useful index fossil for the upper Choubertella Zone and the Daguinaspis Zone in Morocco. Additionally discussed are taphonomic aspects that lead to the question whether the shell may have been weakly calcified compared to other obolellid brachiopods and the calcareous part may have been composed of aragonite crystallites, or whether the preservation of Brevipelta is due to facile solubility of a calcitic shell substance. Brevipelta chouberti represents not only the oldest described Early Cambrian brachiopod from Africa, but one of the oldest obolellid brachiopods known worldwide.

Heterochrony is an important component of evolutionary change in the shell sculpture of turritelline gastropods from Paleocene and Eocene sediments of the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plains. A survey of heterochronic modes in these gastropods indicates that peramorphosis is dominant over paedomorphosis, a result counter to the pattern previously reported in gastropods and most other groups. Although lack of ontogenetic age data makes firm conclusions impossible at present, peramorphic patterns may have been produced by more than a single process. Possible explanations for the dominance of peramorphosis in the evolution of shell form in this group include a bigger role for intrinsic constraint in controlling shell form versus soft-part anatomy, selection for larger shell size, and the chance discovery of only peramorphosis in this study.