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25 - Middle Jurassic of Northern Switzerland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

Hans Hess
Affiliation:
Basel Natural History Museum, Switzerland
William I. Ausich
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Carlton E. Brett
Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati
Michael J. Simms
Affiliation:
Ulster Museum, Belfast
Hans Hess
Affiliation:
Basel Natural History Museum
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Summary

A SCHOOLBOY'S DELIGHT

In the surroundings of Basel, four different and unique crinoid beds occur. These fossils fascinated the author of this chapter when he was a young boy. The description of Paracomatula helvetica was also his first publication (Hess 1950).

The crinoid beds with four different species are exposed in the Jura Mountains of northwestern Switzerland (Fig. 207). One species also occurs in eastern France and ranges as far as England. Four different horizons, each characterized by its fauna, can be distinguished (Fig. 208):

  1. Beds with well-preserved specimens of the isocrinid Chariocrinus andreae occur within an area of about 200 km2 in the canton of Baselland. A small slab with C. andreae was mentioned and figured in Bruckner's monumental description of historical and natural sights (Merkwürdigkeiten, curiosities) of the Basel countryside, published between 1748 and 1763. At that time, the true nature of the Chariocrinus remains was unknown, and they were referred to as plants.

  2. Beds with Pentacrinites dargniesi occur at several sites in the Swiss Jura and in eastern France; the species was first described in 1869 from the Moselle region. This species had a wider range than previously assumed, as documented by specimens from the Forest Marble of Wiltshire, now housed in the Natural History Museum in London, and from the Bajocian of Department Isère, France.

  3. […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Fossil Crinoids , pp. 203 - 215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

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