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Permo-Triassic arthropod trace fossils from the Beardmore Glacier area, central Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

Derek E.G. Briggs ,
Molly F. Miller ,
John L. Isbell  and
Christian A. Sidor
Derek E.G. Briggs*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, and Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Molly F. Miller
Affiliation:
Geology Department, Box 6001 Station B, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235, USA
John L. Isbell
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA
Christian A. Sidor
Affiliation:
Burke Museum and Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
*
*[email protected]
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Abstract

Permian and Triassic lacustrine and fluvial-system deposits in the Beardmore Glacier area of the Transantarctic Mountains preserve a superb record of continental environments and evidence of life on extensive bedding plane exposures. They yielded the first invertebrate trackways reported from continental Permo-Triassic deposits of Antarctica, here assigned to the ichnogenera Diplichnites and Diplopodichnus, which were probably produced by myriapodous arthropods. A resting trace is compared to Orbiculichnus and interpreted as generated by a jumping insect. Plant life is represented by leaf impressions, fossil forests and peat, vertebrates by body and trace fossils, and invertebrate shallow infauna by near surface burrows. The small number and diversity of trackways recovered from the large bedding plane exposures suggest that trackway-producing arthropods were rare at these high southern palaeolatitudes.

Keywords

BuckleyFremouwGondwanaMackellarPermiantrackways
Type
Earth Sciences
Information
Antarctic Science , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 185 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Antarctic Science Ltd 2009

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