Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T05:33:16.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Age of the Cedarberg Formation, South Africa and early land plant evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

J. Gray ,
J. N. Theron  and
A. J. Boucot
J. Gray
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA
J. N. Theron
Affiliation:
Geological Survey, P.O. Box 572, Bellville, Republic of South Africa 7530
A. J. Boucot
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The first occurrence of Early Paleozoic land plants is reported from South Africa. The plant remains are small, compact tetrahedral spore tetrads. They occur abundantly in the Soom Shale Member of the Cedarberg Formation, Table Mountain Group. Marine? phytoplankton (sphaeromorphs or leiospheres) occur with the spore tetrads in all samples. Rare chitinozoans are found in half the samples. Together with similar spore tetrads from the Paraná Basin (Gray et al. 1985) these are the first well-documented records of Ashgill and/or earlier Llandovery land plants from the Malvinokaffric Realm, and from the African continent south of Libya. These spore tetrads have botanical, evolutionary, and biogeographic significance. Their size in comparison with spore tetrads from stratigraphic sections throughout eastern North America, suggests that an earliest Llandovery age is more probable for the Soom Shale Member, although a latest Ordovician age cannot be discounted. The age of the brachiopods in the overlying Disa Siltstone Member has been in contention for over a decade. Both Ashgillian and Early Llandovery ages have been proposed. The age of the underlying Soom Shale Member based on plant spores and trilobites (earliest Llandovery or latest Ashgillian) suggests that the Disa Siltstone Member is also likely to be of Early Llandovery age, although the distance between the Soom Shale Member spore-bearing locality and rocks to the south yielding abundant invertebrate body fossils at one locality is great enough to permit diachroneity.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 123 , Issue 4 , July 1986 , pp. 445 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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

Anderson, A. M. 1975. The ‘trilobite’ trackways in the Table Mountain Group (Ordovician) of South Africa. Palaeontologia Africana. 18, 35–45.Google Scholar
BÄR, P. & Riegel, W. 1980. Latest Ordovician to Earliest Silurian microfloras from the Lower Sekondi Series of Ghana (West Africa) and their relation to those from the Itaim Formation of the Maranhão Basin in NE Brazil. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie Abhandlungen. 160, 42–60.Google Scholar
Berry, W. B. N. & Boucot, A. J. 1973. Correlation of the African Silurian rocks. Special Paper 147, Geological Society of America, 1–83.Google Scholar
Bold, H. C. & Wynne, M. J. 1978. Introduction to the Algae: Structure and Reproduction. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. 720 pp.Google Scholar
Boucot, A. J. 1975. Evolution and Extinction Rate Controls. New York: Elsevier. 427 pp.Google Scholar
Boucot, A. J., Caster, K. E., Ives, D. & Talent, J. A. 1963. Relationships of a new Lower Devonian terebratuloid (Brachiopoda) from Antarctica. Bulletins of American Paleontology. 46, 81–151.Google Scholar
Burger, A. J. & Coertze, F. J. (compilers). 1973. Radiometric age measurements on rocks from southern Africa to the end of 1971. South African Geological Survey, Bulletin No.58, 46 pp.Google Scholar
Cocks, L. R. M., Brunton, C. H. C., Rowell, A. J. & Rust, I. C. 1970. The first lower Palaeozoic fauna proved from South Africa. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. 125, 583–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cocks, L. R. M. & Fortey, R. A. 1986. New evidence on the South African Lower Palaeozoic: age and fossils reviewed. Geological Magazine. 123, 437–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cramer, F. H., Rust, I. C. & DiezDe Cramer, M. D. C. R. De Cramer, M. D. C. R. 1974. Upper Ordovician chitinozoans from the Cedarberg Formation of South Africa. Preliminary Note. Geologische Rundschau. 63, 340–45.Google Scholar
Gray, J. 1965. Extraction techniques. In Handbook of Paleontological Techniques (eds. B, Kummel and D, Raup), pp. 530–87. San Francisco and London: W. H. Freeman & Company.Google Scholar
Gray, J. 1985. The microfossil record of early land plants: advances in understanding of early terrestrialization, 1970–1984. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 309, 167–95.Google Scholar
Gray, J. & Boucot, A. J. 1971. Early Silurian spore tetrads from New York: Earliest New World evidence for vascular plants? Science, 173, 918–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gray, J. & Boucot, A. J. 1972. Palynological evidence bearing on the Ordovician–Silurian paraconformity in Ohio. Bulletin, Geological Society of America. 83, 1299–314.Google Scholar
Gray, J. & Boucot, A. J. 1975. Color changes in pollen and spores: A review. Bulletin, Geological Society of America. 86, 1019–33.Google Scholar
Gray, J. & Boucot, A. J. 1983. A spore-based first order biostratigraphy for the pre-Devonian of the Appalachian region. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 15 (6), 585.Google Scholar
Gray, J. Boucot, A. J. & Colbath, G. K. 1987. Higher land plant spore evolution. Evolutionary Biology (in press).Google Scholar
Gray, J., Colbath, G. K., Faria, A. DE, Boucot, A. J. & Rohr, D. M. 1985. Silurian age fossils from the Paleozoic Paraná Basin, southern Brazil. Geology. 13, 521–5.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, J., Massa, D. & Boucot, A. J. 1982. Caradocian land plant microfossils from Libya. Geology. 10, 197–201.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobday, D. K. & Tankard, A. J. 1978. Transgressive-barrier and shallow-shelf interpretation of the lower Paleozoic Peninsula Formation, South Africa. Bulletin, Geological Society of America. 89, 1733–44.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laubacher, G., Boucot, A. J. & Gray, J. 1982. Additions to Silurian stratigraphy, lithofacies, biogeography and paleontology of Bolivia and southern Peru. Journal of Paleontology. 56, 1138–70.Google Scholar
Lespérance, P. J. 1985. Faunal distributions across the Ordovician–Silurian boundary, Anticosti Island and Percé, Québec, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 22, 838–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, A. E. & Marchant, J. W. 1981. A preliminary note on two trilobites from the Soom Member, Table Mountain Group. Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa. 84, 87–9.Google Scholar
Norris, R. E. 1980. Prasinophytes. In Phytoflagellates. Developments in Marine Biology, vol. 2 (ed. Cox, E. R), pp. 85–145. New York: Elsevier/North-Holland, Inc.Google Scholar
Norris, R. E. 1982. Prasinophyceae: Introduction and bibliography. In Selected Papers in Phycology II (eds. Rosowski, J. R and Parker, B. C), pp. 740–46. Lawrence, Kansas: Phycological Society of America, Inc.Google Scholar
Plumstead, E. P. 1967. A general review of the Devonian fossil plants found in the Cape System of South Africa. Palaeontologia Africana. 10, 1–83.Google Scholar
Potgieter, C. D. & Oelofsen, B. W. 1983. Cruziana acacensis—the first Silurian index-trace fossil from southern Africa. Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa. 86, 51–54.Google Scholar
Roussouw, P. J. 1964. Die geologie van die Swartberge, die Kangovallei en die ompewing van Prins Albert, K. P.; toeligting van blaaie 3321B (Gamkapoort) en 3322A (Prins Albert). South African Geological Survey 1–93.Google Scholar
Rust, I. C. 1967. Brachiopods in the Table Mountain Series: an advance announcement. South African Journal of Science. 63, 489–90.Google Scholar
Rust, I. C. 1973. The evolution of the Paleozoic Cape basin, southern margin of Africa. In The Ocean Basins and Margins, Vol. 1. The South Atlantic (eds. Nairn, A. E. M and Stehli, F. G), pp. 247–76. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Rust, I. C. 1977. The Pakhuis Formation. Geological Society of South Africa, Sedimentology Division Study Excursion, pp. 1–27.Google Scholar
Schoch, A. E., Laygonie, F. E. & Burger, A. J. 1975. U–Pb ages for Cape granites from the Saldanha Batholith; a preliminary report. Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa. 78, 97–100.Google Scholar
Taljaard, M. S. 1962. On the palaeogeography of the Table Mountain sandstone series. South African Geographical Journal. 44, 25–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tappan, H. 1980. The Paleobiology of Plant Protists. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Company. 1028 pp.Google Scholar