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Enrolled trilobites from the Alden Pyrite Bed, Ledyard Shale (Middle Devonian) of western New York

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2016

Loren E. Babcock  and
Stephen E. Speyer
Loren E. Babcock
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242
Stephen E. Speyer
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627
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Abstract

Although enrollment has long been recognized as an important, perhaps advantageous, life posture in certain trilobites, some aspects of this phenomenon are poorly understood. Taphonomic evidence indicates that the preservation of enrolled trilobites is a two-stage process involving: 1) factors that evoked enrollment; and 2) depositional and geochemical factors that resulted in preservation of the trilobites in an enrolled condition.

The Alden Pyrite Bed, Ledyard Shale Member, Ludlowville Formation (Middle Devonian, Givetian) of western New York, a well-known stratigraphic marker bed, is formally described herein. This bed yields an extraordinary number of enrolled phacopine trilobites. This study suggests that trilobites, like certain modern arthropods, enrolled in response to inhospitable conditions, including environmental toxicity and/or rapid sediment influx. Frequency of occurrence data from the Alden Pyrite Bed and underlying and overlying beds of the Ledyard Shale indicate that the trilobites Greenops boothi (Green) and Phacops rana (Green) both enrolled in response to adverse conditions at the sediment-water interface. Prolonged adversity compelled the trilobites to remain, and eventually die, in an enrolled state. Rapid and deep burial within a fine-grained sediment precluded scavenger dismemberment and favored geochemical conditions which culminated in pyritization and preservation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , May 1987 , pp. 539 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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