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Telephina and Other Trilobites from the Pratt Ferry Beds, Ordovician of Alabama, U.S.A.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2015

Frederick C. Shaw
Frederick C. Shaw*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lehman College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, Bronx, NY 10468,
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Abstract

The Pratt Ferry beds are a three meter thick bioclastic carbonate unit containing the Pygodus serrus–P. anserinus conodont zone boundary and lying just below the Nemagraptus gracilis graptolite zone at a single locality in Alabama. Telephina Marek at Pratt Ferry and other eastern North American localities is represented by at least six species. These are judged widespread and in part conspecific with Scandinavian or Asian forms of similar age. Most of the fifteen Appalachian telephinid species proposed by Ulrich (1930) are reviewed and some synonymized. Bevanopsis Cooper is present, extending its stratigraphic range via B. buttsi (Cooper). The original description of Ceraurinella buttsi Cooper is augmented. Other recorded but poorly represented genera include Ampyxina, Arthrorhachis, Calyptaulax, Hibbertia, Lonchodomas, Mesotaphraspis, Porterfieldia, and Sphaerexochus. The entire faunule represents a mixture of ‘inshore’ and ‘offshore’ or planktonic faunal elements rarely seen elsewhere in the latest Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian) of eastern North America.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 88 , Issue 3 , May 2014 , pp. 545 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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