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A vertebrate fauna from the Middle Devonian Yahatinda Formation of southwestern Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

David K. Elliott ,
David L. Dineley  and
Heidemarie G. Johnson
David K. Elliott
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Box 4099, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, 86011
David L. Dineley
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, England
Heidemarie G. Johnson
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Box 4099, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, 86011
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Abstract

The Yahatinda Formation of southern Alberta and British Columbia consists of a series of channels cut into lower Paleozoic rocks and represents deposition in marine to littoral environments across a major regional unconformity. The age of the beds is late Givetian based on spore assemblages and plant macrofossils. A vertebrate fauna from the formation is described here for the first time and includes Heterostraci (two new species of tuberculated pteraspidids), Placodermi (an antiarch and the arthrodire Holonema together with indeterminate arthrodires), Osteolepiformes, and Porolepiformes. This report documents for the first time that pteraspidids, considered to be organisms characteristic of the Lower Devonian elsewhere, lingered to the end of the Middle Devonian in western North America. This fauna is similar to others occurring further south in the western United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , January 2000 , pp. 123 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 2000

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