During the Cretaceous Period, gastropod faunas show considerable differences in their evolution between the Tethyan Realm (tropical) and the Temperate Realms to the north and south. Like Holocene faunas, prosobranch gastropods constitute the dominant part of Cretaceous marine snail faunas. Entomotaeneata and opisthobranchs usually form all of the remainder. In Tethyan faunas the Archaeogastropoda form a consistent high proportion of total taxa but less than the Mesogastropoda throughout the period. In contrast, the Temperate faunas beginning in Albian times show a decline in percentages of archaeogastropod taxa and a significant increase in the Neogastropoda, until they constitute over 50 percent of the taxa in some faunas. The neogastropods never attain high diversity in the Cretaceous of the Tethyan Realm and are judged to be of Temperate Realm origin.

Cretaceous Tethyan gastropod faunas are closely allied to those of the “corallien fades” of the Jurassic and begin the period evolutionarily mature and well diversified. Greatest diversity in Tethys occurs in the lagoonal shales associated with the rudist or coral framework environments of the Cretaceous carbonate platforms. Their distribution was pan-tropical, extending in instances across the vast reaches of the Pacific. Three categories of Tethyan gastropods are analyzed. The first group consists of those of Jurassic ancestry. Except for the Nerineacea, these taxa are long ranging but evolutionarily conservative, showing only moderate diversification during the Cretaceous, and becoming extinct with the close of the era. The second group originates mainly during the Barremian and Aptian, reaches a climax in diversification during middle Cretaceous time, and usually declines during the latest Cretaceous, with most not lasting through the terminal event. The third group originates late in the Cretaceous and consists of taxa that manage to either survive the Cretaceous-Tertiary crisis or give rise to forms of prominence among Tertiary warm water faunas.

There is a trend among the Tethyan gastropod assemblages for increased provincialism with time. Early and middle Cretaceous taxa are especially widely distributed, but the latest Cretaceous is a time of restricted occurrence for many forms.

Temperate Realm gastropod faunas are less diverse than those of Tethys during the Early Cretaceous. Their source is among long lived, extra-Tethys groups, but is increased, especially during major phases of transgression, by immigrants from Tethys. They show a steady increase in diversity, primarily among the Mesogastropoda and Neogastropoda. This trend culminates in latest Cretaceous times when the gastropod assemblages of the clastic provinces of the inner shelf contain an abundance of taxa outstripping that of any other part of the Cretaceous of either realm.

Extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is much less pronounced in the Temperate Realm than in the Tethys. Among the Temperate Realm assemblages loss is of generic and species level taxa, unlike the extinction of the family Actaeonellidae or the superfamily Nerineacea and a host of less prominent groups in Tethys. In essence, by the late Maastrichtian, gastropod faunas of the Temperate Realm had attained a modern faunal aspect.

Three types of geographic isolation—land barriers, deep water barriers, and climatic barriers—resulted in three distinct evolutionary responses in Neogene and Quaternary species of the epineritic ostracode genus Puriana. Through systematic, paleobiogeographic, and morphologic study of several hundred fossil and Recent populations from the eastern Pacific, western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean, the phylogeny of the genus and the geography of speciation events were determined. Isolation of large populations by the Isthmus of Panama during the Pliocene did not lead to lineage splitting in species known to have existed before the Isthmus formed. Conversely, the establishment of small isolated populations on Caribbean islands by passive dispersal mechanisms frequently led to the evolution of new species or subspecies. Climatic changes along the southeastern United States during the Pliocene also catalyzed possible parapatric speciation as populations that immigrated to the northeastern periphery of the genus' range split to form new species. The results provide evidence that evolutionary models describing the influence of abiotic events on patterns of evolution and speciation can be tested using properly selected tectonic and climatic events and fossil groups amenable to species-level analysis. Two new species, P. bajaensis and P. paikensis, are described.

Early Norian silicified bivalves from Hells Canyon in the Wallowa terrane of northeastern Oregon are part of a rich molluscan biota associated with a tropical island arc. The Hells Canyon locality preserves lenses of silicified shells formed as tempestites in a shallow subtidal carbonate environment. These shell assemblages are parautochthonous and reflect local, rather than long-distance, transport. Silicification at this locality involved small-scale replacement of original calcareous microstructures, or small-scale replacement of neomorphosed shells, without an intervening phase of moldic porosity. This incremental replacement of carbonate by silica contrasts markedly with void-filling silicification textures reported previously from silicified Permian bivalve assemblages.

The bivalve paleoecology of this site indicates a suspension feeding biota existing on and within the interstices of coral-spongiomorph thickets, and inhabiting laterally adjacent substrates of peloidal carbonate sand. The bivalve fauna is ecologically congruent with the reef-dwelling molluscs associated with Middle Triassic sponge-coral buildups in the Cassian Formation of the Dolomites (Fuersich and Wendt, 1977). Hells Canyon is a particularly important early Norian locality because of the diversity of substrate types and because the site includes many first occurrences of bivalves in the North American Cordillera. These first occurrences include the first documentation of the important epifaunal families Pectinidae and Terquemiidae in Triassic rocks of the North American Cordillera.

The large number of biogeographic and geochronologic range extensions discovered in this single tropical Norian biota indicates that use of literature-based range data for Late Triassic bivalves may be very hazardous. Many bivalve taxa formerly thought to have gone extinct in Karnian time have now been documented from Norian strata in this arc terrane. These range extensions, coupled with the high bivalve species richness of the Hells Canyon site, suggest that the Karnian mass extinction in several literature-based compilations may be an artifact of incomplete sampling. Even for the Norian, present compilations of molluscan extinction may have an unacceptably large artifactual component.

Thirty-five bivalve taxa from the Hells Canyon locality are discussed. Of these, seven are new: the mytilid Mysidiella cordillerana n. sp., the limacean Antiquilima vallieri n. sp., the true oyster Liostrea newelli n. sp., the pectinacean Crenamussium concentricum n. gen. and sp., the unioid Cardinioides josephus n. sp., the trigoniacean Erugonia canyonensis n. gen. and sp., and the carditacean Palaeocardita silberlingi n. sp.

Cretaceous clavagellid pelecypods are a poorly known group, and have previously received little study. Ascaulocardium armatum is conchologically the most complex burrowing pelecypod known. From the study of living clavagellids, it is possible to interpret the various tubes extending outward from the adventitious crypt of A. armatum as devices for hydraulic burrowing and deposit feeding. The conchologically complex A. armatum occurs near the beginning of the history of the Clavagellidae, and does not seem to have given rise to any younger species. Ascaulocardium armatum is known only from the Upper Cretaceous rocks (Santonian–Maastrichtian) of the east Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plains of the United States of America, as is probably the genus Ascaulocardium. All known Cretaceous clavagellids are burrowing species having a free right valve, and this is the ancestral mode of life of the Clavagellidae. Clavagellids that have a boring habit are a more recent evolutionary development, as are burrowing species having both juvenile valves cemented to the crypt. Clavagellids probably evolved from Jurassic–Early Cretaceous pholadomyids. Almost all Cretaceous clavagellids occur outside the Tethyan Zoogeographic Realm; this distribution is in marked contrast to the modern distribution of the family. Living species mostly inhabit clear, shallow seas in subtropical to tropical shelf areas.

Trace fossils are used in deposystem analysis of Late Devonian–Early Mississippian nearshore facies in the north-central Appalachian Basin. These nearshore facies resulted from separate transgressions during latest Devonian (Cleveland Shale) and earliest Mississippian (Sunbury Shale) time. Emphasis is placed on a well-exposed section at Rowlesburg, West Virginia, where the Oswayo, Cussewago Sandstone, and Riddlesburg Shale Members of the Price Formation are exposed.

The Oswayo Member at Rowlesburg preserves an offshore-to-lower shoreface transition in a complex of euryhaline, protected-bay, lagoon, and possible estuarine facies. Cruziana is common and occurs along with Arthrophycus, Bifungites, Chondrites, Planolites, Palaeophycus, Rhizocorallium, Rosselia, Rusophycus, and Skolithos in intensely bioturbated mudstone, siltstone, and sandstone. These lithologies were deposited below fair-weather wave base and grade upsection to upper shoreface facies comprised of thick, horizontally-laminated sandstones with thinner, burrowed mudstone interbeds. Upper shoreface traces consist of Arenicolites, Cruziana, Diplocraterion, Dimorphichnus, Planolites, Thalassinoides, and Skolithos. Skolithos “pipe rock” sandstones occur at the toe of upper shoreface facies. Eastward the Oswayo Member grades into a restricted-bay facies and finally into beach and tidal flat facies near its stratigraphic wedge-out in eastern West Virginia and western Maryland. The Cussewago Sandstone Member at Rowlesburg overlies the Oswayo and is bounded at the top by a disconformity. The Cussewago contains Arenicolites, Isopodichnus, Phycodes, Planolites, and Skolithos in upper shoreface sandstones possibly related to deposition in deltaic or tidal channel systems.

Regionally, the Riddlesburg Shale records a range of euryhaline environments in shallow-shelf, open-bay, and probable estuarine facies. The Riddlesburg Shale Member at Rowlesburg is comprised of dark-grey silty shales, siltstones, and hummocky cross-stratified sandstones. Trace fossils include Bergaueria, Bifungites, Fustiglyphus?, Helminthopsis, Planolites, and Skolithos. Lithofacies of the Riddlesburg Shale in West Virginia were markedly influenced by a syndepositionally active basement feature, the West Virginia Dome. Riddlesburg-age shoreface sandstones deposited on the crest of the Dome contain apparent omission surfaces with common Rhizocorallium and Arenicolites, Cruziana?, Planolites, and Skolithos.

The subfamily Anaptomorphinae contains the oldest and most generalized members of the tarsier-like primates and is the basal group of the extinct family Omomyidae. The best and most continuous record of anaptomorphine history is from rocks of early Eocene (Wasatchian) age in the Bighorn Basin of northwest Wyoming where eight genera and 14 species are recognized. Three of these species are new (Teilhardina crassidens, Tetonius matthewi, Absarokius metoecus), and four other new species are described from elsewhere (Tetonius mckennai, Absarokius gazini, A. australis, Strigorhysis huerfanensis). Teilhardina tenuicula and Absarokius nocerai are new combined forms. Absarokius noctivagus is considered to be a synonym of A. abbotti, and Mckennamorphus is a synonym of Pseudotetonius.

The evolution of dental characters in three principal morphologic clades of anaptomorphines from the Bighorn Basin is documented with the aid of numerous new specimens (75% of the sample is new) and with precise stratigraphic data. These major clades are Teilhardina–Anemorhysis, Tetonius–Pseudotetonius, and Absarokius. In each of these clades, evolution appears to have occurred gradually. In the first two clades it was mainly anagenetic, although each one included a minor branching event. In Absarokius, evolution was instead characterized by cladogenesis followed by continued (and continual) anagenetic change in each of the new lines. Anagenetic gradual evolution produced the new genus Pseudotetonius (from Tetonius) and possibly Anemorhysis (from Teilhardina). Similarly, the Absarokius metoecus lineage probably gave rise to late Wasatchian–early Bridgerian Strigorhysis. Evolution from Tetonius to Pseudotetonius has been clarified by establishment of five arbitrary stages of evolution (Tetonius–Pseudotetonius intermediates). Estimates of relative proportions of time represented by paleosols in different parts of the Willwood section suggest that cladogenetic speciation in Absarokius was almost certainly more rapid than anagenesis in Tetonius–Pseudotetonius.

Anagenetic character evolution and speciation in the anaptomorphine primates was typified first by increase, then decrease in variability, which resulted in measurable apomorphic morphologic change. Cumulation of changes of this sort created more extensive differences of importance at the species and genus levels. Introduction of changing character states and their tempo was staggered temporally, and new characters (and new taxa) are least separable from their antecedent states when they first appear. This evidence is in sharp contrast to predictions of the punctuated equilibria model of evolution. Because the emergence of diagnostic characters occurs gradually (in evolutionary terms) and not all at once (in temporal terms), and because diagnostic characters are the essence of the diagnosis (and thereby taxonomy), the implications of gradual evolution for both systematic paleontology and biostratigraphy are profound. Stasis exists in the evolution of individual characters over certain periods, but this study offers no evidence supporting either organismic stasis or even stasis in the dental evolution of the Anaptomorphinae over a period of about 4.8 million years.

A low-diversity shelly fauna occurs in the Deep Spring Formation of the White–Inyo Mountains of eastern California and in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Although poorly preserved, specimens can be recovered through acid digestion of the limestone matrix. The fauna is composed of three tubes of uncertain affinities and a hyolith. Nevadatubulus dunfeei n. gen. and sp., a distinctive, randomly curved and annulated tube, is abundant and far outnumbers the remaining three elements: Coleoloides inyoensis n. sp., Sinotubulites cienegensis McMenamin, and the hyolith Salanytheca sp. The original composition of the faunal elements appears to have been calcite or aragonite, but recrystallization has destroyed any ultrastructure. No phosphatic elements occur with the fauna nor have phosphatic fossils been recovered from the underlying Wyman and Reed Formations or the other members of the Deep Spring Formation.

The fauna occurs 1,500 meters below the first trilobite body fossils and may be coeval with faunas from the basal Cambrian Tommotian Stage of the Siberian Platform. Wyattia, the only previously described pre-trilobite shelly fossil from the region, occurs in approximately the same stratigraphic interval but was not recovered in our samples.

The Hungry Hollow Formation on the southeastern margin of the Michigan Basin is interpreted as a composite stratigraphic unit representing the lateral equivalents of two depositional cycles in the northern Appalachian Basin. The basal beds (? = Pompey and upper Levanna transgressive hemicycle of the upper Skaneateles Formation in New York) are separated by disconformity surfaces both from the underlying Arkona Shale and from the upper part of the Hungry Hollow (= upper part of Centerfield Limestone Member). These basal beds were deposited on eroded, overcompacted claystones of the Arkona Shale, contain a diverse suite of remanie sediments, and fill deep, delicately sculpted furrows of Cruziana transversa n. ichnosp., C. reticulata n. ichnosp., and Rusophycus bilobatum (Vanuxem, 1842). This lower disconformity may be recognizable regionally over the Northern Midcontinent. Overlying beds feature the lowest local occurrence of an offshore-aspect conodont fauna of the lower Polygnathus varcus Subzone. The underlying Arkona Shale yields Icriodus-dominated (nearer-shore aspect) faunas apparently representing Polygnathus xylus ensensis Zone assemblages. The upper part of the Hungry Hollow Formation and overlying lower part of the Widder Formation represent an offlap-onlap cycle within the lower Polygnathus varcus Subzone that is comparable to that of the upper part of the Centerfield Limestone.

Cruziana and Rusophycus from the Hungry Hollow were not originally produced as “under-tracks” but were formed at the sediment–water interface on erosion-resistant, overconsolidated muds. The producer of Cruziana reticulata n. ichnosp. appeared in the benthic community of the field area before the excavator of C. transversa n. ichnosp. and of Rusophycus bilobatum (possibly the trilobite Dipleura). The degree of limb swing required to produce the reticulate scratch patterns in C. reticulata n. ichnosp. suggests the evolution of specialized coxa-sternite and inter-podomere hinges that were not previously considered to be present in trilobites. Comparable reticulate scratch patterns occur as early as the earliest Cambrian and are apparently related to excavation on disconformity-related mud firmgrounds.

The Upper Cliff coal interval (Early Pennsylvanian) of northern Alabama consists of sandstone, siltstone, shale, and coal deposited within a southwestward prograding deltaic complex as previously defined using paleobotanical and sedimentological evidence. The paleoecology of two invertebrate-bearing lithofacies was studied within this context. A lower shaley-siltstone lithofacies records the inundation of the Upper Cliff #1 peat-accumulating swamp/marsh by fresh-water influenced brackish to restricted marine deposits. The fauna is dominated by the inarticulate Orbiculoidea and the trace fossil Planolites. As inundation continued, an interdistributary bay developed. Diversity and abundance of taxa increased with the establishment of a molluscan dominated Pteronites-Pianolites assemblage. The assemblage consists of a low diversity and low abundance fauna of bivalves and trace fossils that suggest soft substrates with abundant organics.

The overlying sandstone lithofacies consists of a basal shell-bed (Schizophoria zone) composed of rare indigenous Pteronites and Wilkingia and a transported component of open marine epifaunal brachiopods, gastropods, and trilobite fragments. The Schizophoria zone thins to the northeast, suggesting open marine conditions to the southwest. Directly above this bed, the fauna of the sandstone lithofacies is composed entirely of Zoophycos. Higher in the section, rare Pteronites and Wilkingia occur, thus this lithofacies preserves a Wilkingia-Pteronites-Zoophycos assemblage of low abundance and diversity reflecting mobile organic-poor substrates. The sandstone lithofacies is interpreted as a migrating sand body with a basal shell-bed, initially formed probably as a result of storm activity.

Numerous specimens of Tabulaconus Handfield, 1969, have been collected in carbonate buildups within the Adams Argillite (Early Cambrian, Tatonduk area, Alaska). The wall structure of this form has been investigated, along with contemporaneous archaeocyaths and algae, through the use of polished ultra-thin sections (2–3 μm thick) and scanning electron microscopy. The results of this microstructural comparison indicate that despite diagenetic alteration Tabulaconus has a skeleton that is unlike any presently known and is quite distinct from associated algae or archaeocyaths. It is more elaborate than that found in the archaeocyaths but has not reached the stage of complexity seen in the primitive coral Cothonion Jell and Jell, 1976. The presence of some elongated units may represent an initial step towards the fibrous skeleton typical of Paleozoic corals.

This study shows that even though diagenesis alters the original microstructure of calcareous skeletons, the resultant fabrics and detailed structures can be useful in systematic descriptions.

Tabulaconus is removed from the Gastroconidae Kordae due to the presence of rudimentary septa and constitution of the tabularium. A number of species assigned to the genus Bačatocyathus Vologdin and included within the Archaeocyatha appear to be examples of Tabulaconus or very close relatives. An emended description of Tabulaconus kordae, the type species, is proposed.

Two forms of branched, thickly walled, meniscate trace fossils occur in the Permian of East Greenland and Miocene of southern Italy. A new ichnogenus, Rutichnus, is erected for these specimens, and its possible synonyms and mode of formation are discussed. The two ichnospecies, R. irregularis (D'Alessandro) and R. rutis n. ichnosp., differ in the manner of branching and external rugosity.

Angulichnus alternipes n. ichnogen. and n. ichnosp. is a distinctive epichnial trail from the heterolithic facies of the Middle Cambrian Bright Angel Shale at Horn Creek, Grand Canyon, Arizona. It consists of a central zig-zag furrow bordered by biserially opposed alternating tracks. Though clearly formed by a benthonic arthropod, the trail cannot be attributed to a trilobite and is therefore important as an indicator of the presence of nontrilobite arthropods in the Bright Angel Shale. It is suggested that an arthropod similar to Habelia optata from the Burgess Shale would be a convincing trail-former. Sedimentologic analysis indicates that the heterolithic facies represents storm-induced deposition of sand, followed by a low-energy period during which traces were formed as mud settled to the bottom.

A trace-fossil assemblage is exposed in the uppermost portion of an interpreted tidal sand-flat deposit in the Upper Mississippian Tar Springs Sandstone in southwestern Illinois. Sedimentary structures, indicative of a tidal origin for this unit, include herringbone crossbeds, flaser and lenticular beds, reactivation surfaces, small channel scours, and shrinkage cracks. The trace fossils include trackways, trails, feeding structures, dwelling burrows, and escape structures. Vertical dwelling and escape structures dominate the assemblage with lesser numbers of horizontal and inclined traces. The ichnological and sedimentological characteristics are diagnostic of the Skolithos ichnofacies. Preservation of the assemblage at the top of the Tar Springs Sandstone was the result of substrate stabilization as the tidal flat subsided and was transgressed. The present trace-fossil assemblage probably was formed by a combination of a pre-omission tidal-flat suite and an omission suite formed during and after the transgression. Preservation of the assemblage suggests a passive transgression with minimal scouring and reworking of the tidal-flat deposit.

The late Namurian Hindostan Whetstone beds are among the oldest Pennsylvanian strata recognized in the Illinois Basin. Trace-fossil holotypes of Haplotichnus indianensis, Plangtichnus erraticus, and Treptichnus bifurcus were first described and illustrated from these nonmarine strata with line drawings without reference to scale in a relatively obscure work by S. A. Miller (1889). These holotypes are refigured and redescribed in this paper. Based on examination of holotype collections, the Ordovician “Feather-stitch Trail” of Wilson (1948) is judged not to be congeneric with Treptichnus. The ichnogenus Ancorichnus, which is present in the Hindostan Whetstone beds, superficially resembles Haplotichnus; however, Haplotichnus lacks the internal meniscae characteristic of Ancorichnus.