Paleoecology, taphonomy, and biogeography of a Coenothyris community (Brachiopoda, Terebratulida) from the Triassic (Upper Anisian-Lower Ladinian) of Israel. American Museum novitates ; no. 3479

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Date

2005

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New York, NY : American Museum of Natural History

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Abstract

A brachiopod community from the Fossiliferous Limestone Member (Upper Anisian-Lower Ladinian) of the Triassic Saharonim Formation at Har Gevanim, Makhtesh Ramon, southern Israel, is dominated by the terebratulid Coenothyris oweni Feldman. The community shows evidence of time-averaging and is largely composed of a single cohort of juvenile mortality of one spatfall. The Saharonim Formation was deposited under normal, calm, relatively shallow marine conditions as part of the global Anisian-Ladinian transgression. One horizon, varying in thickness between 1 and 1.5 cm, represents an autochthonous obrution deposit of juvenile Coenothyris brachiopods and 10 bivalve genera that were rapidly buried by pulses of clay in the form of flocculated mud. Other faunal constituents of the Saharonim Formation include conodonts, ostracodes, foraminiferans, bivalves, cephalopods, gastropods, echinoderms, and vertebrate remains that belong to the Sephardic Province and are diagnostic of the Middle Triassic series of Israel. The faunal composition and shallow depositional environment of the strata studied are useful in correlating the Triassic rocks in the Negev with those in Europe and help to differentiate the Sephardic Province from the Germanic Muschelkalk and the Alpine Tethyan faunas to the north.

Description

19 p. : ill., map ; 26 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 15-18).

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