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Scottish Ordovician ostracodes: a review of their palaeoenvironmental, biostratigraphical and palaeobiogeographical significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Mark Williams ,
James D. Floyd ,
C. Giles Miller  and
David J. Siveter
Mark Williams
Affiliation:
Mark Williams, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, U.K.
James D. Floyd
Affiliation:
James D. Floyd, British Geological Survey, Murchison House, Edinburgh EH9 3LA, U.K.
C. Giles Miller
Affiliation:
C. Giles Miller, Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, U.K.
David J. Siveter
Affiliation:
David J. Siveter, Department of Geology, University of LeicesterLE1 7RH, U.K.
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Abstract

ABSTRACT

Ostracodes have a wide geographical distribution in the Ordovician of Scotland. They are known from the Southern Uplands, the Girvan district, the Highland Border region and the Inner Hebrides. Overall, more than forty species are recorded. They occur in clastic and carbonate rocks indicative of a range of shallow to deeper marine-shelf environments. Though many of the faunas are allochthonous, broad patterns of ostracode palaeoenvironmental distribution can be elucidated, and elements of the shallow marine Leperditella and open marineshelf Anisocyamus associations (previously recorded from N America) are present. Indigenous faunas are absent from the deep marine sediments of the Southern Uplands Northern Belt. Ostracodes are known from the Arenig, Llanvirn, Caradoc and Ashgill series in Scotland; those of the latter two series have widest biostratigraphical value. In the Girvan district the Caradoc species ‘Ctenobolbina’ ventrospinosa, Krausella variata, Balticella deckeri and Monoceratella teres have correlative value with N America, whilst the Ashgill species Kinnekullea comma appears to be a locum for the anceps graptolite Biozone in Britain, Ireland and possibly the eastern Baltic. The ostracodes are of typical Laurentian affinity, but show progressive generic links with the Baltic region during the late Llanvirn–Caradoc interval, and by Ashgill times display species-level links with southern Britain and Ireland. These distributional patterns suggest approaching geographical proximity for the early Palaeozoic continents of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia, and the ability of some Ordovician ostracodes to cross the Iapetus Ocean.

Keywords

biostratigraphypalaeobiogeographypalaeoenvironmentsScotland
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 91 , Issue 3-4: The Southern Uplands Terrane: Tectonics and Biostratigraphy within the Caledonian Orogen , 2000 , pp. 499 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 2000

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