Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T20:03:11.822Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Palynology of the ‘Lower Old Red Sandstone’ at Glen Coe, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Charles H. Wellman
Charles H. Wellman
Affiliation:
Department of Palaeontology, the Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK and Department of Geology, University of Wales College of Cardiff, Cardiff CF3 3YE, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

‘Lower Old Red Sandstone’ deposits preserved by cauldron subsidence at Glen Coe, Scotland have hitherto lacked secure biostratigraphical age constraint. A sporomorph assemblage recovered from basal sediments of these deposits permits age determination, despite being highly carbonized. The sporomorph assemblage is correlated with the micrornatus-newportensis Sporomorph Assemblage Biozone, indicating a late early-early late Lochkovian age (early Devonian). Sporomorph assemblages from basal sediments of the ‘Lower Old Red Sandstone’ sequence at nearby Lorne, a suggested correlative of the Glen Coe deposits, are older (latest Pridoli-earliest Lochkovian age). However, the new biostratigraphical data do not preclude the possibility that the Glen Coe and Lorne deposits are lithological correlatives and the basal sediments are diachronous.

Type
Rapid Communications
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 131 , Issue 4 , July 1994 , pp. 563 - 566
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailey, E. B. 1960. The geology of Ben Nevis and Glen Coe and the surrounding country, 2nd ed. Memoirs of the Geological Survey Scotland, Explanation of Sheet 53. 307 pp.Google Scholar
Clough, C. T., Maufe, H. B. & Bailey, E. B. 1909. The cauldron subsidence of Glen Coe and the associated igneous phenomena. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London 65, 611–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harland, W. B., Armstrong, R. L., Cox, A. V., Craig, L. E., Smith, A. G. & Smith, D. G. 1989. A Geologic Time Scale 1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 263 pp.Google Scholar
Kidston, R. & Lang, W. H. 1924. Notes on fossil plants from the Old Red Sandstone. III. On two species of Pachytheca (P. media and P. fasciculata) based on the character of algal filaments. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 53, 604–14.Google Scholar
Marshall, J. E. A. 1991. Palynology of the Stonehaven Group, Scotland: evidence for a Mid Silurian age and its geological implications. Geological Magazine 128, 283–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maufe, H. B. 1910. The geological structure of Ben Nevis. In Summary of Progress for 1909. Memoirs of the Geological Survey, pp. 80–9.Google Scholar
Mykura, W. 1991. Old Red Sandstone. In Geology of Scotland, 3rd ed. (ed. Craig, G. Y.), pp. 297–342. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. B. & Edwards, D. 1989. Sporomorphs and plant megafossils. In A Global Standard for the Silurian System (eds Holland, C. H. and Bassett, M. G.), pp. 216–26. Cardiff: National Museum of Wales Geological Series No. 9.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. B. & McGregor, D. C. 1986. Silurian and Devonian spore zones of the Old Red Sandstone continent and adjacent regions. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin no. 364, 79 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, J. B., Streel, M., Hassan, A. & Steemans, P. 1982. A new spore assemblage to correlate between the Breconian (British Isles) and the Gedinnian (Belgium). Annales de la Société Géologique de Belgique 105, 135–43.Google Scholar
Roberts, J. L. 1966. Ignimbrite eruptions in the volcanic history of the Glencoe cauldron subsidence. Geological Journal 5, 173–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, J. L. 1974. The evolution of the Glencoe cauldron. Scottish Journal of Geology 10, 269–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streel, M., Higgs, K., Loboziak, S., Riegel, W. & Steemans, P. 1987. Spore stratigraphy and correlation with faunas and floras in the type marine Devonian of the Ardennes-Rhenish regions. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 50, 211–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thirlwall, M. F. 1988. Geochronology of late Caledonian magmatism in northern Britain. Journal of the Geological Society, London 145, 951–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar