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Middle Cambrian articulate brachiopods from the Southern New England Fold Belt, Northeastern N.S.W., Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Glenn A. Brock*
Affiliation:
Centre for Ecostratigraphy and Palaeobiology, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, N.S.W. 2109, Australia

Abstract

Calcareous articulate brachiopods are rare components of the high diversity, phosphatic, silicified, and epidote coated shelly fauna derived from Middle Cambrian (Floran-Undillan) allochthonous limestone clasts from the Murrawong Creek Formation, southern New England Fold Belt, northeastern New South Wales, Australia. Three taxa are described, the kutorginids Nisusia metula n. sp., and Yorkia sp. indet., and the protorthid Arctohedra austrina n. sp. Yorkia is documented from Australia for the first time. An unusual valve (possibly a brachial valve) of enigmatic affinity is also reported and illustrated. Generically, the taxa provide broad regional paleobiogeographic links with the “first discovery limestone” Member of the Coonigan Formation, western New South Wales, and the Current Bush Limestone in the Georgina Basin, northern Australia, and globally, with broadly contemporaneous sequences in western North America, Siberia, and South China.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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