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Lower and Middle Devonian brachiopod-dominated communities of Nevada, and their position in a biofacies-province-realm model
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2015
Abstract
Lower and Middle Devonian brachiopod-dominated communities of Nevada are numerous (46) and most are positioned on or adjacent to the carbonate-platform foreslope or ramp. Level-bottom community chains are fundamentally different from community associations that are interrupted by a platform margin. All communities require relative abundance data of constituent species for recognition. These communities prove to be endemic to the Nevada-southeastern California area, even though faunal similarities with distant regions in North America can be recognized. Analogous communities, the same age as comparable communities in Nevada, differ in overall specific content and in relative abundance of diagnostic species. Identification of analogous communities requires recognition of common physical environments (first) and faunal similarity (second). Groupings of communities based on presence-absence data of key species and genera are not meaningful.
Biofacies boundaries sited on carbonate-platform foreslopes separate community associations and also act as filter boundaries for faunal realms. The platform and peripheral biofacies thus delineated are also realms, a pattern that is repeated by different organisms from Cambrian to Cenozoic. Biofacies boundaries shift in concert with large-scale sea-level fluctuations. During platform emergence, most faunas are peripheral and therefore cosmopolitan. Transgression initially forms small, isolated epeiric seas populated from offshore, and endemic faunas evolve. Increased transgression merges epeiric seas and faunas, reducing provinciality and diversity through competition. Regression results in extinctions in proportion to its rate and the area involved. The cycle repeats.
The hermanni-cristatus conodont Zone is replaced with the name hermanni Zone. The disparilis Zone is divided into Lower and Upper Subzones. The norrisi Zone is proposed at the top of the Middle Devonian.
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- Copyright © The Journal of Paleontology
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