Andrzej Kaim

Chemosynthesis-Based Associations on Cretaceous Plesiosaurid Carcasses

The objective of this report is to document first Mesozoic occurrences of chemosynthesis-based communities developed on large marine reptile carcasses. Micro-grazing provannid gastropods (typical of chemosynthetic communities) are associated with plesiosaurid skeletons in the Upper Cretaceous deposits of Hokkaido, northern Japan. The cancellous bones of the examined plesiosaurid bones contain a ubiquity of iron sulfides within the bone trabeculae, which provides evidence of anaerobic sulfate reduction of the bone lipids. We also report numerous microborings in the bone trabeculae, which might result from the activity of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. This finding addresses the hotly debated problem of the emergence and radiation of whale bone faunas. We postulate that vertebrate bone environments in the Northwest Pacific region were settled repeatedly by animals from a regional pool of chemosynthesis-based communities that flourished in the methane seeps and/or hot vents that were present during the Late Cretaceous—Miocene.

Rubyspira, New Genus and Two New Species of Bone-Eating Deep-Sea Snails With Ancient Habits

Rubyspira, a new genus of deep-sea snails (Gastropoda: Abyssochrysoidea) with two living species, derives its nutrition from decomposing whalebones. Molecular phylogenetic and morphological evidence places the new genus in an exclusively deep-sea assemblage that includes several close relatives previously known as fossils associated with Cretaceous cold seeps, plesiosaur bones, and Eocene whalebones. The ability to exploit a variety of marine reducing environments may have contributed to the evolutionary longevity of this gastropod lineage.

Ammonoid Shell Microstructure

This chapter discusses various aspects of ammonoid shell microstructure, presents a description of the structure of the individual layers that compose the ammonoid shell, shows the distribution and relationships of these layers, and depicts their ultrastructure whenever possible. The major limitation in micro-and ultrastructural studies of ammonoids is diagenetic alteration, therefore the best studied ammonoids are those from the Jurassic and Cretaceous, while the data on Paleozoic and Triassic ammonoids are still scarce. At the ultrastructural level, the three main layers of the postembryonic shell of ammonoids do not differ significantly from those known from the shell of Recent nautilids. The same is also true for the septa. However, the embryonic shells of ammonoids, called the ammonitellas, are distinguished from those of modern and fossil nautiloids in their smaller size and the presence of a spherical or barrel-shaped initial chamber.

Gastropods from Late Cretaceous Omagari and Yasukawa Hydrocarbon Seep Deposits in the Nakagawa Area, Hokkaido, Japan

Sixteen gastropod species from two Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) hydrocarbon seep localities in Hokkaido, Japan are described. Seven species are new: the acmaeid limpet Serradonta omagariensis; three turbinids: Homalopoma abeshinaiensis, Cantrainea yasukawensis, and C. omagariensis; the trochid Margarites sasakii; the seguenzioid Cataegis nakagawensis; and the provannid Provanna nakagawensis. The most common species in the investigated localities are acmaeid limpets (S. omagariensis), tiny turbinids (H. abeshinaiensis, C. yasukawensis, C. omagariensis), and provannids/hokkaidoconchids (P. nakagawensis and Hokkaidoconcha hikidai). The Upper Cretaceous associations described here do not resemble Lower Cretaceous associations known from other regions but are composed of species similar to gastropods from Recent hydrocarbon seeps and hydrothermal vents in the Northwestern Pacific. This strongly suggest that this region possesses a regional pool of gastropods in chemosynthesis-based communities at least since Late Cretaceous time. The only group of gastropods described here which has no Recent counterpart is the Hokkaidoconchidae. A comparison to gastropods from plesiosaur falls and sunken wood of the same age and region strongly suggest that these invertebrate communities do not differ significantly from the coeval hydrocarbon seep communities described herein.

Worldwide distribution of the modiomorphid bivalve genus Caspiconcha in late Mesozoic hydrocarbon seeps

Exceptionally well preserved specimens of the bivalve mollusc Modiola major were collected from a Lower Cretaceous (Barremian) hydrocarbon seep deposit in northern California. This material, together with the type series of M. major, and various other specimens from Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous seep localities in California, is redescribed and referred to the hydrocarbon seep-restricted modiomorphid genus Caspiconcha. We include also a description of Myoconcha americana because some previous reports have incorrectly synonymized Myoconcha americana with Caspiconcha major. In addition, we report Caspiconcha sp. from a Lower Cretaceous (Albian) hydrocarbon seep from Hokkaido, Japan, and we review all currently described species of Caspiconcha, and other species that probably belong to this genus. We demonstrate that Caspiconcha had a widespread distribution in Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous hydrocarbon seeps, but became rare thereafter, with the last representative occurring in Upper Cretaceous strata of Japan. This macroevolutionary pattern is similar to that observed in the seep-restricted brachiopods. After the decline of Caspiconcha at the end of the Early Cretaceous and its last occurrence in the Campanian, the ecological niche of epifaunal to semi-infaunal seep endemic bivalves was largely vacant and not reoccupied until the Eocene with the appearance of the vesicomyid and bathymodiolin bivalves. The formal placement of M. major into the genus Caspiconcha restricts the fossil record of mytilids at seeps to post-Mesozoic times, and thus there is less discrepancy between the fossil record of chemosynthetic mytilids and their divergence age estimates from molecular data.

Mass occurrence of hokkaidoconchid gastropods in the Upper Jurassic methane seep carbonate from Alexander Island, Antarctica

Abstract The Tithonian (Upper Jurassic) methane seep carbonate of the Gateway Pass Limestone Bed (Alexander Island, Antarctica) yields enormous numbers of the minute gastropod mollusc, Hokkaidoconcha hignalli sp. nov. together with an unidentified limpet gastropod and occasional protobranch and lucinid bivalves. This assemblage constitutes one of the most abundant (by means of the specimen number) records of Jurassic chemosynthesis-based communities. The gastropod family Hokkaidoconchidae is extremely common in Cretaceous hydrocarbon seep carbonates from Japan and is known also from Upper Jurassic/Cretaceous hydrocarbon seep carbonates in California. It is an extinct family closely related to modern seep and vent dwelling Provannidae. This is the first confirmed record of this family in the Southern Hemisphere, indicating its surprisingly early and widespread distribution reaching high latitudes.

The Paleoecology, Habitats, and Stratigraphic Range of the Enigmatic Cretaceous Brachiopod Peregrinella

Modern and Cenozoic deep-sea hydrothermal-vent and methane-seep communities are dominated by large tubeworms, bivalves and gastropods. In contrast, many Early Cretaceous seep communities were dominated by the largest Mesozoic rhynchonellid brachiopod, the dimerelloid Peregrinella, the paleoecologic and evolutionary traits of which are still poorly understood. We investigated the nature of Peregrinella based on 11 occurrences world wide and a literature survey. All in situ occurrences of Peregrinella were confirmed as methane-seep deposits, supporting the view that Peregrinella lived exclusively at methane seeps. Strontium isotope stratigraphy indicates that Peregrinella originated in the late Berriasian and disappeared after the early Hauterivian, giving it a geologic range of ca. 9.0 (+1.45/–0.85) million years. This range is similar to that of rhynchonellid brachiopod genera in general, and in this respect Peregrinella differs from seep-inhabiting mollusks, which have, on average, longer geologic ranges than marine mollusks in general. Furthermore, we found that (1) Peregrinella grew to larger sizes at passive continental margins than at active margins; (2) it grew to larger sizes at sites with diffusive seepage than at sites with advective fluid flow; (3) despite its commonly huge numerical abundance, its presence had no discernible impact on the diversity of other taxa at seep sites, including infaunal chemosymbiotic bivalves; and (4) neither its appearance nor its extinction coincides with those of other seep-restricted taxa or with global extinction events during the late Mesozoic. A preference of Peregrinella for diffusive seepage is inferred from the larger average sizes of Peregrinella at sites with more microcrystalline carbonate (micrite) and less seep cements. Because other seep-inhabiting brachiopods occur at sites where such cements are very abundant, we speculate that the various vent- and seep-inhabiting dimerelloid brachiopods since Devonian time may have adapted to these environments in more than one way.

A review of gastropods from a Callovian (Middle Jurassic) glacial drift at Łuków, Eastern Poland

This paper reviews all available data on gastropods from an abandoned Callovian clay pit in ⁄ Lukow ⁄ Lapiguz located on the large glacial drift. A total of 51 species of gastropods are reported from this locality in contributions by MAKOWSKI (1952), SCHRODER (1995), and KAIM (2004). The fauna of the sideritic concretions is dominated by aporrhaid gastropods while the clay fauna is dominated by the alleged eumetulid Cosmocerithium and maturifusids. The latter association is characteristic for Jurassic sunken-wood assemblages and might originate also in such a setting. The PCA and cluster analyses groups well this distinctive association and clearly delimit from other gastropod associations in that region. A new genus and species Makowskispira lapiguzensis is described and attributed to Ampullinidae. The new genus differs from other members of the family by distinct spiral ornamentation.

A monospecific assemblage of terebratulide brachiopods in the Upper Cretaceous seep deposits of Omagari, Hokkaido, Japan

The Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) seep carbonate at Omagari (Hokkaido, Japan) yields a monospecific association of the terebratulide brachiopod Eucalathis methanophila Bitner sp. nov. The association is the only occurrence of brachiopods known from the post-Early Cretaceous history of chemosynthesis-based communities. Unlike many earlier rhynchonellide-dominated hydrocarbon seep associations—which disappeared in Aptian times—this association is composed of chlidonophorid terebratulides. It is hypothesised here that large rhynchonellide brachiopods have been outcompeted from chemosynthesis-based associations by large chemosymbiotic bivalves (especially lucinids) and that this seep association containing numerous terebratulide brachiopods originated as a result of immigration from the background fauna settling in a seep that lacked numerous large bivalves but offered some hard substrates for brachiopod attachment. Some living chlidonophorids are known to settle around seep/vent localities or more generally in deep-water hard-substrate settings. We review occurrences of brachiopods in chemosynthesis-based associations and show that brachiopods immigrated repeatedly to seep/vent environments. Eucalathis methanophila Bitner sp. nov. represents the oldest and single Mesozoic record of the genus. The new species is similar in ornamentation to three living species, Indo-Pacific E. murrayi, eastern Atlantic E. tuberata, and Caribbean E. cubensis but differs in having a higher beak and wider loop. Additionally the studied species is nearly twice as large as E. tuberata.

New gastropods from the Jurassic of Orville Coast, eastern Ellsworth Land, Antarctica

The Latady Group (southern Antarctic Peninsula) hosts the most diverse assemblage of Jurassic molluscs from this continent. A new gastropod mollusc, Silberlingiella latadyensis sp. nov. and three forms assigned to Rissoidae, Pseudomelaniidae and Bullinidae from the Middle-Late Jurassic, Bathonian–Kimmeridgian Hauberg Mountains Formation, Ellsworth Land, Antarctic Peninsula are described here. Silberlingiella is transferred to Eustomatidae and is the first confirmed record of this family in the Southern Hemisphere, indicating a much more widespread Jurassic distribution. The Triassic and Jurassic species of Silberlingiella are compared with the coeval European genus Diatinostoma. Eustomatidae is proposed as an ancestral group for Potamididae and Batillariidae. The composition of the gastropod association described herein differs markedly from the only other Antarctic Jurassic fauna from Alexander Island.