Jerzy Fedorowski

Lower Permian Colonial Rugose Corals, Western and Northwestern Pangaea: Taxonomy and Distribution

The most comprehensive summary available on the stratigraphic occurrence, geographic distribution, phylogeny, and taxonomy of Early Permian colonial rugose corals that occupied the Cordilleran–Arctic–Uralian (CAU) Realm, along the northwestern and western marine shelves and accreted terranes of the ancient supercontinent Pangaea. It is based on all previous studies by other coral specialists, a thorough review of all published data, and on information from a very large number of new collections from new areas. This book contains a new classification and phylogenetic scheme, based on critical restudy of the entire coral fauna at all taxonomic levels

An Unusual Occurrence of Bashkirian (Pennsylvanian) Rugose Corals from the Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada

Abstract The oldest known Carboniferous rugose coral fauna in the Canadian Arctic Islands was collected in the Yelverton Inlet area of northern Ellesmere Island, from Bashkirian carbonates of the lower Nansen and Otto Fiord formations. It includes the genera Dibunophyllum Thomson and Nicholson, Lonsdaleia McCoy, Palaeosmilia Milne-Edwards and Haime and Tizraia? Said and Rodríguez. Such a generic assemblage is unknown elsewhere above the Serpukhovian. An upper? Bashkirian specimen of Paraheritschioides Sando, collected above the main fauna, is the oldest known representative of that genus. Faunal comparisons suggest Novaya Zemlya or northern Timan as the most likely source areas for the Yelverton Inlet fauna.

New Late Carboniferous Heritschioidinae (Rugosa) from the Kuiu Island area and Brooks Range, Alaska

Three new species of the genus Heritschioides, i.e., H. alaskensis sp. nov., H. kuiuensis sp. nov., and H. splendidus sp. nov., and Kekuphyllum sandoense gen. et sp. nov. from the northeastern Kuiu Island area and nearby islets, part of Alexander terrane in southeastern Alaska, and Heritschioides separatus sp. nov. from the Brooks Range, Alaska, are described and illustrated. The three new fasciculate colonial coral species from the Kuiu Island area, collected from the Moscovian Saginaw Bay Formation, are phylogenetically related to those of probable Bashkirian age in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska as shown by the presence of morphologically similar species of Heritschioides. These corals from both areas also are related to one species in the Quesnel terrane in western Canada. Kekuphyllum sandoense from the Saginaw Bay Formation of the Kuiu Island area is the only cerioid-aphroid species within the Subfamily Heritschioidinae described so far. The complete early ontogeny of a protocorallite is for the first time described here on a basis of H. kuiuensis sp. nov. and compared to the hystero-ontogeny in order to show similarities and differences in those processes.

New Unusual Skeletal Structure in An Upper Carboniferous Rugose Coral, Klamath Mountains, Northern California

Abstract Unique among the Rugosa are specialized cyst-like structures in corals from an upper Carboniferous limestone within the Baird Formation in the Klamath Mountains, northern California. These structures, here referred to as septal cysts, occur mostly along the distal margins of the dark line extending along the axes of the major septa as seen in transverse section. However, they also commonly extend beyond the distal extent of those lines and may interrupt the fibrous coating in the more proximal parts of some septa. Their function is uncertain. Also present are small dissepiments which form a ring around the distal margins of the minor septa. These structures, however, do not appear to be related to the development of those septa. Some other taxa, including corals from the Bashkirian of Spain and the Kasimovian of Kansas, possess some specialized structures similar to those in the California specimens suggesting at least a remote relationship.

A revision of Heritschioides Yabe, 1950 (Anthozoa, Rugosa), latest Mississippian and earliest Pennsylvanian of western North America

New data from a detailed study of the type and topotype collections of the type species of Heritschioides confirm the unique status of the genus as colonial and bearing extra septal lamellae. The associated microfossils establish its age as late Serpukhovian to early Bashkirian. The close connection of the cardinal septum to the median lamella and the axial structure points to the family Aulophyllidae. However, the inconsistent role of the protosepta in the formation of the median lamella is unique for Heritschioides. This feature and the colonial growth form allow its assignment to a separate subfamily, the Heritschioidinae Sando, 1985, which is closely related to the subfamily Aulophyllinae. So far, the subfamily Heritschioidinae is known to occur only in rocks along the western margin of North America. Jerzy Fedorowski. Institute of Geology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Maków Polnych 16, Pl-61-606, Poznań, Poland. jerzy@amu.edu.pl E. Wayne Bamber. Geological Survey of Canada (Calgary), 3303-33rd Street N. W., Calgary, Alberta T2L 2A7, Canada. wabamber@nrcan.gc.ca Calvin H. Stevens. Department of Geology, San Jose State University, San Jose, California 95192, USA. calvin.stevens@sjsu.edu