Palaeoecology and palaeoenvironments of tetrapod footprints from the rotliegend (lower permian) of central Europe

doi:10.1016/0031-0182(78)90098-6

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

Volume 23, 1978, Pages 307-323

https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-0182(78)90098-6 Get rights and content

Abstract

In late Palaezoic red beds tetrapod footprints are, both in vertical and lateral extent, the most common fossils. They are at present most fully known from the European Rotliegend. An analysis of their occurrence in relation to lithology, sedimentology and fossil associations (including an interpretation of the prints themselves) shows them to be linked with fluviatile facies in the broadest sense. Of all thssils from the Rotliegend, footprints are the least affected by climatic circumtances or by palaeogeography. Nevertheless, as a consequence of palaeogeographic controls, two footprint communities may be distinguished; a cotylosaur-pelycosaur-temnospondyl community in restricted basins and a pelycosaur-cotylosaur community in broader depositional environments within the Variscan uplands - the molasse facies, piedmont valley-flat red beds. Representatives of the pelycosaur-cotylosaur community colonized wider areas until the latest Saxonian.

Their facies relationship with the principal types ofred-bed sediments and the phylogenetic faunal changes they exhibit predestine the vertebrate footprints to serve as guide fossils for the Rotliegend. They afford the means for a precise stratigraphical definition of the Autunian and the Saxonian and for the correlation of the Lower and Upper Autunian of Europe with equivalent occurrences in North America, based on faunas which, as represented by footprints, are generically identical.

The wide distribution of shallow fluviatile facies evidently corresponds with particular evolutionary stages in terrestrial amphibians and reptiles. Highland faunas, often exclusively represented by footprints, may be looked upon as starting points for evolutionary radiations of terrestrial vertebrates in the Carboniferous and Permian.

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Ichnia Amphibiorum et Reptiliorum fossilium

Cited by (19)

Did evaporite cements and infiltrated silts assist preservation of reptile tracks in Permian desert sediments?
2024, Sedimentary Geology
Many Permian desert tracks are found in formations dominated by rather homogeneous aeolian quartz arenites. This raises questions around how they got preserved. Here we test the hypothesis that strong palaeoenvironmental controls affect style and quality of footprint preservation in Permo-Triassic desert settings. To answer this, several examples of tracks and trackways from Moray, Scotland, are described in the context of their host sedimentary successions. We then discuss petrographic clues in the specific track-bearing layers with regard to taphonomy. Two key sections were logged and sampled at Hopeman Beach: (i) Hopeman Coastal Section A, being a site from which tracks have previously been recovered; and (ii) Hopeman Coastal Section B, a section still exhibiting several in-situ tracks. Tracks were also examined on the surfaces of metre-scale quarried blocks within Clashach Quarry. Logging was also undertaken at quarries in Quarrelwood near Elgin. Collected samples were examined optically and with a scanning electron microscope. Hopeman Coastal Section A exhibits convolute bedding best interpreted as dewatering structures; a pustular bed that could be linked to growth of evaporite crystals impinging on a sediment-binding microbial mat; adhesion ripples formed by dry, wind-blown sand sticking to a wet or damp surface; and laterally continuous pebble layers that are the result of ephemeral sheet floods. The oscillation-rippled layer from which NMS footprint specimen G.1997.60.1 was extracted exhibits a halite cement and petrographic evidence for re-worked halite, and these rippled sediments were most likely deposited in an interdunal lake. Hopeman Coastal Section B similarly exhibits metre-scale planar cross beds and occasional coarser-grained lag deposits that are consistent with aeolian dunes that were episodically inundated by sheet floods. Samples containing halite and lesser amounts of gypsum or anhydrite were collected from the same layer as the in-situ Hopeman Coastal Section B tracks. Metre-scale planar cross-bedded quartz arenites of Cutties Hillock quarry were clearly deposited in an aeolian dune setting. Some sands in the Cutties Hillock Sandstone with scoured bases were aeolian sediments that were reworked by fluvial processes. We conclude that this study demonstrates three different modes of track preservation in the Permian Moray area: (i) indentation of near-surface layers constituted by particles of fine silt that in many cases had infiltrated between sand grains of aeolian dunes; (ii) trackways in sediments deposited around the margins of lakes in the interdunes, with early cementation by evaporites, noting that in the studied cases the halite cement might have helped preservation of the tracks in the sense of long-term fossilisation, but probably not anatomical preservation (i.e. quality of fidelity); and (iii) indentation of clays that had been deposited in some interdunal lakes.
Late Permian-Early Jurassic vertebrate tracks from patagonia: Biochronological inferences and relationships with southern african realms
2019, Journal of African Earth Sciences
Citation Excerpt :
Although the fact that the reliability of tetrapod footprints in stratigraphic and biochronological applications has been repeatedly questioned or diminished on different bases (Boy and Fichter, 1988; Lucas, 1998b, 2007), the use of vertebrate tracks in biochronology and biostratigraphy has been applied for decades and with different theoretical and methodological approaches (Ellenberger, 1983a, 1983b, 1984; Gand, 1987; Haubold, 1969, 1996, 2000; Lucas, 1998a, 1998b, 2004, 2005, 2006; Cassinis and Santi, 2005; Gand and Durand, 2006; Klein and Haubold, 2007; Avanzini and Mietto, 2008; Klein and Lucas, 2010). The utility of tetrapod tracks for biostratigraphic correlations and biochronological subdivisions was already pointed out by Haubold and Katzung (1978), who proposed the term “palichnostratigraphy”. At the same time, Conti et al. (1977) suggested the use of tetrapod ichnoassociations to establish ichnofaunal units with a clear biochronological meaning.
In recent years, new studies about vertebrate tracks found in the late Permian-Triassic Los Menucos Complex and Early Jurassic Marifil Volcanic Complex (Río Negro province, Patagonia, Argentina) have been published. In those studies, the chronostratigraphic information of each track-bearing unit has been discussed and the relationships between the record from Patagonia and southern Africa have been highlighted. With the aim of deepening both subjects, the biochronological and palaeobiogeographical information of the main ichnotaxa found in the lower Mesozoic units of Patagonia, Dicynodontipus, Pentasauropus and Anomoepus-like tracks, have been analysed. Moreover, the updated chronological data from the Vera Formation, Los Menucos Complex, in the Tscherig and Yancaqueo farm areas, and from the Marifil Volcanic Complex near Perdomo farm, have been studied. The entire biochronological, chronological and tectonic evidence suggests that within the Los Menucos Complex there are two sequences: a lower one, Wuchiapingian-Olenekian in age, near the Tscherig farm and bearing Dicynodontipus tracks, and an upper sequence of Anisian-Rhaetian (?Norian) age, in the Yancaqueo farm and bearing Pentasauropus tracks. This suggests that the rocks historically defined as Vera Formation have different ages in different areas and span a longer time interval than previously thought. In the case of the Anomoepus-like tracks found in the Marifil Volcanic Complex, the biochronological and geological data are consistent with an Early Jurassic age. According to ichnological information and geological background we propose a correlation between Patagonia and southern Africa constrained in three main phases: 1. Lopingian to Early Triassic, Vera Formation (Tscherig farm) and Balfour Formation, respectively; 2. Middle to Late Triassic, Vera Formation (Yancaqueo farm) and lower Elliot Formation, respectively; and 3. Early Jurassic, Marifil Volcanic Complex and upper Elliot Formation, respectively. In addition, this correlation is supported by a similarity in palaeoclimatic settings that allow inferring a homogeneous distribution of trackmakers in both realms of southern Gondwana. Finally, the palaeobiogeographic information of the studied ichnotaxa and their putative trackmakers is consistent and shows an extensive distribution, during a geotectonic moment with most of the continents assembled forming Pangaea.
Eolian Environments
2012, Developments in Sedimentology
Citation Excerpt :
Trace fossils in Mesozoic eolianites sometimes can benefit from analogs with modern arthropod tracks and burrows (Albers, 1975; Ekdale and Picard, 1985; Ekdale et al., 2007). However, this is not the case with many vertebrate trace fossils, such as footprints that were made by dinosaurs and other extinct tetrapods that have no close modern relatives (Gillette and Lockley, 1989; Haubold and Katzung, 1978; Lockley, 1991; Lockley and Hunt, 1995; Lockley and Meyer, 2000). Late Paleozoic (Carboniferous and Permian) eolianites likewise contain fossil invertebrate tracks that may be usefully interpreted by direct analogy with modern insect and arachnid traces (Braddy, 1995; Brady, 1939; McKee, 1944, 1947).
Eolianites (ancient dune deposits) are generally devoid of body fossils, but trace fossils may be abundant and diverse. The Entradichnus Ichnofacies represents the recurrent assemblages of burrows, trails, and trackways produced by both invertebrates and vertebrates that characterize coastal and inland dune paleoenvironments. The gently sloping, erosional, stoss side of a dune tends to exhibit more diverse, more delicate, and less deformed repichnial, pascichnial, and domichnial traces than does the more steeply dipping, depositional, slip-face side of a dune, where most of the traces are repichnia that exhibit deformation by sediment slippage and collapse. Trace-fossil associations and ichnofabrics in eolianites lend important information to paleoecologic and paleoclimatic studies because they provide evidence of the types of organisms inhabiting the dunes and the seasonal nature of their activity in monsoonal climates.
Ichnostratigraphy
2012, Developments in Sedimentology
Citation Excerpt :
In carbonates, by contrast, late diagenetic processes tend to reduce the diversity of ichnocoenoses and hamper preservation of fine morphological details required for detailed ichnostratigraphy (e.g., Narbonne, 1984). Tetrapod trackways have been extensively used for biostratigraphy in continental environments (e.g., Haubold and Katzung, 1978) (Fig. 1A–D). In a recent review, Lucas (2007) recognized several global time intervals based on the footprint record (Table 1).
Trace fossils can provide biostratigraphic data, particularly in siliciclastic strata where other fossil age control may be limited or lacking. In continental environments, tetrapod trackways have been used to delineate several global time intervals. The biostratigraphic application of marginal-marine trace fossils seems to be limited, although a few ichnotaxa (e.g., Heimdallia, Climactichnites) may be stratigraphically restricted. In shallow-marine deposits, trace fossils constrain the position of the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary (based on the appearance of Treptichnus pedum) and the dating of adjacent strata, and also provide relative ages for Cambrian to Devonian siliciclastic strata based on ichnospecies of Cruziana and Rusophycus (Cruziana stratigraphy) or such ornamented burrows as Arthrophycus. Ichnostratigraphy has not been explored in deep-marine strata to the same degree as in shallow-marine counterparts. The paucity of body fossils in many lower Paleozoic deep-marine successions hampers relative dating, and so trace-fossil data can be highly useful, as in the long-standing use of Oldhamia as a Cambrian index fossil. A few graphoglyptid ichnotaxa also have narrow stratigraphic ranges in younger deep-marine deposits.
Lower Permian Rgtliegend Desert Sedimentation in the North Sea Area
1983, Developments in Sedimentology
This chapter examines the lower Permian Rotliegend desert sedimentation in the North Sea area. Rotliegend deposition took place in the environment of a Northern Hemisphere Trade Wind desert during the later phases of the major Southern Hemisphere glaciation over Gondwana. Rotliegend deposition was brought to an abrupt end early in the Late Permian as a result of the rapid flooding of the continental basins by the marine waters of the Zechstein Sea. The Rotliegend is divided into two distinct rock-stratigraphic units—the Lower and Upper Rotliegend—on the presence or absence of volcanic rocks associated with the sedimentary sequence. It is found that although the Lower Rotliegend is generally overlain by the Upper, the latter may locally be coeval with the younger parts of the Lower Rotliegend in areas where there was no Early Permian volcanic activity. In the Rotliegend sandstones of many North Sea wells, the relatively narrow spread of bedding attitudes indicates that these sands were deposited largely on dunes of the transverse type.
The megatracksite phenomenon: implications for tetrapod palaeobiology across terrestrial-shallow-marine transitional zones
2023, Geological Society Special Publication

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Palaeoecology and palaeoenvironments of tetrapod footprints from the rotliegend (lower permian) of central Europe

Abstract

Erste Information über die Richtgrenze Ont./Ob. Autun (Unt. Perm, Unterrotliegend) im Niveau der Goldlauterer Schichten des Thüringer Waldes

Z. Geol. Wiss.

Die biostratigraphische Untergliederung des Autun im mittleren Thüringer Wald

Schriftenr. Geol. Wiss.

Zur Grenze Stefan/Autun (Karbon-Perm)

Z. Geol. Wiss.

Footprints from the Cutler formation

Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap

Footprints from the Abo formation of New Mexico

Bull. Geol. Soc. Am.

Zur Paläogeographie des kontinentalen Perms in Süddeutschland

Abh. Hess. Landesamt. Bodenforsch.

The palaeogeography of the continental Permian in Central-, West-, and in part of South Europe

Fossil footprints from the Grand Canyon

Smithson. Misc. Coll.

Fossil footprints from the Grand Canyon II

Smithson. Misc. Coll.

Fossil footprints from the Grand Cantyon III

Smithson. Misc. Coll.

Permian Rotliegendes of northwest Europe interpreted in light of modern desert sedimentation studies

Bull. Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol.

Ichnia Amphibiorum et Reptiliorum fossilium