Crinoid columns as hard substrates: Salthill Quarry (Mississippian,lower Carboniferous), Clitheroe,Lancashire, UK

Salthill Quarry, Clitheroe, Lancashire (Mississippian, Visean) is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), in part based on its diverse fauna of invertebrates, particularly echinoderms. A small collection of crinoid pluricolumnals are described herein, collected from muddy horizons in the Hodder Mudstone Formation to typify the diversity and frequency of their encrusting and boring fauna. These specimens are infested by a range of episkeletozoans, namely a single occurrence of Sutherlandia parasitica (Phillips), four occurrences of Cladochonus sp. and eight of Oichnus paraboloides Bromley. Two variants of the pit (boring or embedment or both) O. paraboloides are recognised: those in which a living crinoid showed a growth reaction to pit formation; and those that did not and which were presumably dead at the time of infestation. The epizoozoan tabulate coral Cladochonus sp. is also common, including specimens intergrown between and within the columnals. Sutherlandia parasitica is relatively uncommon; the only specimen likely infested a dead pluricolumnal on the sea floor. A comparative collection of pluricolumnals infested by Cladochonus beecheri Grabau from the Mississippian Borden Group of the Midwest, USA, showed superior preservation to the Clitheroe Cladochonus sp. Cladochonus beecheri in the Borden Group infested platycrinitid crinoid stems, an association not noted from Salthill Quarry. Similar suites of borings-episkeletozoans, from two other sites – the Visean of Feltrim, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and the Permian of Timor – suggest that these were persistent associations for much of the Late Palaeozoic.