Pteraspidomorphs (Vertebrata), the Old Red Sandstone,and the special case of the Brecon Beacons National Park,Wales, U.K. |
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| Institution: | 1. UMR 8198 Evo-Eco-Paléo du CNRS, Université de Lille – Sciences et Technologies, Sciences de la Terre (SN5), F-59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq cedex, France;2. Northern Arizona University, Geology Program, SESES, P.O. Box 4099, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-4099, USA;1. Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK;2. Department of Geology, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Darwinweg 2, 2333 CR Leiden, The Netherlands;1. Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;2. CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing, China;3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;4. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TH, UK;1. State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China;2. Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, SO14 3ZH Southampton, UK;3. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Alfred Denny Building, Western Bank, S10 2TN Sheffield, UK;4. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, CF10 3YE Cardiff, UK;5. Saudi Aramco, Geological Technical Services Division, Biostratigraphy Group, 31311 Dhahran, Saudi Arabia |
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| Abstract: | Pteraspidomorphi are Ordovician to Devonian, jawless vertebrates devoid of paired fins that have developed a variety of phenotypes of mostly demersal aquatic animals of the neritic province. Some, however, were active swimmers in the water column or near to the surface. They show many convergences in adaptive variations with the other ossified agnathan vertebrates or ostracoderms, that is the osteostracans, galeaspids and pituriaspids. They are traditionally known as Old Red Sandstone (ORS) fish, and have been interpreted as fresh-water inhabitants. However, recent palaeoecological and sedimentological analyses have shown that they were near-shore, shallow-marine fishes in the Ordovician, that they occupied marine environments on the Silurian Baltic platform and a wide variety of environments in the Devonian, including those of the ORS (lagoonal, estuarine, deltaic, and open platform). Their peak of diversity was reached in the Early Devonian, and they all disappeared before the Frasnian-Famennian boundary biotic crisis. Within Earth sciences, they are used in biostratigraphy, palaeoecology, and palaeobiogeography. They are good tools for dating siliciclastic sedimentary series of the Silurian and Devonian, including the ORS, and they are good markers of the margins of Ordovician to Devonian palaeocontinents (Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia, Gondwana). |
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| Keywords: | Pteraspidomorphs Heterostraci Old Red Sandstone Devonian Brecon Beacons National Park |
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