Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-24T23:29:34.272Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Silurian of Gotland, Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

Hans Hess
Affiliation:
Basel Natural History Museum, Switzerland
William I. Ausich
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Carlton E. Brett
Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati
Michael J. Simms
Affiliation:
Ulster Museum, Belfast
Hans Hess
Affiliation:
Basel Natural History Museum
Get access

Summary

STROMATOPOROID AND CORAL REEFS IN THE BALTIC SEA

The Swedish Island of Gotland is well known to vacationers, many of whom are also fossil collectors. They cannot miss the numerous fragments of crinoid stems spread over much of this picturesque island. The Silurian beds of Gotland, a succession of 13 stratigraphic units, range in age from Late Llandovery to Late Ludlow (around 420 million years before present) and reach a thickness of about 500 m (Fig. 96). The oldest rocks, the Lower Visby beds, are along the northwestern coast. They are composed of soft, bluish grey mudstones and contain nodules, lenses and layers of marly limestones. To the south and southeast, successively younger strata, including three elongated reef belts separated by flat mudstone areas, were laid down in a shallowing sea. The limestone reefs, predominantly composed of stromatoporoids, are surrounded by bedded, bioclastic sediments consisting largely of crinoid remains. Reefs started to grow as bioherms during the Early Wenlockian, the time of deposition of the Högklint beds. Shallowing seas and a reduced supply of terrigenous material favoured the growth of extensive reefs, which are exposed in cliffs on the northwestern coast of the island. The lower part of a typical Högklint reef was initiated by tabulate corals growing as a patch reef in deeper water on cross-bedded lenses of crinoid remains. Further reef growth was dominated by laminar stromatoporoids and topped by dome-shaped stromatoporoids, leading to a pronounced vertical profile of the structure (Kershaw 1993). These bioherms are comparable to modern reefs, their build-up being the result of the interplay between sedimentation and the growth of organisms. Reef growth continued into later Wenlock and Ludlow times.

Type
Chapter
Information
Fossil Crinoids , pp. 81 - 86
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×