Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T10:32:08.320Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Microfossils and small shelly fossils from the Lower Cambrian Hyolithes Limestone at Nuneaton, English Midlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

M. D. Brasier
M. D. Brasier
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Lower Cambrian sequence at Nuneaton is outlined, paying particular attention to the 2 m thick Home Farm Member (including the Hyolithes Limestone) and its faunal succession at the type locality, Woodlands Quarry, Hartshill. There follows the first modern description and illustration of microfossils and small shelly fossils from this member. Of thirty-two species covered here, twenty are described and illustrated from Nuneaton for the first time and eight of these are new records. The varied fauna includes phosphatic and calcareous microproblematica (especially Coleoloides typicalis), protoconodonts, agglutinated foraminifera, cap-shaped molluscs, primitive bivalves, hyoliths, inarticulate brachiopods and sponges. The fauna has affinity with fossils in the top Tommotian to lower Atdabanian rocks from Siberia and China, from the Baltic area and the belt from southeast Newfoundland to Massachusetts.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 121 , Issue 3 , May 1984 , pp. 229 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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.)

References

Arén, B. & Lendzion, K. 1978. Charakterystyka stratygraficzno-litologiczna wendu i Kambru dolnego. Prace Instytutu Geologicznego 90, 7–49.Google Scholar
Åhman, E. & Martinsson, A. 1965. Fossiliferous Lower Cambrian at Aspelund on the Skäggenäs Peninsula. Geologiska Föreningens i Stockholm Fördhandlingar 87, 139–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrande, J. 1881. Sŷsteme Silurien du centre de Bohême, Vol. 6. Acephalés. Paris: Bellman.Google Scholar
Beecher, C. E. 1891. Development of the Brachiopoda. Part I. Introduction. American Journal of Science 41, 343–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtson, S. 1968. The problematic genus Mobergella from the Lower Cambrian of the Baltic area. Lethaia 1, 325–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtson, S. 1970. The Lower Cambrian fossil Tommotia. Lethaia 3, 363–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtson, S. 1976. The structure of some Middle Cambrian conodonts and the early evolution of conodont structure and function. Lethaia 9, 185–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtson, S. 1977. Aspects of problematic fossils in the early Palaeozoic. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 415, 70 pp.Google Scholar
Bengtson, S. & Fletcher, T. P. 1981. The succession of skeletal fossils in the basal Lower Cambrian of southeastern Newfoundland. Open File Report of the U.S. Geological Survey 81–743, 18.Google Scholar
Bengtson, S. & Fletcher, T. P.. 1983. The oldest sequence of skeletal fossils in the Lower Cambrian of southeastern Newfoundland. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 20, 525–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtson, S. & Missarzhevsky, V. V. 1981. Coeloscleritophora – a major group of enigmatic Cambrian metazoans. Open File Report of the U.S. Geological Survey 81–743, 19.Google Scholar
Bergström, J. 1981. Lower Cambrian shelly faunas and biostratigraphy in Scandinavia. Open File Report of the U.S. Geological Survey 81–743, 22–5.Google Scholar
Bergström, J. & Ahlberg, P. 1981. Uppermost Lower Cambrian biostratigraphy in Scania, Sweden. Geologiska Föreningens i Stockholm Fördhandlingar 103, 193–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billings, E. 1864. Palaeozoic Fossils, volume 1. I. On some new or little-known species of Lower Silurian Fossils from the Potsdam Group (Primordial Zone), pp. 1–18. Montreal; Geological Survey of Canada (date on title page, 1861).Google Scholar
Billings, E. 1872 a. On some new species of Paleozoic fossils. Canadian Naturalist, Ottawa (New Series) 6, 213–22, 240.Google Scholar
Billings, E. 1872 b. On some fossils from the primordial rocks of Newfoundland. Canadian Naturalist, Montreal (New Series) 6, 465–79.Google Scholar
Boulton, W. S. 1924. On a recently-discovered breccia-bed underlying Nechells (Birmingham), and its relation to the red rocks of the district. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 80, 343–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, H. B. 1878. On the reticularian and radiolarian Rhizopoda (Foraminifera and Polycystina) of the North Polar Expedition of 1875–76. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 5, 1, 425–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brasier, M. D. 1979. The Cambrian radiation event. In The Origin of Major Invertebrate Groups (ed. House, M. R.), pp. 103–59. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brasier, M. D. 1980. The Lower Cambrian transgression and glauconite-phosphate facies in western Europe. Journal of the Geological Society of London 137, 695–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brasier, M. D. 1982. Architecture and evolution of the foraminiferid test – a theoretical approach. In Aspects of Micropalaeontology (eds Banner, F. T. & Lord, A. R.), pp. 1–41. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Brasier, M. D. & Hewitt, R. A. 1979. Environmental setting of fossiliferous rocks from the uppermost Proterozoic–Lower Cambrian of central England. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 27, 35–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brasier, M. D. & Hewitt, R. A. 1981. Faunal sequence within the Lower Cambrian “Non-Trilobite Zone” (S.L.) of central England and correlated regions. Open File Report of the U.S. Geological Survey 81–743, 26–8.Google Scholar
Brasier, M. D., Hewitt, R. A. & Brasier, C. J. 1978. On the late Precambrian–Early Cambrian Hartshill Formation of Warwickshire. Geological Magazine 115, 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobbold, E. S. 1919. Cambrian Hyolithidae, etc., from Hartshill in the Nuneaton District, Warwickshire. Geological Magazine 56, 149–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobbold, E. S. 1921. The Cambrian horizons of Comley (Shropshire) and their Brachiopoda, Pteropoda, Gasteropoda, etc. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 76, 325–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobbold, E. S. & Pocock, R. W. 1934. The Cambrian area of Rushton (Shropshire). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 223, 305–409.Google Scholar
Cocks, L. R. M. 1978. A review of British Lower Palaeozoic brachiopods, including a synoptic revision of Davidson's Monograph. Palaeontographical Society (Monograph), 256 pp.Google Scholar
Conkin, J. E. & Conkin, B. M. 1982. North American Paleozoic Agglutinate Foraminifera. In Foraminifera, notes for a short course (ed. Broadhead, T. W.), pp. 177–91. University of Tennessee Studies in Geology 6.Google Scholar
Cowie, J. W. 1974. The Cambrian of Spitsbergen and Scotland. In Cambrian of the British Isles, Norden and Spitsbergen (ed. Holland, C. H.), pp. 123–56. London: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cowie, J. W. Rushton, A. W. A. & Stubblefield, C. J. 1972. A correlation of Cambrian rocks in the British Isles. Special Report of the Geological Society of London 2, 42 pp.Google Scholar
Cushman, J. A. & Waters, J. A. 1928. Some Foraminifera from the Pennsylvanian and Permian of Texas. Contributions to the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research 4, 31–55.Google Scholar
Davidson, T. 1853. A monograph of the British fossil Brachiopoda. Volume 1. General Introduction. Paleontographical Society (Monograph) 1–136.Google Scholar
Føyn, S. & Glaessner, M. F. 1979. Platysolenites, other animal fossils and the Precambrian–Cambrian transition in Norway. Norsk Geologisk Tidsskrift 59, 25–46.Google Scholar
Glaessner, M. F. 1978. The oldest foraminifera. Bulletin of the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics, Australia 192 61–5.Google Scholar
Grabau, A. W. 1900. Palaeontology of the Cambrian terranes of the Boston Basin. Occasional Papers of the Boston Natural History Society 4, 601–94.Google Scholar
Greig, D. C., Wright, J. E., Hains, B. A. & Mitchell, G. H. 1968. Geology of the country around Church Stretton, Craven Arms, Wenlock Edge and Brown Clee. Memoir of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, 379 pp.Google Scholar
Groom, T. 1902. The sequence of the Cambrian and associated beds in the Malvern Hills. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 58, 89–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinz, I. 1983. Zur unterkambrischen Mikrofauna von Comley und Umgebung in Shropshire. Unpublished Diploma thesis, Bonn University, pp. 1–55.Google Scholar
Holl, H. B. 1865. On the geological structure of the Malvern Hills and adjacent districts. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 21, 72–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holm, G. 1893. Sveriges Kambrisk–Siluriska Hyolithidae och Conulariidae. Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning (Afhandlingar), Series C 112, 172 pp.Google Scholar
Zhiwen, Jiang 1982. Small shelly fossils. In The Sinian-Cambrian Boundary of China (Luo Huilin and others). People's Publishing House, Beijing, China. 265 pp.Google Scholar
Kiaer, J. 1916. The Lower Cambrian Holmia fauna at Tømten in Norway. Skrifter utgilt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademie Oslo, I Mat.-naturv. Klasse 1–140.Google Scholar
Landing, E. & Brett, C. E. 1982. Lower Cambrian of eastern Massachusetts: microfaunal sequence and the oldest known borings. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs 14, 35.Google Scholar
Landing, E., Nowlan, G. S. & Fletcher, T. P. 1980. A microfauna associated with Early Cambrian trilobites of the Callavia Zone, northern Antigonish Highlands, Nova Scotia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 17, 400–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lapworth, C. 1898. Sketch of the Geology of the Birmingham District. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 15, 313–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lendzion, K. 1972. Kambr subholmiowy w pótnocnowschodniej Polsce. Kwartainik Geologiczny 16, 557–68.Google Scholar
Linnarsson, J. G. O. 1871. Geognostika och palaeontologiska iakttagelser öfver Eophytonsandstenen i Vestergötland. Handlingar kongliga Svenska Vetenskaps Akademiens 9, 19 pp.Google Scholar
Lochman, C. 1956. Stratigraphy, paleontology and paleogeography of the Elliptocephala asaphoides strata in Cambridge ahd Hoosick Quadrangles, New York. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 67, 1331–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luo, Huilin, Jiang, Zhiwen, Wu, Xiche, Song, Xueliang & Ouyang, Lin. 1982. The Sinian–Cambrian Boundary in Eastern China. People's Publishing House, Beijing, China, 265 pp.Google Scholar
Matthew, G. F. 1899 a. Preliminary notice of the Etcheminian fauna of Newfoundland. Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick 4, 189–97.Google Scholar
Matthew, G. F. 1899 b. The Etchiminian fauna of Smith Sound, Newfoundland. Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada 5, 97–119.Google Scholar
Matthews, S. C. & Cowie, J. W. 1979. Early Cambrian transgression. Journal of the Geological Society of London 5, 97–119.Google Scholar
Matthews, S. C. & Missarzhevsky, V. V. 1975. Small shelly fossils of late Precambrian and early Cambrian age: a review of recent work. Journal of the Geological Society of London 131, 289–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meek, F. B. 1873. Preliminary palaeontological report. 6th Annual Report of the U.S. Geological Survey of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, 429–518.Google Scholar
Meshkova, N. P. 1969. (To the question of the palaeontological characteristics of the Lower Cambrian sediments of the Siberian Platform.) In Biostratigraphy and Paleontology of the Lower Cambrian of Siberia and the Far East (ed. Zhravleva, I. T.), pp. 158–74. Nauka, Moscow (in Russian).Google Scholar
Missarzhevsky, V. V. 1966. In Rozanov, A. Yu. & Missarzhevsky, V. V. 1966. (Biostratigraphy and faunas of the lower horizons of the Cambrian), pp. 5–119. Trudy Geologicheskogo Instituta Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moscow 148 (in Russian).Google Scholar
Missarzhevsky, V. V. 1969. (Description of hyolithids, gastropods, hyolithelminths, camenides and forms of an obscure taxonomic position.) In The Tommotian Stage and the Cambrian Lower Boundary Problem (A. Yu. Rozanov and others). Trudy Geologecheskii Institut, Nauka, Moscow 206 (in Russian; English translation, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1981).Google Scholar
Missarzhevsky, V. V. in prep. Subdivision and correlation of the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary beds using some groups of the oldest skeletal organisms.Google Scholar
Missarzhevsky, V. V. & Mambetov, A. J. 1981. (Stratigraphy and fauna of Cambrian and Precambrian boundary beds of Maly Karatau.) Trudy Akademii Nauka SSSR, Moscow 326 (in Russian).Google Scholar
Müller, K. J. 1959. Kambrische Conodonten. Zeitschrift der Deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft 111, 434–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, K. J. 1971. Cambrian conodont faunas. In Symposium on Conodont Biostratigraphy (eds Sweet, W. C. &Bergström, S. M.). Memoir of the Geological Society of America 127, 5–20.Google Scholar
Poulsen, C. 1967. Fossils from the Lower Cambrian of Bornholm. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Matematisk-fysiske Meddelelser 36 (2), 48 pp.Google Scholar
Pojeta, J., Runnegar, B. & Kriz, J. 1973. Fordilla troyensis Barrande: the oldest known Pelecypod. Science 180, 866–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reid, R. E. H. 1959. Occurrence of Chancelloria Walcott in the Comley Limestone. Geological Magazine 96, 261–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowell, A. J. 1977. Early Cambrian brachiopods from the southwestern Great Basin of California and Nevada. Journal of Paleontology 51, 68–85.Google Scholar
Rozanov, A. Yu., Missarzhevsky, V. V., Voronova, L. G., Volkova, N. A., Krylov, J. N., Keller, B. M., Lendzion, K., Michyak, R., Korylyuk, J. K., Pychova, N. G. & Sidorov, A. D. 1969. (The Tommotian Stage and the Cambrian Lower Boundary Problem.) Trudy Geologicheskii Institut, Nauka, Moscow, 206 (in Russian; English translation, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1981).Google Scholar
Runnegar, B. & Jell, P. A. 1976. Australian Middle Cambrian molluscs and their bearing on early molluscan evolution. Alcheringa 1, 109–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rushton, A. W. A. 1974. The Cambrian of Wales and England. In Cambrian of the British Isles, Norden and Spitsbergen (ed. Holland, C. H.), pp. 43–121. London: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rushton, A. W. A. 1978. Appendix 3. Description of the macrofossils from the Dolwen Formation. Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Great Britain 61, 46–8.Google Scholar
Shaler, N. S. & Foerste, A. F. 1888. Preliminary description of North Attleboro fossils. In On the Geology of the Cambrian district of Bristol County, Massachusetts (ed. Shaler, N. S.), pp. 27–41. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard 16.Google Scholar
Shergold, J. H. & Brasier, M. D. (in press). Biochronology of Proterozoic and Cambrian Phosphorites. In Proterozoic and Cambrian Phosphorites (eds. Cook, P. J. & Shergold, J. H.). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sokolov, B. S. 1965. (Basal deposits of the Early Cambrian and Sabelliditids.) In Proceedings of the All-State Symposium on the Precambrian and Early Cambrian, 1965 (ed. Sokolov, B. S.), pp. 78–91. Akademii Nauk SSSR, Novosibirsk (in Russian).Google Scholar
Syssoiev, V. A. 1962. (Hyolithids from the Cambrian of the north slope of the Aldan Shield.) Izd-vo Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moscow (in Russian).Google Scholar
Syssoiev, V. A. 1968. (Stratigraphy and Hyoliths of basal beds of the Lower Cambrian of the Siberian Platform.) Akademii Nauk SSSR, Yakutsk (in Russian).Google Scholar
Vidal, G. 1981. Lower Cambrian acritarch stratigraphy in Scandinavia. Geologiska Föreningens i Stockholm Fördhandlingar 103, 183–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Eichwald, E. 1829. Zoologia specialis, quam expositis animalibus tum vivis, tum fossilibus potissium Rossiae in universum et Poloniae in specie, etc. 1, 1–314, Vilnae.Google Scholar
Walcott, C. D. 1889. Descriptive notes on new genera and species from the Lower Cambrian or Olenellus Zone of North America. Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum 12, 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walcott, C. D. 1890. The fauna of the Lower Cambrian or Olenellus Zone. 10th Report of the U.S. Geological Survey, 515–774.Google Scholar
Walcott, C. D. 1900. Lower Cambrian terrane in the Atlantic Province. Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences 1, 301–39.Google Scholar
Walcott, C. D. 1920. Cambrian geology and paleontology IV, No. 6. Middle Cambrian Spongiae. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 67, 261–364.Google Scholar
Walliser, O. H. 1958. Rhombocorniculum comleyense n.gen., n.sp. (Incertae sedis, Unterkambrium, Shropshire). Paläontologische Zeitschrift 32, 176–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yanishevsky, M. E. 1926. (On fragments of worm tubes from the Cambrian Blue Clay.) Ejegodnii Ruskii Palaeontologi, Moscow 4 (in Russian).Google Scholar
Zhuravleva, I. T. 1975. (Description of the palaeontological characteristics of the Nemakit-Daldyn Horizon and its possible equivalents in the territory of the Siberian Platform.) In Equivalents of the Vendian Complex in Siberia (eds Sokolov, B. S. & Khomentovsky, V. V.), pp. 62–100. Trudy Instituta Geologii i Geofisiki, Akademii Nauk, SSSR, Moscow 232 (in Russian).Google Scholar