Vegetational recovery on an early carboniferous coastal plain following the end devonian mass extinction event

Reeves, Emma J (2015) Vegetational recovery on an early carboniferous coastal plain following the end devonian mass extinction event. In IGCP 596 - SDS SYMPOSIUM: Climate change and Biodiversity patterns in the Mid-Palaeozoic. p. 123 .

Abstract

Following the End Devonian Mass Extinction Event, tetrapods disappeared from the fossil record for a significant time interval (Romer’s Gap). However, many new specimens have been discovered within intact ecosystems from a number of Tournaisian localities in the Scottish Borders, UK. These tetrapods, and associated environments, are now being investigated by the NERC funded TW:eed project.
The Scottish tetrapod sites are from a number of scattered localities in the poorly exposed Ballagan Formation. In an attempt to tie these localities together stratigraphically, the Ballagan Formation has been entirely cored to a depth of 501.33 m in the West Mains Farm borehole at Norham, which is just inside the England border. This is a preliminary account of the mio- and megaspores from the borehole. Although palynomorphs are well-known from a number of localities in the region, this is the first time they can be studied stratigraphically within a continuous section.
After standard palynological processing, abundant miospore assemblages were identified which, as expected, belong to the CM biozone. Samples have been studied at 10 m intervals, and their distribution through the Ballagan Formation is not stable but indicates fluctuations in the diversity of the vegetation. The distribution of megaspores, hand-picked from the >150 μm fraction, shows that they occur in discrete zones. This highlights an episodic return to a lycopod forested landscape. Rare scolecodonts indicate marine flooding events and possibly reworked Devonian miospores suggest erosive periods of basin uplift.

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