CONODONT-RICH BED IN THE WINDOM SHALE, MOSCOW FORMATION (GIVETIAN, MIDDLE DEVONIAN) FALL BROOK GLEN, WESTERN NEW YORK

The conodont-rich layer described by Scatterday et al. in 1986 from an outcrop of Windom Shale, Moscow Formation, at Fall Brook in Geneseo, NY has never been described in detail. This bed contains numerous conodonts, sharks teeth, and pyrite replaced shelly fauna, as well as thick nodular pyrite. It is 0.82 meters above the Smoke Creek Bed overlying shell-rich beds from which no conodonts were recovered, and is overlain by dark gray poorly fossiliferous mudstones. Platform elements dominate the fauna which consists of Polygnathus ansatus, Polygnathus linguiformis linguiformis epsilon morphotype, and Icriodus latericrescens latericrescens indicative of the Middle varcus-Zone. The bed represents a starvation surface of a minor flooding cycle within a third order-cycle prior to the major Taghanic Event transgression.