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GSA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA - 2018

Paper No. 88-6
Presentation Time: 9:30 AM

EXCEPTIONALLY PRESERVED ECHINODERMS FROM THE SILURIAN HEREFORDSHIRE LAGERSTÄTTE, UK


RAHMAN, Imran A.1, BRIGGS, Derek E.G.2, SIVETER, David J.3, SIVETER, Derek J.1, SUTTON, Mark D.4 and THOMPSON, Jeffrey R.5, (1)Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PW, United Kingdom, (2)Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, 210 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06511, (3)School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, United Kingdom, (4)Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom, (5)Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740

The Herefordshire Konservat-Lagerstätte from the Welsh Borderland, UK, offers a unique window on life during the Silurian, around 430 million years ago. This deposit preserves a range of remarkable fossil invertebrates, complete with soft tissues, in three dimensions. Several echinoderms are known from this locality, including an asterozoan, a new genus of rhenopyrgid edrioasteroid, and a new species of ophiocistioid. Selected specimens were studied using serial grinding and computer reconstruction, allowing us to characterize their anatomy in unprecedented detail. Individuals of all three taxa preserve soft tissues interpreted as elements of the water vascular system, a defining feature of echinoderms that is rarely evident in fossil forms. These exceptional specimens shed new light on the structure and function of this key organ system in extinct echinoderm groups, with important implications for their evolution and ecology.

Session No. 88

T134. Echinoderm Paleobiology I: In Honor of the Career of James Sprinkle
Monday, 5 November 2018: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Room 142 (Indiana Convention Center)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 50, No. 6
doi: 10.1130/abs/2018AM-320294
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