Chondrichthyan fauna of the Frasnian-Famennian boundary beds in Poland
Michał Ginter
New chondrichthyan microremains from several Frasnian-Famennian sections in the Holy Cross Mountains and Dębnik area (Southern Poland) are investigated and compared to previous data. The reaction of different groups of chondrichthyans to environmental changes during the Kellwasser Event is analysed. Following the extinction of phoebodont sharks of Phoebodus bifurcatus group before the end of the Frasnian, only two chondrichthyan species, viz. Protacrodus vetustus Jaekel, 1921 and Stethacanthus resistens sp. nov. (possibly closely related to "Cladodus" wildungensis Jaekel, 1921), occur in the upper part of Frasnian Palmatolepis linguiformis conodont Zone and persist into the Famennian. Global cooling is considered a possible cause of the extinction of Frasnian subtropical phoebodonts on Laurussian margins.
Key words: Chondrichthyes, Kellwasser Event, Devonian, Poland.
Michał Ginter [fiszbit@geo.uw.edu.pl], Instytut Geologii Podstawowej, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Żwirki i Wigury 93, PL−02−089 Warszawa, Poland.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Full text (351.6 kB)