Briar Creek (Permian of the United States)

Also known as (Admiral Formation) Locality 13 (Romer 1928), Locality IVd (Romer & Price 1940), faunal Zone 1, Wichita Group, Texas red-beds, redbeds; Brier Creek

Where: Archer County, Texas (33.6° N, 98.9° W: paleocoordinates 0.1° N, 29.5° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Admiral Formation (Wichita Group), Artinskian (290.1 - 279.3 Ma)

• "about 190 feet above the Coleman Junction." Details for Faunal Zone 1 of Romer 1928: "These beds [estimated thickness of 350 feet] occupy the middle portion of the Wichita as Cummins conceived of it; but they are now seen to occupy the lower part of this group. This zone is approximately equivalent to the Admiral Formation of Plummer and Moore (1921), although no definite correlation can be made at present." Lower Permian stratigraphy for Texas was modified by Hentz (1988).

•the Admiral Formation and middle Wichita Group are both Artinskian according to Wardlaw 2005, Permophiles (JA)

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; red claystone and red sandstone

• terrestrial and near-shore deposition
• red-beds, "a series of typical red beds, consisting of clays, sandstone and shales, mostly red in color, and devoid of limestones."

Size class: macrofossils

Collection methods: Romer (1928) paper is a review of vertebrates from the Texas red-beds with previously unreported (or undetailed) localities.

Primary reference: A. S. Romer. 1928. Vertebrate faunal horizons in the Texas Permo-Carboniferous red beds. University of Texas Bulletin 2801:67-108 [J. Alroy/R. Whatley/W. Clyde]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 13080: authorized by John Alroy, entered by Robin Whatley on 18.01.2002, edited by Torsten Liebrecht, Emma Dunne and Richard Butler

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Amphibia
 Temnospondyli - Eryopidae
Eryops sp. Cope 1877 tetrapod
 Temnospondyli - Dissorophidae
Aspidosaurus sp. Broili 1904 tetrapod
 Temnospondyli - Trimerorhachidae
Trimerorhachis sp. Cope 1878 tetrapod
entered as "Trimerorachis"
 Temnospondyli - Zatracheidae
Zatrachys serratus Cope 1878 tetrapod
this specimen apparently assigned "neotype" as the type (Loc. 9) is lost (Romer 1928).
 Nectridea - Diplocaulidae
Diplocaulus sp. Cope 1877 tetrapod
Osteichthyes
 Cotylosauria -
"Archeria robinsoni n. gen. n. sp." = Archeria crassidisca
"Archeria robinsoni n. gen. n. sp." = Archeria crassidisca Cope 1884 tetrapod
Authority is not Romer 1928.
 Cotylosauria - Diadectidae
Diadectes sp. Cope 1878 tetrapod
 Synapsida - Ophiacodontidae
"Theropleura sp." = Ophiacodon, Ophiacodon uniformis3
"Theropleura sp." = Ophiacodon Marsh 1878 ophiacodont
Ophiacodon uniformis3 Cope 1878 ophiacodont
UMMP 3352, 3360, 3361, 3366, 3423, 3428; FMNH (WM) 130, 143, 249, 547, 548, 840; MCZ 1291, 1292; specimens are deducted from the original 25 specimens of Theropleura sp.
 Synapsida - Edaphosauridae
Edaphosaurus sp. Cope 1882 synapsid
 Synapsida - Sphenacodontidae
Dimetrodon booneorum2 Romer 1937 synapsid
Fragmentary specimens
Reptilia
 Bolosauria - Bolosauridae
Bolosaurus striatus1 Cope 1878 parareptile
Osteichthyes
 Embolomera - Archeriidae
Cricotus sp. Cope 1875 tetrapod