The Millstone Grit Series (Carboniferous of Canada)

Where: Nova Scotia, Canada (45.0° N, 64.0° W: paleocoordinates 16.4° S, 14.1° W)

• coordinate based on political unit

When: Mississippian (358.9 - 323.2 Ma)

Environment/lithology: sandstone

• The Millstone Grit Series, consisting of sandstones and shales, often red, and conglomerate, associated with dark coloured beds holding fossil plants and Naiadites, and with a few underclays and thin seams of coal.

Collection methods: Mr. R. Brown first used the name Millstone Grit in 1844. In 1843, this group was distinctly indicated in Sir W.E. Logan's section of the South Joggins and in Dawson's paper on the Lower Carboniferous Rocks of Eastern Nova Scotia. Dawson provides the following locations as equivalents of the Millstone Grit Series: the Seral Conglomerate of Rogers in Pennsylvania, the Lower Coal Formation Conglomerate and Chester Groups of Illinois, the Lower Carboniferous Sandstone of Kentucky, Alabama, and Virginia, the Millstone Grit and Yoredale Rocks of Northern England, the Culmiferous of Devonshire, the Moor Rock and Lower Coal Measures of Scotland, the Flagstones and Lower Shales of the South of Ireland and Millstone Grit of the North of Ireland, and the Jungste Graywacke of the Hartz, Saxony, and Silesia.

Primary reference: J. W. Dawson. 1873. Report on the Fossil Plants of the Lower Carboniferous and Millstone Grit Formations of Canada. Geological Survey of Canada [R. Gastaldo/J. Allen/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taphonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 13094: authorized by Robert Gastaldo, entered by Jonathan Allen on 21.01.2002

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Sphenopteridae
  - Sphenopteridae
Pteridopsida
 Filicales -
Pteropsida
 Filicinae -
Pecopteris abbreviata, "Alethopteris lonchitica" = Pecopteris (Alethopteris)
"Alethopteris lonchitica" = Pecopteris (Alethopteris)
Polypodiopsida
 Equisetales - Equisetidae
Pinopsida
 Cordaitanthales -
Cordaites borassifolia Sternberg 1822
 Lepidodendrales - Lepidodendraceae
Peltaspermopsida
 Peltaspermales - Peltaspermaceae
Equisetopsida
 Pinidae - Pinidae
Calamites cannaeformis
  -
Calamites cannaeformis Schlotheim 1820