River Yarrow, Gastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band, shale Unit 3 (Carboniferous to of the United Kingdom)

Also known as River Yarrow, Gastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band, shale Unit 3, the acme shales

Where: England, United Kingdom (53.7° N, 2.7° W: paleocoordinates 1.2° S, 6.1° E)

• coordinate based on political unit

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Pendleian to Pendleian (330.9 - 318.7 Ma)

• The Gastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band generally does not exceed 60cm in thickness. The band is split into five units, the lower barren shales (Unit 1), the advance shales (Unit 2), the acme shales (Unit 3), the retreat shales (Unit 4), and the upper barren shales (Unit 5).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore; lithified, pyritic, black shale

• Unit 3: Not direct mention of river Yarrow, but all descriptions apply to this section. The continuing transition and deepening of the sea caused a rapid transition to conditions of black paper shale deposition. The development of the shale appears to be synchronous as it contains a consistant pelagic fauna and has a widespread spatial distripbution throughout the north of England. The shales display planar stratified bedding planes with a spacing of 0.5 to 0.75 mm. There is little evidence for wave or current activity or bioturbation. At all localities the presence of pyrite blebs around which stratification is deflected is believed to indicate primary pore filling as a shallow depth of burial in tyhe sulphate reduction zone. ... The fauna of the balck shale is dominated by the thickshelled goniatite phase at the four easterly localities, whereas a more diverse benthic assemblge occurs as the two westerly localities [includes River Yarrow], where the thin-shelled Anthracoceratites and Posidonia predomminate over Gastrioceras.

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: P. B. Wignall. 1987. A biofacies analysis of the Gastroceras cumbriense marine band (Namurian) of the central Pennines. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 46(2):111-121 [J. Alroy/C. Simpson/C. Simpson]more details

Purpose of describing collection: paleoecologic analysis

PaleoDB collection 41198: authorized by John Alroy, entered by Carl Simpson on 08.07.2004

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Gnathostomata
  -
Osteichthyes indet.
Osteichthyes indet. bony fish
Palaeoniscid scales
Osteichthyes
 Elonichthyiformes - Acrolepididae
Acrolepis sp.
Acrolepis sp. Agassiz 1833 ray-finned fish
scales
Cephalopoda
 Goniatitida - Gastrioceratidae
Gastrioceras cumbriense, Gastrioceras crenulatum, Gastrioceras aff. coronatum, Gastrioceras spp.
Gastrioceras spp. Hyatt 1884 ammonite
juvenile
 Goniatitida - Dimorphoceratidae
Anthracoceratites sp.
Anthracoceratites sp. Ramsbottom 1970 ammonite
 Nautiloidea -
Nautiloidea indet.
Nautiloidea indet. Agassiz 1847 nautiloid
Wide angle orthocone
Gastropoda
 Bellerophontida -
Bellerophontida indet.
Bellerophontida indet. Ulrich and Scofield 1897 snail
 Murchisoniina - Gosseletinidae
Angyomphalus sp.
Angyomphalus sp. Cossmann 1915 snail
Bivalvia
  -
Bivalvia indet.
Bivalvia indet. Linnaeus 1758 clam
Small
 Pectinida - Pterinopectinidae
Dunbarella elegans
 Ostreida - Posidoniidae
Posidonia sp.
Posidonia sp. Bronn 1828 oyster
 Ostreida - Pterineidae
Caneyella multirugata
Polypodiopsida
 Equisetales - Equisetidae
cf. Calamites sp.
cf. Calamites sp. Suckow 1784