Eppleton Quarry (base of Marl Slate) (Permian of the United Kingdom)

Also known as Hetton-le-Hole

Where: England, United Kingdom (54.8° N, 1.5° W: paleocoordinates 17.4° N, 14.6° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Marl Slate Formation (Zechstein Group), Wuchiapingian (259.9 - 254.2 Ma)

• the Marl Slate is the "first member of the English Zechstein succession" (Pettigrew, 1979) and equivalent to the Kupferschiefer of Germany. Brauns et al. (2003) reported a date of 257.3 +/- 2.6 Ma (Wuchiapingian) for the Kupferschiefer based on a Re-Os geochronological study. The presence of the conodont Mesogondolella britannica in Kupferschiefer equivalents supports a middle Wuchiapingian age.

•According to the British Geological Survey Lexicon of Named Rock Units (http://www.bgs.ac.uk/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?pub=MLSL) the Marl Slate has formational status and is a subunit of the Zechstein Group.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; unlithified, brown, silty claystone

• "Smith (1970, and pers. commn to Pettigrew) estimates that the Marl Slate in northern England was laid down some distance from the ancient shoreline, under fairly deep water. Pettigrew (1980, and pers. commn) has suggested that the Marl Slate may have been deposited closer to shore, in a shallow lagoonal facies. As the Zechstein Sea flooded the Lower Permian desert, lagoons may have been created around the base of the prominent dunes with the development of fringing vegetation in which the reptiles lived" (Evans, 1982)
• " [...] the basal layer of the Marl Slate is a soft band of light brown silty clay. This layer has yielded the remains of terrestrial plants, fish and, in the bottom 1.5 cm, the Eppleton reptile [i. e. Weigeltisaurus]." (Evans, 1982)

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: adpression

Collected by D. Hall, T. H. Pettigrew in 1978

• TWCMS: Sunderland Museum, Tyne and Wear County

Primary reference: T. H. Pettigrew. 1979. A gliding reptile from the Upper Permian of North East England. Nature 281:297-298 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 77197: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 30.12.2007, edited by Torsten Liebrecht

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Eosuchia - Weigeltisauridae
Weigeltisaurus jaekeli
Weigeltisaurus jaekeli Weigelt 1930 diapsid