Fountain Formation (Carboniferous to of the United States)

Where: Fremont County, Colorado (38.4° N, 105.2° W: paleocoordinates 1.2° S, 37.1° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

When: Fountain Formation, Morrowan to Morrowan (323.2 - 312.8 Ma)

Environment/lithology: fluvial; red, white, yellow siliciclastic sediments and bioturbated, paleosol/pedogenic, red mudstone

• Second locality described as a paleosol.

•Fountain Formation is generally regarded as a fluvial, orogenic basin

• At the first locality various types of plant impressions are present in the interbedded red sandstone and maroon to buff siltstone adjacent to the lower contact of the Fountain.

•Sandstones are described as arkosic.

•At the second locality...red mudstone that overlies the lowermost arkosic sandstone of the Fountain Formation. This mudstone is believed to represent a paleosol with stigmarian axes preserved in situ.

•Third locality (West of Garden Park) includes a basal fine-grained red sandstone

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: cast, mold/impression, permineralized, replaced with hematite

Reposited in the UMMP

Primary reference: J. R. Jennings. 1980. Fossil plants from the Fountain Formation (Pennsylvanian) of Colorado. Journal of Paleontology 54(1):149-158 [H. Sims/S. Ostrowski/M. Uhen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 11205: authorized by Hallie Sims, entered by Summer Ostrowski on 23.07.2001, edited by Alistair McGowan

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Stigmaria ficoides
  -
Stigmaria ficoides Sternberg 1822
 Coniferales -
Lepidostrobus sp. Brongniart 1828
 Lepidodendrales - Lepidodendraceae
Lepidophylloides sp. Snigirevskaya 1958
Lepidophloios laricinus Sternberg 1820
Sigillariaceae
  - Sigillariaceae
Polypodiopsida
 Equisetales - Equisetidae
Neuropteridae
  - Neuropteridae
Cyclopteris sp. Brongniart 1828
Neuropteris gigantea
  -
"Neuropteris cf. gigantea" = Paripteris gigantea
"Neuropteris cf. gigantea" = Paripteris gigantea Sternberg 1825
mesophyll visible on partly petrified specimens
 Radiatopses - Medullosaceae
Medullosaceae indet. Göppert 1864
seed fern pinnules