Trilobite and acritarch assemblages from the Lower-Middle Cambrian boundary interval in the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland)
ZYLINSKA A.1, SZCZEPANIK Z.2
1Faculty of Geology, University of Warsaw, ul. Zwirki i Wigury 93, PL-02-089 Warsaw, Poland.
anna.zylinska@uw.edu.pl
2Holy Cross Branch of the Polish Geological Institute, ul. Zgoda 21, PL-25-953 Kielce, Poland.
zbigniew.szczepanik@pgi.gov.pl
ABSTRACT: Integrated analysis of trilobite and acritarch assemblages across the traditional Lower-Middle Cambrian boundary
in the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland) has documented the development of both groups in this interval.
Trilobite assemblages, comprising 31 taxa (13 are revised herein) dominated by the Ellipsocephalidae, change
from the protolenoid-dominated in the Lower Cambrian to the kingaspidoid-ornamentaspidoid-dominated in the
Middle Cambrian, and correlate well with theAgdzian Stage ofWest Gondwana (Geyer and Landing 2004). Correspondence
toWest Gondwana and Avalonia is also evident from the presence of the associated trilobite genera,
Palaeolenus, Myopsolenites, Latikingaspis, Kingaspis, Latoucheia and Orodes. The acritarch assemblages,
comprising 77 taxa, indicate that their main taxonomic turnover was gradual and preceded the earliest occurrence
of Paradoxides spp., as in the Spanish sections. The geological succession studied in the HCMrepresents
part of the Cambrian strata that are generally missing in Baltica.
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Queues of blind phacopid trilobites Trimerocephalus: A case of frozen behaviour of Early Famennian age from the Holy Cross Mountains, Central Poland
RADWANSKI A.1, KIN A.2, RADWANSKA U.3
1,3Institute of Geology, University of Warsaw, Al. Zwirki i Wigury 93; PL-02-089 Warszawa, Poland
u.radwanska@uw.edu.pl
2Geoscience Friends Association ’Phacops’, Targowa 29, PL-90-043 Łódź, Poland
ABSTRACT: An assemblage of blind phacopid trilobites of the genus Trimerocephalus McCoy, 1849, representing either the
species Trimerocephalus mastophthalmus (Reinhard Richter, 1856) or its allies (possibly, a new species), from
an Early Famennian (Early Marginifera Zone) marly sequence of the Holy Cross Mountains, Central Poland, is
composed of well organized single-file queues. The trilobites in the queues appear almost intact, having been
preserved in the position they kept when forming the queues, and are interpreted showing migratory behaviour
known in various present-day arthropods, but unreported from the fossil state. This queuing was induced by environmental
stress caused by a dramatic drop in sea level, temporarily leading to emersion. The preservation of
the queues at omission horizons is thus ascribed to a mass mortality event, caused by subaerial exposure. The
trilobites were suffocated and fossilized in a mortal spasm, and finally blanketed by calcareous ooze when inundated
at a highstand. The assemblage of trilobite queues represents a unique example of frozen behaviour
and a snapshot of the geological past.
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The phosphatized sponges from the Santonian (Upper Cretaceous) of theWielkanoc Quarry (southern Poland) as a tool in stratigraphical and environmental studies
OLSZEWSKA-NEJBERT D.1, SWIERCZEWSKA-GLADYSZ E.2
1Institute of Geology, University of Warsaw, al. Zwirki i Wigury 93, 02-089 Warszawa, Poland.
don@uw.edu.pl
2 Institute of Earth Science, University of Lodz, ul. Narutowicza 88, 90-139 Lodz. Poland.
eswiercz@geo.uni.lodz.pl
ABSTRACT: Phosphatized sponges from the Santonian of the Wielkanoc Quarry are represented by 11 species of Hexactinosida
and 16 species of Lychniscosida. Their species composition is most similar to the Micraster coranguinum
Zone fauna (Middle Coniacian – Middle Santonian) of England. Three preservational groups of sponges are
distinguished: ’white’, ’beige’ and ’dark’. They are infilled by phosphatized foraminiferal/foraminiferal-calcisphere
wackestone and are contained in the marly calcareous inoceramid packstone. The sponges indicate a
calm and relatively deep (> 100 m) life environment. After burial, phosphatization and exhumation, the fossil
sponges were redeposited in Upper Santonian strata. The ’white’ and ’beige’ groups were transported laterally
over a very short distance or represent lag deposits. The rolled and crushed sponges of the ’dark’ group were exhumed
and phosphatized more than once. They could be redeposited (reworked) nearly in the same place and/or
transported from some longer distances (but not from outside the Cracow Swell).
The phosphatized sponges document the former presence in the area of part of theMiddle Coniacian through
Middle Santonian succession, which was removed secondarily by subsequent erosion.
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A unique habitat of endolithic biota: hurricane-induced limestone rubble in an Albian sand-mass of the Cracow Upland, southern Poland
MARCINOWSKI R., RADWANSKI A.
Institute of Geology, University of Warsaw; Al. Zwirki i Wigury 93, PL-02-089 Warsaw, Poland.
Ryszard.Marcinowski@uw.edu.pl
ABSTRACT:Peculiarly shaped, relatively large (up to 30 cm in diameter) concretions of quartzitic sandstone occur in a single
horizon of Upper Albian loose sands in the Cracow Upland, southern Poland. They are characterized by hollow
interiors adorned with mass-aggregated moulds of the borings of diverse sponges, polychaetes and bivalves.
These moulds represent the siliceous filling of borings in limestone clasts that had been subject to dissolution,
leaving a hollow within the concretion that had formed around them. Synsedimentary block-faulting and jointing
affected the Jurassic limestone-basement, causing the uplift of a local horst (the Glanow Horst), to within
the littoral zone so that it became exposed to abrasion. It is inferred that a hurricane or catastrophic storm surge
swept limestone debris fallen from the cliff out to the sandy offshore, where nucleation of soluble silica was
presumably favoured by the decay of the soft tissue of live or dead rock-borers. After filling the empty borings
and solution of the limestone clasts, the nucleation progressed intensely, finally completed by precipitation
of siliceous sinter in the hollow interiors of some of the concretions during subsequent diagenesis and/or
epigenesis.
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Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the Karpatian-Badenian (Late Burdigalian–Early Langhian) transition in the Central Paratethys. A case study from theWagna Section (Austria)
SPEZZAFERRI S.1, CORIC S.2,STINGL K.3
1 Department of Geosciences, Earth Sciences, Ch. du Musée 6, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
silvia.spezzaferri@unifr.ch
2 Geological Survey, Neulinggasse 38, 1030, Vienna, Austria.
3Department of Geosciences and Geophysics, University of Leoben, 8700, Leoben, Austria.
ABSTRACT:The Karpatian-Badenian (Burdigalian-Langhian, Early-MiddleMiocene) transition is a key interval in the evolution-
of the Paratethys and the proto-Mediterranean Sea.We present here, based on theWagna section (Styrian Basin, Central
Paratethys), a study of a quantitative analysis of the microfossils (foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils) and
a statistical treatment of data to reconstruct the palaeoenvironmental condition during this time.
During the Karpatian, relatively deep water, cool conditions with a relatively high nutrient input prevailed in the
Styrian Basin, as suggested by the high abundance of cool-water foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils. The Badenianwas
generallywarmer,with a lower availability of nutrients, andwas characterized by carbonate units and patch reefs
and associated microfossil assemblages (e.g., Eponides spp.). Riverine plumes brought fresh water into the Styrian
Basins during the Badenian and induced high productivity and the proliferation of species highly tolerant of low salinity
such as Ammonia tepida. The passage from calcareous nannofossil Zone NN4 to NN5 is characterized by a reorganization
ofwatermasses and the transition fromcooler and nutrient-rich towarmer and nutrient-poorerwaters. Based
on themicrofossil abundance trends we interpret the planktonic foraminiferal species Globigerina tarchanensis as preferring
cooler nutrient-rich waters and Reticulofenestra minuta as preferring warmer and nutrient-poor waters.
The application of cluster analysis based on the Bray-Curtis Similarity and non-metric MultiDimensional Scaling
(nMDS) adds important information to that obtained only from microfossil abundance curves, enabling identification
of cryptic trends and correlationwith sequence stratigraphy. Thismethodmay even complement biostratigraphic interpretation
and support age attribution in the Paratethyan area, where marker species are missing.
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The Eastern Sudetic Island in the Early-to-Middle Turonian: evidence from heavy minerals in the Jerzmanice sandstones, SW Poland
BIERNACKA J., JOZEFIAK M.
Institute of Geology, University of Poznań, Makow Polnych 16, PL-61-606 Poznań, Poland.
silvia.julbier@amu.edu.pl
monikaweronikajozefiak@gmail.com
ABSTRACT:The Eastern Sudetic Island was an emerged area in the late cretaceous shelf-sea of central Europe that delivered
coarse siliciclastic material to adjacent basins. The extent of this land area during the Early-to-Middle Turonian
has been reconstructed on the basis of a heavy-mineral analysis of the Jerzmanice sandstones from the North
Sudetic Basin. The heavy minerals studied predominantly derive from medium to high grade metamorphic rocks,
such as granulites and metabasites, calc-silicate rocks, mica schists and gneisses, and from garnet peridotites and
pegmatites/granites. The interpretation of various heavy mineral species provides evidence that the major part of
the detritus constituting the Jerzmanice sandstones was supplied from a relatively small area of the fore-Sudetic
part of the Gory Sowie Massif and its immediate vicinity, approx. 50 km away from the depositional site. Heavy
minerals and particularly the chemical characteristics of detrital garnets, cr-spinels and tourmalines, have turned
out to be excellent indicators of the provenance of these mature late cretaceous sandstones.
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