Plant fossils from the Pennsylvanian-Permian Transition in western Pangea, Abo Pass, New Mexico

Author/Creator:

DiMichele, William A., author

Publication/Creation:

Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017

Resource Type:

Book

More Details

Additional/Related Title Information

Full Title:

Plant fossils from the Pennsylvanian-Permian Transition in western Pangea, Abo Pass, New Mexico / William A. DiMichele [and four others].

Series Titles:

Smithsonian contributions to paleobiology, number 99
Smithsonian contributions to paleobiology ; no. 99.

Related Names

Additional Author/Creators:

Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, publisher

Subjects/Genre

Subjects:

Plants, Fossil--New Mexico
Paleobotany--Pennsylvanian
Paleobotany--New Mexico--Paleozoic
Paleobiology--New Mexico
Geology, Stratigraphic--Permian
Geology, Stratigraphic--Paleozoic

Description/Summary

Summary:

Plant fossils are described from five stratigraphic levels in upper Paleozoic strata in Abo Canyon, New Mexico. The fossils were collected by Charles B. Read, of the U.S. Geological Survey, in 1940 and 1941, and span the Pennsylvanian-Permian boundary. Read's original field notes have not been located. However, a combination of his pattern of bed numbering, notes written by Read and enclosed with the collections, and the taxonomic composition of the floras permit them to be placed with confidence in a sequence from oldest to youngest. The youngest fossils, which securely anchor the entire collection stratigraphically, are from the Abo Formation and are of early Permian age. A collection labeled "Base of Red Magdalena" is most likely from what today would be termed the Bursum Formation, thus immediately below the Abo. The three remaining collections are from the Pennsylvanian-aged Atrasado Formation, probably the Upper Pennsylvanian portion, extending as far back as the Missourian. The collections record a trend of increased seasonality of moisture (likely rainfall) through time. They are all either dominated or co-dominated by plants typical of environments with seasonal moisture stress. Conifers, Sphenopteris germanica and mixoneurid odontopterids are common to abundant in the collections older than the Abo Formation. All of the assemblages from below the Abo Formation also contain some taxa that required wet substrates for most of the year, particularly calamitaleans and marattialean tree ferns; the oldest collection also contains evidence of arborescent lycopsids.

Language:

English

Physical Type/Description:

40 pages : color illustrations, map ; 28 cm.

Additional Identifiers

Catalog ID (MMSID):

9936664294702486

OCLC Number:

960043191

Barcode:

010002901191