Geological Society of America

T88 Echinoderm Paleobiology I: In Honor of the Career of James Sprinkle

Monday, 5 November 2018
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 142

EXCEPTIONALLY PRESERVED ECHINODERMS FROM THE SILURIAN HEREFORDSHIRE LAGERSTÄTTE, UK

Paper number: T88-7
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 9:30 AM – 9:45 AM

Authors

Imran A. Rahman Presenting Author
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford, GA
Derek Briggs
Yale University, New Haven, CT
David J. Siveter
University of Leicester, Leicester
Derek J. Siveter
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford
Mark D. Sutton
Imperial College, London
Jeffrey R. Thompson
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Abstract

The Herefordshire Konservat-Lagerstätte from the Welsh Borderland, UK, offers a unique window on life during the Silurian, around 430 million years ago. This deposit preserves a range of remarkable fossil invertebrates, complete with soft tissues, in three dimensions. Several echinoderms are known from this locality, including an asterozoan, a new genus of rhenopyrgid edrioasteroid, and a new species of ophiocistioid. Selected specimens were studied using serial grinding and computer reconstruction, allowing us to characterize their anatomy in unprecedented detail. Individuals of all three taxa preserve soft tissues interpreted as elements of the water vascular system, a defining feature of echinoderms that is rarely evident in fossil forms. These exceptional specimens shed new light on the structure and function of this key organ system in extinct echinoderm groups, with important implications for their evolution and ecology.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 50, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2018AM-320294

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