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The agnostoid arthropod Lotagnostus Whitehouse, 1936 (late Cambrian; Furongian) from Avalonian Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia, Canada) and its significance for international correlation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2016

STEPHEN R. WESTROP  and
ED LANDING
STEPHEN R. WESTROP*
Affiliation:
Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and School of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73072, USA
ED LANDING
Affiliation:
New York State Museum, 222 Madison Avenue, Albany, NY 12230, USA Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA
*
†Author for correspondence: swestrop@ou.edu
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Abstract

New and archival collections from the Chelsey Drive Group of the Avalon terrane of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, yield late Cambrian trilobites and agnostoid arthropods with full convexity that contrast with compacted, often deformed material from shale and slate typical of Avalonian Britain. Four species of the agnostoid Lotagnostus form a stratigraphic succession in the upper Furongian (Ctenopyge tumida–Parabolina lobata zones). Two species, L. ponepunctus (Matthew, 1901) and L. germanus (Matthew, 1901) are previously named; L. salteri and L. matthewi are new. Lotagnostus trisectus (Salter, 1864), the type species of the genus, is restricted to compacted material from its type area in Malvern, England. Lotagnostus americanus (Billings, 1860) has been proposed as a globally appropriate index for the base of ‘Stage 10’ of the Cambrian. All four species from Avalonian Canada are differentiated clearly from L. americanus in its type area in Laurentian North America (i.e., from debris flow blocks in Taconian Quebec). In our view, putative occurrences of L. americanus from other Cambrian continents record very different species. Lotagnostus americanus cannot be recognized worldwide, and other taxa should be sought to define the base of Stage 10, such as the conodont Eoconodontus notchhpeakensis.

Keywords

CambrianFurongianbiostratigraphyAgnostidaLotagnostus

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Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 154 , Issue 5 , September 2017 , pp. 1001 - 1021
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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