Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T20:03:53.333Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Palynology of the Stonehaven Group, Scotland: evidence for a Mid Silurian age and its geological implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

J. E. A. Marshall
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton S09 5NH, U.K.

Abstract

Palynomorphs from the Stonehaven Group indicate a late Wenlock to early Ludlow age. This is older than the currently accepted Pridoli age based on fish and arthropods. Reasons for this discrepancy are discussed. A previous correlative of the Stonehaven Group has been the Old Red Sandstone of Kerrera, Argyll. However, palynological assemblages from both Kerrera and the adjacent succession at Oban are in fact younger than that from Stonehaven in being of latest Silurian to earliest Devonian age. The palynomorphs from Kerra and Oban lie beneath the important geochronological tie-point of the Lorne Lavas and suggest that the Silurian-Devonian boundary is older than currently accepted.

Type
Rapid Communications
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond, J. E. 1985. The Silurian-Devonian fossil record of the Myriapoda. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 309, 227–37.Google Scholar
Armstrong, M. & Paterson, I. B. 1970. The Lower Old Red Sandstone of the Strathmore region. Institute of Geological Sciences Report No. 70/12.Google Scholar
Barron, H. F. 1989. Mid-Wenlock acritarchs from a Silurian inlier in the Cheviot Hills, NE England. Scottish Journal of Geology 25, 8198.Google Scholar
Campbell, R. 1913. The geology of south-eastern Kincardineshire. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 48, 923–60.Google Scholar
Gillen, C. & Trewin, N. H. 1987. Dunnottar to Stonehaven and the Highland Boundary Fault. In Excursion Guide to the Geology of the Aberdeen area (eds Trewin, N. H., Kneller, B. C. & Gillen, C.), pp. 265–73. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.Google Scholar
Haughton, P. D. W. 1989. Structure of some Lower Old Red Sandstone conglomerates, Kincardineshire, Scotland: deposition from late-orogenic antecedent streams? Journal of the Geological Society, London 146, 509–25.Google Scholar
Johnson, N. G. 1985. Early Silurian palynomorphs from the Tuscarora Formation in central Pennsylvania and their paleobotanical and geological significance. Review of Palaeo-botany and Palynology 45, 307–60.Google Scholar
Lamont, A. 1952. Ecology and correlations of the Pentlandian, a new division of the Silurian System in Scotland. Report XVIII International Geological Congress, London, pt. x, 2732.Google Scholar
McGregor, D. C. & Camfield, M. 1976. Upper Silurian (?) to Middle Devonian spores of the Moose River Basin, Ontario. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 263, 63 pp.Google Scholar
McKerrow, W. S., Lambert, R. ST J. & Cocks, L. R. M. 1985. The Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian periods. In The Chronology of the Geological Record (ed. Snelling, N. J.), pp. 7380. Geological Society of London Memoir no. 10.Google Scholar
Morton, D. J. 1979. Palaeogeographical evolution of the Lower Old Red Sandstone basin in the western Midland Valley. Scottish Journal of Geology 15, 97116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mykura, W. 1983. Old Red Sandstone. In Geology of Scotland, 2nd ed. (ed. Craig, G. Y.), pp. 205–51. Edinburgh; Scottish Academic Press.Google Scholar
Naumova, S. N. 1953. Spore-pollen assemblages of the Upper Devonian of the Russian Platform and their stratigraphic significance. Transactions of the Institute of Geological Sciences, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, no. 143, Geological Series no. 60, 204 pp. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Richardson, J. B. & Edwards, D. 1989. Sporomorphs and plant megafossils. In A Global Standard for the Silurian System (eds Holland, C. H. & Bassett, M. G.), pp. 216–26. National Museum of Wales, Geological Series No. 9.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. B., Ford, J. H. & Parker, F. 1984. Miospores, correlations and age of some Scottish Lower Old Red Sandstone sediments from the Strathmore region (Fife and Angus). Journal of Micropalaeontology 3, 109–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, J. B. & Ioannides, N. S. 1973. Silurian palynomorphs from the Tanezzuft and Acacus formations, Tripolitania, North Africa. Micropalaeontology 3 (2), 109–24.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. B. & Lister, T. R. 1969. Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian spore assemblages from the Welsh Borderland and South Wales. Palaeontology 12 (2), 201–52.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. B. & McGregor, D. C. 1986. Silurian and Devonian spore zones of the Old Red Sandstone continent and adjacent regions. Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 364, 79 pp.Google Scholar
Robertson, G. 1989. A palaeoenvironmental interpretation of the Silurian rocks in the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh, Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 80, 127–41.Google Scholar
Strother, P. K. & Traverse, A. 1979. Plant microfossils from Llandoverian and Wenlockian rocks of Pennsylvania. Palynology 3, 121.Google Scholar
Thirlwall, M. F. 1988. Geochronology of Late Caledonian magmatism in northern Britain. Journal of the Geological Society, London 145, 951–67.Google Scholar
Waterston, C. D. 1965. Old Red Sandstone. In Geology of Scotland, 1st ed. (ed. Craig, G. Y.), pp. 271308. Edinburgh & London: Ohver and Boyd.Google Scholar
Westoll, T. S. 1951. The vertebrate-bearing strata of Scotland. Report XVIII International Geological Congress, part II, Great Britain, 1948, 521.Google Scholar