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Mats Eriksson

Mats Eriksson

Professor

Mats Eriksson

Vagrant benthos (Annelida; Polychaeta) associated with Upper Ordovician carbonate mud-mounds of subsurface Gotland, Sweden.

Author

  • Mats Eriksson
  • Olle Hints

Summary, in English

Micropalaeontological investigations of Upper Ordovician carbonate mud-mounds and enclosing strata of subsurface Gotland, Sweden, demonstrate that jaw-bearing polychaetes formed the most diverse faunal element associated with these build-ups. Although not present within the mound cores (intra-mound facies), scolecodonts, or polychaete jaws, occur abundantly immediately below and particularly above the mounds; the supra-mound facies also has the most diverse fossil assemblages. By contrast to the scolecodont distribution, the most diverse conodont faunas were recorded in the intra-mound facies. This reinforces the fact that scolecodont and conodont abundance and diversity numbers are commonly inverse to one another, suggesting that these metazoans occupied different niches and responded differently to taphonomical processes. The polychaete assemblage has no less than 27 species belonging to 12 genera, of which Oenonites, Mochtyella and Pistoprion are the most abundant. The assemblage has a characteristic Baltic signature and is similar in taxonomic composition to coeval ones from other areas of the Baltoscandian palaeobasin, such as that of present-day Estonia. A principal component analysis clusters the Gotland assemblage most closely to those recorded from shallow to transitional shelf environments of Estonia, indicatino that the mud-mounds were formed in such environments.

Department/s

  • Lithosphere and Biosphere Science

Publishing year

2009

Language

English

Pages

451-462

Publication/Series

Geological Magazine

Volume

146

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Topic

  • Geology

Keywords

  • benthos
  • scolecodonts
  • polychaete jaws
  • mud-mounds
  • Upper Ordovician
  • Gotland
  • Sweden

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0016-7568