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RE: Scottish tetrapods fill Romer's Gap in fossil record
And... It goes right into next week's lectures...
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661
Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843
Mailing Address: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Department of Geology
Building 237, Room 1117
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu]
> On Behalf Of Ben Creisler
> Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 4:59 PM
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Scottish tetrapods fill Romer's Gap in fossil record
>
> From: Ben Creisler
> bcreisler@gmail.com
>
> Not strictly dino-related, but Romer's Gap has been a
> long-standing mystery in early tetrapod evolution:
>
>
> Timothy R. Smithson, Stanley P. Wood, John E. A. Marshall,
> and Jennifer A. Clack (2012) Earliest Carboniferous tetrapod
> and arthropod faunas from Scotland populate Romer's Gap.
> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (advance
> online publication)
> doi: 10.1073/pnas.1117332109
> http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/27/1117332109.abstra
> ct?sid=77288ea0-6da6-4f1e-b892-abece2f20bab
>
>
> Abstract
> Devonian tetrapods (limbed vertebrates), known from an
> increasingly large number of localities, have been shown to
> be mainly aquatic with many primitive features. In contrast,
> the post-Devonian record is marked by an Early Mississippian
> temporal gap ranging from the earliest Carboniferous
> (Tournaisian and early Viséan) to the mid-Viséan. By the
> mid-Viséan, tetrapods had become effectively terrestrial as
> attested by the presence of stem amniotes, developed an
> essentially modern aspect, and given rise to the crown group.
> Up to now, only two localities have yielded tetrapod
> specimens from the Tournaisian stage: one in Scotland with a
> single articulated skeleton and one in Nova Scotia with
> isolated bones, many of uncertain identity. We announce a
> series of discoveries of Tournaisian-age localities in
> Scotland that have yielded a wealth of new tetrapod and
> arthropod fossils. These include both terrestrial and aquatic
> forms and new taxa. We conclude that the gap in the fossil
> record has been an artifact of collection failure.
>
> News Story:
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-17258372