Stromatoporoid palaeoecology in the Frasnian (Upper Devonian) Belgian platform,and its applications in interpretation of carbonate platform environments

Abstract: Stromatoporoid faunas in the Frasnian of southern Belgium are abundant in the carbonate platform environments present in this area. Stromatoporoids dominate the large skeletal organisms and occur principally in biostromes. The stromatoporoid assemblage is represented by a small number of taxa. Stromatoporoid genera include Actinostroma, Amphipora, Atelodictyon, Clathrocoilona, Salairella, Stachyodes, Stictostroma, Stromatopora and Trupetostroma which are present in environments ranging from the outer, outer intermediate, inner intermediate and inner zones and associated biostromes. Most large skeletal stromatoporoids are low profile, which reinforces the conclusions of previous studies that low‐profile growth forms were the most successful stromatoporoid forms. These low‐profile forms are likely to have been important sediment stabilisers that may have led to expansion of the carbonate factory. Growth forms vary between facies, indicating some degree of environmental control on form; for example, laminar in the intermediate zone, bulbous and domical in the inner and outer zones. Stromatoporoid taxa vary in occurrence across the environmental gradient from shallow to deep. There is some taxonomic control on growth forms, with some taxa showing more variability than others in different environments.     

Indigenous demosponge spicules in a Late Devonian stromatoporoid basal skeleton from the Frasnian of Belgium

This paper records the first example of a demosponge spicule framework in a single specimen of a Devonian stromatoporoid from the Frasnian of southern Belgium. The small sample (2.5 × 2 cm) is a component in a brecciated carbonate from a carbonate mound in La Boverie Quarry 30 km east of Dinant. Because of the small size of the sample, generic identification is not confirmed, but the stromatoporoid basal skeleton is similar to the genus Stromatopora. The spicules are arranged in the calcified skeleton, but not in the gallery space, and are recrystallized as multi‐crystalline calcite. The spicules fall into two size ranges: 10–20 μm diameter and 500–2000 μm long for the large ones and between 5–15 μm diameter and 50–100 μm length for the small ones. In tangential section, the spicules are circular, they have a simple structure, and no axial canal has been preserved. The large spicules are always monaxons, straight or slightly curved styles or strongyles. The spicules most closely resemble halichondrid/axinellid demosponge spicules and are important rare evidence of the existence of spicules in Palaeozoic stromatoporoids, reinforcing the interpretation that stromatoporoids were sponges. The basal skeleton may have had an aragonitic spherulitic mineralogy. Furthermore, the spicules indicate that this stromatoporoid sample is a demosponge.     

Palaeoecology Of A Late Devonian Back Reef: Canning Basin, Western Australia

Back‐reef ecologies within the celebrated mixed carbonate‐siliciclastic Late Devonian (late Frasnian) Pillara Limestone of Windjana Gorge, in the Canning Basin, Western Australia, are re‐interpreted as being dominated by microbial communities. Proposed microbialites are expressed as weakly‐laminated, fenestral micrite, that show unsupported primary voids, peloidal textures, disseminated bioclastic debris, and traces of microfilaments. These grew as either extensive free‐standing mounds or columns, often intergrown with encrusting metazoans, or thick post‐mortem encrustations upon skeletal benthos. In some cases, microbial encrustations are inferred to have developed in protected cavities formed by progressive burial of the reef. The calcimicrobe Shuguria also shows a preferentially cryptic habit, encrusting either primary cavities formed by skeletal benthos, microbialite, or the ceilings of mm‐sized fenestrae within microbialite. A further calcimicrobe, Rothpletzella, formed columns up to 0.3 m high in areas enriched by very coarse siliciclastic sediment. Stromatoporoid sponges with a diverse range of morphologies also formed in situ growth fabrics. Monospecific thickets of closely‐aggregating dendroid stromatoporoid sponges (Stachyodes costulata), and platy‐laminar forms (?Hermatostroma spp.) were common, as were remarkably large stromatoporoids (Actinostroma spp.) that grew as isolated individuals up to 5 m in diameter. Such sponges showed impressive powers of regeneration from partial mortality, and individual clones may have been capable of substantial longevities of up to 500 years. Actinostroma spp. showed highly complex growth forms including platy‐multicolumnar (A. windjanicum), and a hitherto undescribed inferred whorl‐forming foliaceous morphology (Actinostroma sp.) reminiscent of the modern photosymbiotic coral Acropora palmata. These complex morphologies formed abundant primary cavities, previously thought to be only rarely developed in association with stromatoporoids.key words : Late Devonian, Canning Basin, reefs, palaeoecology, microbialite.     

A late Devonian (Frasnian) coral-bafflestone reef at Houshan in Guilin, South China

Summary Givetian to early Carboniferous sediments of South China are characterized by carbonates. Middle and Late Devonian strata are best developed in the Guilin area. Reefs and organic shoals are recorded by various lithofacies types indicating the existence of an extended carbonate platform and a change of the composition of reef communities in time. Starting in the late Devonian, stromatoporoids and corals were replaced by algae that subsequently played an important role together with stromatoporoids, receptaculitids and fasciculate rugose corals in reef communities. In Houshan, 5 km west of Guilin, a coral-bafflestone reef occurs in the Frasnian strata, situated near an offshore algal-stromatoporoid reef. The coral reef was formed in a back-reef area adjacent to the inner platform margin. The coral-bafflestone reef is unique among the late Devonian reefs of South China with regard to the biotic composition. The reef is composed of fasciculate colonies ofSmithiphyllum guilinense n. sp. embedded within in packstones and wackestones. The height of colonies reaches 1 m. The community is low-diverse. The species ofSmithiphyllum occurring in the Frasnian reef complexes of Guilin exhibit a distinct facies control:Smithiphyllum guilinense occurs in or near to margin facies and formed bafflestone, constituting a coral reef whereasSmithiphyllum occidentale Sorauf, 1972 andSmithiphyllum sp.—characterized by small colonies with thin corallites—are restricted to the back-reef and marginal slope facies. The bush-like coral colonies baffled sediments. Algae and stromatoporoids (mainlyStachyodes) are other reef biota. Reef-dwelling organisms are dominated by brachiopods. The reefs are composed from base to top of five lithofacies types: 1) cryptalgal micrite, 2) peloidal packstone, 3) stromatactis limestone, 4) coral-bafflestone, and 5) pseudopeloidal packstone. The reef complex can be subdivided into back-reef subfacies, reef flat and marginal subfacies, and marginal fore-slope subfacies. The Houshan coral-bafflestone reef is not a barrier reef but a coral patch reef located near the inner margin of a carbonate platform.     

Devonian carbonate buildup facies in an intra-oceanic island arc (Tamworth Belt, New South-Wales, Australia)

Summary  Biohermal and biostromal buildups were investigated in late Early and Middle Devonian carbonate complexes of the Tamworth Belt. The buildup types and subtypes were studied in three regions (Yarramanbully, Sulcor and, Wyaralong') to clarify their paleo-environmental position. Two stages of development are recognized: Incipient bioherms and bioherms. Incipient bioherms are carbonate buildups with organisms which commonly form true bioherms. They dominate the sediment with small growth forms but are not prolific enough to build large bio-frameworks. Small nodular and globular stromatoporoids characterize the incipient bioherms and are interpreted as stunted growth forms. In one location (‘Wyaralong’) the coarse stromatoporoid calcarenite represents a fore-reef facies, at Sulcor a shallow subtidal setting with moderate water energy can be deduced. The bioherms can be sub-divided into stromatoporoid-, stromatoporoid-Stachyodes-, and stromatoporoid-rugose coral bioherms. Their variable composition probably reflects growth and deposition in different zones of a reef complex and/or different proximity to areas of denundation indicated by high siliciclastic input. In the Tamworth region true bioherms occur only in the Moore Creek Limestone Member (Middle Devonian), and not in older carbonate successions. Biostromes are sub-divided into (1) incipient biostromes with stromatoporoid-heliolitid biostromes and alveolitid biostromes; (2) aggregate biostromes withAmphipora andStachyodes biostromes; (3) stratified biostromes; (4) mixed aggregate/stratified biostromes. The different types of biostromes are not limited to specific time-intervals, but rather to environmental conditions.

Shoal‐water dynamics and coastal biozones in a sheltered‐island setting: Upper Devonian Pillara Limestone (Western Australia)

Along the Canning Basin's Lennard Shelf in Western Australia, the 80‐km‐long Oscar Range is composed of folded Palaeoproterozoic quartzite and phyllite and surrounded by limestones of the Great Devonian Barrier Reef including reef complex, related back‐reef and lagoonal deposits of the Frasnian Pillara Limestone. The range represents an exhumed cluster of palaeoislands. Near the east end of the Oscar Range, a palaeoislet is encircled by the Pillara Limestone showing outward dips that dramatically shallow to expose nearly horizontal bedding planes offshore. From shore and outward, the facies zones observed in the Pillara Limestone include unfossiliferous laminated sediments followed by biozones with abundant Amphipora and Stachyodes, and domal stromatoporoids. An additional outermost lagoonal facies with a diverse molluscan fauna preserved in fine limestone/dolostone is described in this study. High‐spired Murchisonia in a time‐averaged assemblage with other gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods and scaphopods dominate this zone. Uneven distribution of biozones is due to intermittent shoals controlled by the complex relief of basement rocks or recent erosion into underlying layers. The orientations of dendroid stromatoporoids and high‐spired gastropods were analysed to appraise the dynamics of prevailing shoal‐water settings on the inner, more sheltered side of the Oscar Range facing the Devonian mainland to the north. Oscillatory wave action is interpreted as the main agent of transport. Palaeocurrent data for the lighter dendroid stromatoporoids suggest that fair‐weather prevailing winds originated from the SE. Pebble clasts, oncoids, bivalves and gastropods indicate episodes of wave agitation and stronger wind from a SE and southerly direction.     

A new early Frasnian (Late Devonian) foraminifer from eastern Taurides (Turkey): Evolutionary and paleobiogeographic implications

A complete Devonian sequence is well exposed in the eastern Taurides, forming more than 1000 m-thick succession of carbonate and siliciclastic sediments. The carbonate succession, stratigraphically ranging from Middle Devonian to early Late Devonian and mostly comprising limestones, dolomitic limestones and reefal limestones, contains abundant and diverse assemblages of foraminifers, corals, stromatoporoids, calcareous algae, bivalves, brachiopods, ostracods, and conodonts. The limestone samples collected from a more closely sampled stratigraphic section have been investigated for their foraminiferal content. The micropalaeontological analyses carried out on these samples have revealed the presence of an early Frasnian foraminiferal assemblage including predominantly unilocular parathuramminid species and multilocular forms of the genera Nanicella, Paratikhinella and Semitextularia? and further indicated the presence of a new genus and a new species Halevikia deveciae n. gen. n. sp. which appears as an important phylogenetic and stratigraphic transitional taxon between the families Baituganellidae n. fam. and Tournayellinidae, the phylogenetic potentiality of which during the Late Devonian is currently probably underestimated.     

Paleoecology of Middle Ordovician stromatoporoid mounds in Vermont

Fossiliferous mounds of carbonate mud are a distinctive facies in the middle Chazy Group (Crown Point Formation) at Isle La Motte, Lake Champlain. The mounds are surrounded by bedded calcarenite of spar-cemented pelmatozoan debris. Channels which cut into the mounds during mound growth are filled with the same calcarenite. The mud-free intermound rocks and the mound biota suggest agitated, normal marine shallow-water environments. The principal lime-secreting organisms within the mounds are stromatoporoids, calcareous algae, tabulate corals, sponges, and bryozoans. Each mound is dominated in terms of biomass by one of three groups: stromatoporoids, calcareous algae, and bryozoans. Most of the mound biota first appear at the base of the Crown Point Formation. In the lower Crown Point Formation the organisms increase in number and species. Both changes in the biota are related to periods of shallowing of the Chazy sea which are also reflected in the character of the carbonate sands.     

Stromatoporoid-coral intergrowths in a Silurian biostrome

Four stromatoporoid species from a stromatoporoid biostrome in the middle Ludlow Hemse Beds, Gotland, Sweden, show intergrowths with syringoporid tabulate and rugose corals, and indicate close relationships between particular coral and stromatoporoid species. The stromatoporoid Clathrodictyon convictum always contains ?Syringopora and this tabulate is rarely found in the other stromatoporoids. C. convictum is also closely associated with Tryplasma flexuosum (rugosa) while Petrozium pelagicum (rugosa) occurs only in the stromatoporoids Plectostroma intermedium and Parallelostroma typicum. The microstructure of ?Syringopora within the stromatoporoids is composed of an inner lamellar layer and an outer radial layer of calcite crystals. Diagenetic alteration has affected the microstructure which differs from recently described Devonian forms having only a radial layer. This shows variability in the structure of the tabulates within stromatoporoids. Information is sparse on the range of such variation and assessment of the relative importance of taxonomic, palaeoenvironmental and diagenetic effects is not possible in the present sample. No evidence is found to prove the precise nature of the relationships; they were not parasitic but may have been mutually symbiotic, or (most probably) commensal. The results suggest that the corals selected the most suitable stromatoporoid species for their requirements. Stromatoporoid morphology may have had an important influence on the association, where corals are more abundantly associated with those stromatoporoid species which adopted a high profile. Overall the associations appear to have allowed the corals to explore higher energy habitats otherwise unavailable to their delicate branching structure.     

Growth forms and palaeoenvironmental interpretation of stromatoporoids in a Middle Devonian reef, southern Morocco (west Sahara)

Growth forms of well-preserved stromatoporoids, including genera Actinostroma, Stachyodes, and Stromatopora, are described for the first time from the Devonian Sabkhat Lafayrina reef complex of southern Morocco (west Sahara), one of the best exposed Middle-Devonian stromatoporoid-dominated fossil reefs. Three facies types representing the well illuminated fore-reef, reef-core and transition to back-reef facies display the distribution and growth of stromatoporoids in a high latitude setting at 40–50° south of the palaeoequator. Stromatoporoids are largely in growth position and reflect the well-preserved reef architecture. Although outcrops are low topography, the reef's prominent profile is indicated by presence of spur and groove form and a clearly defined reef margin. Stromatoporoids are mostly laminar and domical forms, with little evidence of ragged margins, and indicate normal turbulence shallow waters, with low sediment deposition.     

The history of Devonian-Carboniferous reef communities: Extinctions,effects, recovery

Summary Analysis of the taxonomic composition, diversity and guild structure of five “typical” reef and mud mound communities ranging in age from Late Devonian-Early Carboniferous indicates that each of these aspects of community organization changed dramatically in relation to three extinction events. These events include a major or mass extinction at the end of the Frasnian; reef communities were also effected by less drastic end-Givetian and mid-late Famennian extinctions of reef-building higher taxa. Peak Paleozoic generic diversities for reef-building stromatoporoids and rugose corals occurred in the Eifelian-Givetian; reef-building calcareous algal taxa were longranging with peak diversity in the Devonian. These three higher taxa dominated all reef-building guilds (Constructor, Binder, Baffler) in the Frasnian and formed fossil reef communities with balanced guild structures. The extinction of nearly all reef-building stromatoporoids and rugose corals at the end of the Frasnian and the survival of nearly all calcareous algac produced mid-late Famennian reef communities dominated by the Binder Guild. Despite the survival of most calcareous algae and tabulate corals, the mid-late Famennian extinction of all remaining Paleozoic stromatoporoids and nearly all shelf-dwelling Rugosa brought the already diminished Devonian reef-building to a halt. These Devonian extinctions differ from mass extinctions by the absence of a statistically significant drop in taxonomic diversity and by their successional and cumulative effects on reef communities. Tournaisian mud mounds contain communities markedly different from the frame-building communities in Late Devonian and Visean reefs. Mound-building biotas consist of an unusual association dominated by erect, weakly skeletonized members of the Baffler Guild (chiefly fenestrate Bryozoa; Pelmatozoa) and laterally expanded, mud-binding algae/stromatolites and reptant Bryozoa. The initial recovery to reefs with skeletal frameworks in the Visean was largely due to the re-appearance of new species of abundant colonial rugose corals (Constructor Guild) and fenestrate Bryozoa. This Frasnian-Visean evolution in the taxonomic composition and structure of the reef-building guilds is also expressed by abrupt changes in biofacies and petrology of the reef limestones they produced. Thus, “typical” Frasnian reef limestones with balanced guild structures are framestones-boundstones-bafflestones, Famennian reefs are predominantly boundstones, Tournaisian mud mounds are bafflestones and Visean reefs are bafflestones-framestones.     

Iron microbial communities in Belgian Frasnians carbonate mounds

Summary The Belgian Frasnian carbonate mounds occur in three stratigraphic levels in an overall backstepping succession. Petit-Mont and Arche Members form the famous red and grey “marble” exploited for ornamental stone since Roman times. The evolution and distribution of the facies in the mounds is thought to be associated with ecologic evolution and relative sea-level fluctuations. Iron oxides exist in five forms in the Frasnian mounds; four are undoubtedly endobiotic organized structures: (1) microstromatolites and associated forms (blisters, veils...), possibly organized in “endostromatolites”; (2) hematitic coccoids and (3) non dichotomic filaments. The filaments resemble iron bacteria of theSphaerotilus-Leptothrix “group”; (4) networks of dichotomic filaments ascribable to fungi; (5) a red ferruginous pigment dispersed in the calcareous matrix whose distribution is related to the mound facies type. The endobiotic forms developed during the edification of the mounds, before cementation by fibrous calcite. The microbial precipitation of iron took place as long as the developing mounds were bathed by water impoverished in oxygen.     

BRYOZOAN MUD-MOUNDS FROM THE UPPER ORDOVICIAN JIFARAH (DJEFFARA) FORMATION OF TRIPOLITANIA, NORTH-WEST LIBYA

Abstract:  A bryozoan fauna from carbonate mud-mounds is described from subsurface well cores from the Upper Ordovician (Lower Ashgill) Jifarah (Djeffara) Formation of Tripolitania, north-west Libya. Among a diverse assemblage dominated by trepostomes, nine species of bryozoans are identified, including Jifarahpora libyensis gen. et sp. nov. Delicate and robust branching, encrusting and nodular bryozoan growth forms are all common. The bryozoan-rich limestones are mostly mudstones and wackestones, with bafflestone and floatstone textures, but the mounds apparently lack organic framework and microbial fabrics. Regional geophysical data indicate rapid thickness changes between wells, where mound complexes locally up to 100 m thick had limited topographic relief over the surrounding sea floor. The mounds formed in a high-latitude, cool-water carbonate belt that extended widely across the northern margin of Gondwana. Quaternary analogues from the Great Australian Bight suggest that these early Ashgill mounds may have developed in slope environments during an episode of glacial lowstand that preceded the late Ashgill, Hirnantian glacial event.     

塔里木板块塔中区上奥陶统良里塔格组的生物礁类型

塔里木板块塔中Ⅰ号坡折带附近上奥陶统良里塔格组取芯井段中可识别多种生物礁灰岩类型,包括珊瑚骨架/障积岩、海绵骨架/绑结岩、苔藓虫绑结岩、钙藻障积岩、钙质菌藻障积/绑结岩等礁灰岩类,藉此可归纳出珊瑚礁、珊瑚-钙藻礁、层孔虫礁、层孔虫-钙藻礁、珊瑚-层孔虫-钙藻礁、苔藓虫礁丘、钙藻礁丘、灰泥丘和微生物礁等生物建造单元。这些礁体的时空分布模式与古环境分异相关联,纵向上具有灰泥丘向珊瑚-层孔虫-钙藻礁至苔藓虫礁丘和钙藻礁的群落结构更替趋势;空间分布则向台地北缘,即I号坡折带延伸显示由低能带灰泥丘向高能带珊瑚-层孔虫-钙藻礁的相变,而且高能带珊瑚-层孔虫-钙藻主体礁和环其周缘相对低能带的钙藻礁丘、灰泥丘等在一定范围内构成造礁群落结构分异。     

Sedimentary history of Upper Silurian biostromes of Podolia (Ukraine) based on stromatoporoid morphometry

The sedimentary history of stromatoporoid biostromal accumulations reflecting various depositional conditions (autoparabiostromes and parabiostromes) is studied in two isochronous, Late Silurian carbonate sections of the Malynivtsy Formation from Podolia (western Ukraine, Kam'janec' Podil'skyj area). This study focuses on morphometrical analysis of massive stromatoporoids. Various stromatoporoid attributes, such as growth form, volume, surface character etc., are interpreted in terms of growth environments. Attributes of redeposited specimens are also analysed in terms of their susceptibility to exhumation and redeposition, and new criteria are presented in this matter. The exposed facies succession, which can be subdivided into three units: an oncolitic–fenestral complex and the stromatoporoid–coral complexes that underlie and cover it, represents the belt of shoals located at a considerable distance from shore, and its transition to a narrow zone of back-shoal tidal flats. The facies patterns proved to be strongly obscured by an intensive process of onshore redeposition of material during high energy episodes. These events caused exhumation and landward transport of stromatoporoids inhabiting soft-sediment bottoms of outer shelf areas, which were afterwards accumulated in parabiostromes in calm waters on lee side of a zone of shoals. The main process governing the distribution of redeposited stromatoporoids is fractional (weight) segregation. The high energetic events had less effect on stromatoporoid–coral autoparabiostromes that formed the zone of shoals, which were inhabited by stromatoporoids better adapted to permanent wave action, but nonetheless, they caused their partial reworking and depletion from those forms that did not resist redeposition, on one hand, and supplementation by specimens derived from offshore areas, on the other.     

First decapod crustaceans in a Late Devonian continental ecosystem

The origin and early diversification of decapod crustaceans and their expansion from marine to continental environments are key events in arthropod evolution. Rare fossil decapods are known from the Palaeozoic, and the earliest eumalacostracans with undoubted decapod affinities are the Late Devonian Palaeopalaemon and Aciculopoda, found in offshore marine deposits. Here, we describe a new species of the shrimp Tealliocaris found in floodplain and temporary pond deposits from the Famennian (Late Devonian) of Belgium, together with a rare Palaeozoic assemblage of other crustaceans (conchostracans, notostracans and anostracans) and chelicerates (eurypterids). Tealliocaris walloniensis sp. nov. documents the earliest occurrence of continental decapod crustaceans and indicates that decapods have been part of continental ecosystems at least since the Late Devonian.     

The oldest labechiid stromatoporoids from intraskeletal crypts in lithistid sponge–Calathium reefs

Early Ordovician (early Floian) reefs of South China include lithistid sponge–Calathium reefs with a three‐dimensional skeletal framework. These structures are among the first post‐Cambrian skeletal‐dominated reef structures and provides an opportunity to test how the novel metazoan builders changed the environments and increased topographic complexity within benthic communities. We document the oldest labechiid stromatoporoid (Cystostroma) in a lithistid sponge–Calathium reef of the Hunghuayuan Formation in southeastern Guizhou, South China. These earliest stromatoporoids may have originated in reefs, and we argue that the complex topography created by the hypercalcified sponge Calathium facilitated the emergence of stromatoporoids. Beyond Cystostroma, keratose sponges, Pulchrilamina (hypercalcified sponge) and bryozoans have also inhabited in the micro‐habitats (cavities and hard substrates) provided by Calathium. These findings suggest that ecosystem engineering by Calathium played an important role in the further diversification of reefs during the Ordovician.     

New data on the Devonian and Carboniferous Graptolithina (Dendroidea) from Belgium with notes on possible occurrences of Rhabdopleuridae in the Belgian Carboniferous

An old find of a graptolite from the Eifelian Jemelle Formation, combined with the recent discovery of an exceptionally well-preserved specimen from the Upper Frasnian (Matagne Formation), allow documentation of the geologically oldest and youngest dendroid fossils from the Devonian of Belgium. Both are ascribed to the long-ranging genus Callograptus (Acanthograptidae). These records enlarge the sparse knowledge of graptolite diversity and occurrences along the southern margin of Laurussia during the mid-Paleozoic. In Belgium, Devonian dendroids are exclusively known from the Dinant Synclinorium. The Devonian dendroid faunas previously reported from the Eifelian, Givetian and Frasnian of the Ardenne–Rhenish massifs (Belgium and Germany) are of low diversity (one to five species per locality). The specimens, generally inedaquatelly preserved, were ascribed to the genera Callograptus, Dictyonema, Palaeodictyota?, and Ruedemannograptus? In these massifs, Carboniferous dendroids are only known from the Viséan (Moliniacian) Denée Konservat-Lagerstätte. Other but undocumented reports of dendroids (and rhabdopleurids) are from the historical type area of the Tournaisian Stage (Tournai area, Brabant Parautochthon). Rhabdopleuridae from the Viséan–Serpukhovian of the Campine Basin (Turnhout borehole) remain incompletely known in the absence of the previously described material.     

Occurrence of Giant Borings of Osprioneides kampto in the Lower Silurian (Sheinwoodian) Stromatoporoids of Saaremaa,Estonia

The distribution of Osprioneides is more environmentally limited than that of Trypanites in the Silurian of Baltica. Osprioneides probably occurred only in large hard substrates of relatively deepwater muddy bottom open shelf environments. Osprioneides were relatively rare, occurring in 4.7% of all stromatoporoid specimens in that environment, in contrast to small Trypanites-Palaeosabella borings, which occur in 88.4% of stromatoporoids and 88.9% of heliolitid corals. Osprioneides is reported only from the lower Sheinwoodian stromatoporoids of the exposed Silurian of Saaremaa (Wenlock to Pridoli). Osprioneides borings probably played a minor role in the general bioerosion in the Silurian of Baltica.