Paleoecology of Sphenothallus on an Upper Ordovician hardground |
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Authors: | BRIAN E. BODENBENDER MARK A. WILSON TIMOTHY J. PALMER |
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Affiliation: | Department of Geology, the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 44691, U.S.A.;Department of Geology, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Dyfed, SY23 3DB, Wales, U.K. |
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Abstract: | A hardground from the Upper Ordovician Dillsboro Formation near Dillsboro, Indiana, U.S.A., preserves an assemblage of encrusting and boring fossils on both top and bottom surfaces. The slab is inferred to have been an undercut ledge, and the dominant fossils of the assemblage, holdfasts of the tube-building worm Sphenothallus and trepostome bryozoans, are prevalent on both sides. The clumping of Sphenothallus holdfasts has been statistically demonstrated using a nearest-neighbor technique. Sphenothallus has also been shown to withstand overgrowth in interactions with bryozoans. |
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Keywords: | Sphenothallus Trepostomata Cystoporata Tubuliporata Trypanites Indiana Dillsboro Formation |
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