Cowie Harbour, Stonehaven (BMNH collection) (Silurian of the United Kingdom)

Where: Scotland, United Kingdom (57.0° N, 2.2° W: paleocoordinates 16.6° S, 17.1° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Dictyocaris Member (Cowie Formation), Homerian (430.5 - 427.4 Ma)

• The Stonehaven Group was originally thought to be Pridoli (latest Silurian) in age. However, recent work on palynological assemblages has indicated a late Wenlock to early Ludlow age (mid Silurian) (Marshall 1991; Wellman, 1993). The Dictyocaris Member includes the Cowie Harbour fish bed. U-Pb radiometric dates instead suggest an age range of 414-413 Ma, or earliest Devonian (Suarez et al., 2017). Wellman et al. (2023) reevaluated the biostratigraphy and U-Pb data to support a late Wenlock age.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial; lithified shale

• This series of shales and mudstones was probably deposited by braided stream systems (Gillen and Trewin, 1987).

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression

Reposited in the BMNH

Primary reference: J. E. Almond. 1985. The Silurian-Devonian fossil record of the Myriapoda. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 309:227-237 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 155915: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 04.05.2014

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Myriapoda
  -
Pneumodesmus cf. newmani Wilson and Anderson 2004 millipede
NHM In. 43574