Journal of Paleontology; September 2008; v. 82; no. 5;
p. 924-937; DOI: 10.1666/07-118.1
© 2008 Paleontological Society
Earliest Wuchiapingian (Lopingian, Late Permian) Brachiopods in Southern Hunan, South China: Implications for the Pre-Lopingian Crisis and Onset of Lopingian Recovery/Radiation
Shu-Zhong Shen1 and
Yi-Chun Zhang1
1 State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, P. R. China, <szshen{at}nigpas.ac.cn>
The uppermost 5–15 m of the Douling Formation in the southern Hunan area, South China, yields a diverse fauna comprised of ammonoids, bivalves, and brachiopods. The brachiopods reported in this paper consist of 51 species in 34 genera and are dominated by the Lopingian (Late Permian) species associated with a few species persisting from the underlying Maokouan (Late Guadalupian). This fauna is of earliest Wuchiapingian in age as precisely constrained by the associated conodont Clarkina postbitteri postbitteri and the Guadalupian-type ammonoid fauna of the Roadoceras-Doulingoceras Zone in the brachiopod horizon. The discovery of the Lopingian species-dominated brachiopod fauna in the earliest Wuchiapingian in southern Hunan suggests a much less pronounced effect of the pre-Lopingian crisis (end-Guadalupian mass extinction) than the end-Changhsingian mass extinction in terms of brachiopods, a contemporaneous onset of the Lopingian recovery/radiation during the pre-Lopingian crisis period, and taxonomic selectivity of the pre-Lopingian crisis in terms of different fossil groups. New taxa are Echinauris doulingensis n. sp., Pararigbyella quadrilobata n. gen. and n. sp. and P. doulingensis n. gen. and n. sp.
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