Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A delicate brachiopod from the Pliocene of Cyprus

These thin-shelled brachiopods were collected in the summer of 1996 on a Keck Geology Consortium project in Cyprus. Strangely enough, they were the first brachiopods I had ever seen in the Cenozoic. These are ventral valves of the terebratulid Maltaia pajaudi García–Ramos, 2006. On the left is the external view, and on the right is the internal. In the internal view at the top (posterior) portion of the shell you can see the rounded pedicle opening and two teeth of the hinge mechanism that articulated the valves.

The fieldwork that summer was with three students: Steve Dornbos (’97) of Wooster, Ellen Avery of Bryn Mawr, and Lorraine Givens of SUNY-Buffalo State. We found hundreds of gorgeous fossils, many of which have been described in these webpages. All are from the Nicosia Formation (Pliocene) exposed on the Mesaoria Plain in the center of Cyprus near the village of Meniko. The brachiopods above were found at a site we termed “Pelican-Brachiopod” that had 37 different fossil species. It was an unusual paleocommunity with large numbers of predatory gastropods, many of which left their marks as boreholes in shells. We figured from the microfossils present, as well as the fine silty sediment, that this fauna lived in relatively deep waters, probably several hundred meters. We had other Nicosia Formation sites in very shallow waters (including a coral reef), so we were able to show considerable paleoenvironmental diversity in this thick unit.
The Mediterranean brachiopod genus Maltaia was named in 1983 by the famous American paleontologist G. Arthur Cooper (1902-2000). I actually met the man in 1977 when I was an undergraduate attending the North American Paleontological Convention in Lawrence, Kansas. I was awestruck because he was legendary for his prodigious systematic work with brachiopods, especially those of the Permian in western Texas. The classic photo above shows him in the field with his Smithsonian Institution vehicle he named the “Emerald Queen”.

Cooper earned his B.S. degree at Colgate University with a chemistry major in 1924. He did his PhD work at Yale University with the epic paleontologists Carl O. Dunbar and Charles Schuchert, earning his degree in 1929. He loved brachiopods and was encouraged to pursue them by Schuchert. Cooper joined the paleontological staff at the United States National Museum in 1930, flourishing there through his retirement in 1974 into active emeritus status. He named hundreds of new fossil brachiopods during his career. I would not be surprised to hear he has the record of new fossil taxonomic descriptions. He was much honored in his time, including receipt of the second Paleontological Society medal in 1964.

References:

Bitner, M.A. and Martinell, J. 2001. Pliocene brachiopods from the Estepona Area (Málaga, South Spain). Revista Española de Paleontología 16: 177-185.

Bitner, M.A. and Moissette, P. 2003. Pliocene brachiopods from north-western Africa. Geodiversitas 25: 463-479.

Cooper, G.A. 1983. The Terebratulacea (Brachiopoda), Triassic to Recent: A study of the brachidia (loops). Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 50: 1–445.

Dornbos, S.Q. and Wilson, M.A. 1999. Paleoecology of a Pliocene coral reef in Cyprus: Recovery of a marine community from the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 213: 103-118.

Toscano-Grande, A., et al. 2010. Neogene brachiopods from the southwestern Guadalquivir basin (south Spain). Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geologicas 27: 254-263.