Wooster Geologists

Yes, we’ve had a run of French Cretaceous fossils here. This is because we’re in the midst of a major project stemming from summer fieldwork in the Type Campanian of southwestern France. The fossils are delicious, and they are before us every day in the lab.

The above terebratulid brachiopod was found by Macy Conrad (’18) at our Caillaud South locality in the Biron Formation. It is so beautifully symmetrical that it just had to be a Fossil of the Week. I’ve apparently felt this way before about terebratulid brachiopods since I’ve previously written about Triassic, Jurassic and Miocene examples before in this blog. A Cretaceous example at least completes the Mesozoic set.

The above view of our articulated specimen shows the fragmentary smooth dorsal valve of the terebratulid, with the posterior portion of the ventral valve extending upwards at the top. The ventral valve has the characteristic round pedicle opening.

This is the flip side showing only the exterior of the ventral valve. A bit of chalky matrix adheres in the lower left, and the darker circles at the top are a form of silicification called beekite rings.

Here is the side view of our terebratulid, with the dorsal valve on top and larger ventral valve below. You can see why brachiopods were given the common name “lamp shells” because of the resemble to a Roman oil lamp.

References:

Coquand, H. 1858. Description physique, géologique, paléontologique et minéralogique du département de la Charente. Besançon, Dodivers, 420 p.

Platel, J.-P. 1996. Stratigraphie, sédimentologie et évolution géodynamique de la plate-forme carbonatée du Crétacé supérieur du nord du basin d’Aquitaine. Géologie de la France 4: 33-58.

One hole in a shell is unremarkable. Several in a repeating pattern is a story. Above is a right valve (exterior) of the oyster Pycnodonte vesicularis from the Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) of southwestern France. It was collected during our fantastic summer excursion into the Type Campanian at the Archiac location, which had beautiful exposures of the Aubeterre Formation. Note the jagged hole near the center, the subject of this post.Here is the other side of the right valve (the interior). We have multiple such examples in our collection, all in right valves and all near or on what would have been the oyster’s adductor (closing) muscle attachment. (Those of you with sharp eyes may also find some sweet Rogerella borings made by  barnacles, along with several encrusting bryozoan colonies.)A closer view of the hole showing spalled shell layers. (Also more bryozoans!)
Another close view of the above hole on the other side of the valve. It appears that these holes have been produced by some hard object punching through, spalling away the edges. This is what some predators do to shelled organisms to break them apart. Pether (1995) named the “ballistic trace” resulting from stomatopod shrimp predation as Belichnus. Cadée and de Wolf (2013) extended the range of trace makers to include seagulls. In both cases the predators essentially “spear” the shell, with the ensuing hole looking rather squarish and jagged. This is one of the “fracture-shaped bioerosion traces” in the architectural analysis of Buatois et al. (2017).

In our Cretaceous examples, the culprit was most likely some type of stomatopod (a large, diverse and long-lived group) smacking its way into the oysters through the thin right valve. Striking the muscle attachment would be the quickest way of forcing the shell open to reveal all the oysters goodness. The previously oldest example of Belichnus in the fossil record is Oligocene (David, 1997), so this occurrence extends the range back to the Late Cretaceous. That’s not a big deal because the ichnotaxon (trace fossil formal name) is relatively young and those who would look for it are very few. Its stratigraphic range is still maturing.

Update: Katherine Marenco sent this great video of mantis shrimp in action, including a “smasher”.

References:

Buatois, L., Wisshak, M., Wilson, M.A. and Mángano, G. 2017. Categories of architectural designs in trace fossils: A measure of ichnodisparity. Earth-Science Reviews 164: 102-181.

Cadée, G. C. and de Wolf, P. 2013. Belichnus traces produced on shells of the bivalve Lutraria lutraria by gulls. Ichnos 20: 15-18.

Pether, J. 1995. Belichnus new ichnogenus, a ballistic trace on mollusc shells from the Holocene of the Benguela region, South Africa. Journal of Paleontology 69: 171-181.

When we picked up this beautiful fossil in southwestern France this summer, Paul Taylor immediately predicted it would become a Wooster Fossil of the Week. Macy Conrad (’18), Paul and I were on our wonderful expedition in the Type Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) of France. Paul took us to a most unpromising plowed field, claiming there were fossils here from the Maurens Formation. Sure enough we found a pile of large fossils that farmers had picked from their fields. They included probably the most distinctive invertebrate organism of the Late Cretaceous: the rudist clam. Hard to believe these conical objects were clams, but such is evolution. (They have the disconcerting shape and size of other objects found in some French fields: artillery shells!)

The cone itself is the right valve of these sedentary bivalves. The capping valve is the left, as seen here from the top. (Right and left make little sense unless you think of their more traditional bivalved ancestors.) Note that this valve has a reticulate, almost lacy pattern to the shell. Rudists were filter-feeders like most bivalves, but they may have also supplemented their nutrition with photosynthetic symbionts in their mantle tissue. The holes in the top valve may have allowed sunlight to hit the upper mantle.

This stratigraphic chart, courtesy of Platel et al. (1999) via Paul Taylor, shows the Maurens Formation at the top of the Campanian in southwestern France. Our primary Campanian work in SW France is with the three units below (the Biron, Barbezieux and Aubeterre formations).

A typical heterodont clam is in the upper left of this diagram; the rest are elaborate rudist clams. In the lower right is a drawing of the type of rudist photographed above. Diagram from Schumann & Steuber (1997).

Rudists flourished in Cretaceous seas right up until the mass extinction at the end of the period. They are often characterized as reef builders, but most were probably living on soft sediment substrates, like our friend here.

References:

Gili, E., Masse, J.P. and Skelton, P.W. 1995. Rudists as gregarious sediment-dwellers, not reef-builders, on Cretaceous carbonate platforms. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 118: 245-267.

Platel, J.-P. 1996. Stratigraphie, seédimentologie et évolution géodynamique de la plate-forme carbonatée du Crétacé supérieur du nord du basin d’Aquitaine. Géologie de la France 4: 33-58.

Platel, J.-P., Faugeras, P., Mauroux, B., Spencer, C., Charnet, F., Célerier, G., Harielle, B. and Jacquement, P. 1999. Notice explicative, Carte géologie France (1/50 000), feuille Thenon, Orléans, BRGM, 128 p.

Schumann, D. and Steuber, T. 1997. Rudisten. Erfolgreiche Siedler und Riffbauer der Kreidezeit. Städte unter Wasser-2 Milliarden Jahre.-Kleine Senckenberg-Reihe 24: 117-122.

Steuber, T., Mitchell, S.F., Buhl, D., Gunter, G. and Kasper, H. U. 2002. Catastrophic extinction of Caribbean rudist bivalves at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Geology 30: 999-1002.