The Coal Measures Amphibia of North AmericaMoodie, Roy Lee
Science
The Coal Measures Amphibia of North America
Moodie, Roy Lee
Amphibians, Fossil -- North America; Paleontology -- Carboniferous; Paleontology -- North America
There are but four localities in North America which have furnished any
notable remains of Amphibia in the Coal Measures. These are, in the order
of their discovery, the deposits at the South Joggins, Nova Scotia; the
Linton, Ohio, Coal Measures; the Mazon Creek, Illinois, shales; and the
Cannelton slates near Cannelton, Pennsylvania. There are, however, several
other localities on the continent which have furnished evidences of
Amphibia in the Coal Measures. The principal one of the latter localities
is doubtfully of Coal Measures age, although recent discoveries would tend
to show it is such. The deposits in question, those of the Clepsydrops
shales of Vermilion County, Illinois, have, heretofore, been regarded
as Permian, but the discovery of similar remains in rocks of undoubted
Pennsylvanian age in Pennsylvania would seem to indicate that the Illinois
deposits were contemporaneous with them.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Map of Upper Pennsylvanian showing land and water
conditions under which the Coal Measures amphibian fauna lived. It will be
noted that the chief deposits which have furnished amphibian remains are
on the margins of the heavily shaded areas. (After Schuchert.)
Explanation of symbols: Lands are white. Water areas are lined. Formation
outcrops are black or dotted. Known shore-lines are solid lines; probable
ones broken. Vertical lines in middle of continent indicate Gulf marine.]
(_a_) The deposits in Vermilion County, Illinois, lie along the north bank
of Salt Fork Creek, at the tip of the "Horseshoe Bend," about 2 miles
south of Oakwood, Illinois. They were discovered by Dr. J. C. Winslow,
of Danville, in 1875. The remains discovered by him were forwarded to
Professor Cope for identification. Later the deposits were thoroughly
explored by W. F. E. Gurley, and the specimens collected by him are now
preserved (86) in Walker Museum, University of Chicago. In 1907, the
writer, while working for the University of Chicago, in exploring the
same locality, exhausted the beds so far as they could at that time be
uncovered from the landslide which had overwhelmed them. The formation
in which the bones occur is a soft gray or reddish shale, and it lies
without any apparent stratigraphic break on shales of Pennsylvanian age.
Below these shales are several feet of limestone containing invertebrates
of typical Pennsylvanian facies. There are indications of at least 3
species of Amphibia in the deposits. Case (86) has indicated with doubt a
fourth species. The species are: _Cricotus heteroclitus_ Cope, _Cricotus
gibsonii_ Cope, _Diplocaulus salamandroides_ Cope. The remains are very
fragmentary, and consist for the most part of incomplete vertebræ, with a
few small skull fragments.
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