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New data on the biostratigraphy of the Early Devonian “Spirifer” tonkinensis brachiopod fauna in South China and adjacent region

  • Wen Guo
  • Ting Nie
  • Yuanlin SunEmail author
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Conodont and brachiopod biostratigraphic studies have been conducted at the Mode and Poyuan sections, Guangxi Province, South China. Combining these with seven previously studied sections, it is suggested that the appearance of the “Spirifer” tonkinensis Fauna in different areas of South China and adjacent areas is diachronous, showing an evident chronological trend from south to north. This trend is consistent with the northeastward transgression during the Early Devonian in South China. The “Spirifer” tonkinensis fauna may originate from northern Vietnam and then spread northwards into the South China Block. The persistence of the Early Devonian transgression resulted in the disappearance of favourable biotopes of the “Spirifer” tonkinensis Fauna (i.e. the near-shore, shallow marine environment with muddy substratum and plentiful terrigenous input), due to either a deepening of seawater or the development of a carbonate platform. This might ultimately have triggered the extinction of the fauna.

Keywords

“Spirifer” tonkinensis Fauna Brachiopods Conodonts Biostratigraphy Lower Devonian South China 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the reviewers Xueping Ma and Ulrich Jansen for their very useful comments and suggestions. Drs. Bing Shen, Lin Dong and Krister Smith offered linguistic assistance to improve the manuscript.

Funding information

This study is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41172001, 41772015) and Key Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology) (No. 2017KF08).

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

12549_2019_371_MOESM1_ESM.docx (28 kb)
ESM 1 (DOCX 27 kb)

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© Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Center for Excellence in Life and PaleoenvironmentChinese Academy of SciencesNanjingChina
  2. 2.Key Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and PalaeogeographyChinese Academy of Sciences (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology)NanjingChina
  3. 3.School of Earth and Space SciencesPeking UniversityBeijingChina

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