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Paleoecological and paleoenvironmental interpretation of three successive macrofloras and palynofloras from the Kola Switch locality, lower Permian (Archer City Formation, Bowie Group) of Clay County, Texas, USA

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Abstract

Fossil floras have been recovered from a unique deposit of early Permian age in North-Central Texas. The site, Kola Switch, preserves three distinct floras in different lithofacies, in a succession from a single outcrop. The sedimentary environment appears to be a floodplain channel fill of primarily siltstones and claystones. The lowermost flora, preserved in a kaolinitic siltstone, indicates active water flow. It is dominated by plants typical of well-drained substrates, dominated by Sphenopteris germanica, and contains no wetland elements. The middle flora is from a finely laminated carbonaceous claystone and is dominated by marattialean tree ferns, with no elements from habitats typical of seasonal moisture availability. It contains no roots and appears to have formed as a floating peat mat. The upper flora is a mixed assemblage of wetland taxa and those typical of well-drained soil environments or a seasonal rainfall regime. Unlike the two lower floras, it has a relatively even distribution of dominance and is the most diverse of the three assemblages. Palynofloras also were recovered from each of these beds. The palynofloras, although varying between and even within the beds, indicate a common background species pool during the time interval sampled, suggesting that these distinct floras reflect local changes in microhabitat conditions under a constant climatic background. The palynoflora from each bed has characteristics in common with the macroflora of that bed, but also distinct differences. Together, the macroflora and microflora provide an unusually broad picture of this site through time. Kola Switch compares favorably with the recently described flora from the nearby Sanzenbacher Ranch site of approximately the same age and also with floras of Rotliegend age from Central Europe.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is dedicated to our colleague, mentor, and friend, Hans Kerp. We thank the late Sergius Mamay (US Geological Survey), the late Nicholas Hotton, III (Smithsonian Institution), Kenneth Craddock (Denton, Texas), and the late Louis Todd (Denton, Texas) for assistance with property access and collecting. Tucker Hentz (Texas Bureau of Economic Geology) and Rudolf Serbet (University of Kansas) assisted materially in identifying the location and composition of the collection made by Theordore Delevoryas. Hermann Pfefferkorn, an anonymous reviewer, and associate editor Benjamin Bomfleur are gratefully acknowledged for providing comments that materially improved the paper. The research of Carol Hotton was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine. The fieldwork of Hook and DiMichele was supported by a Scholarly Studies grant from the Smithsonian Institution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NMNH Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

    William A. DiMichele & Carol L. Hotton

  2. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Carol L. Hotton

  3. University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Cindy V. Looy

  4. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Robert W. Hook

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  1. William A. DiMichele
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  2. Carol L. Hotton
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  4. Robert W. Hook
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Correspondence to William A. DiMichele.

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Handling Editor: Benjamin Bomfleur.

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DiMichele, W.A., Hotton, C.L., Looy, C.V. et al. Paleoecological and paleoenvironmental interpretation of three successive macrofloras and palynofloras from the Kola Switch locality, lower Permian (Archer City Formation, Bowie Group) of Clay County, Texas, USA. PalZ 93, 423–451 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12542-019-00485-8

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