Stijn Goolaerts
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B-1000 Brussels
Keywords:
Late Devonian, Belgium, Dinant Synclinorium, Chondrichthyes, Microfossils
Abstract
Samples from the Upper Frasnian (Devonian) of Lompret Quarry and Nismes railway section in Dinant Synclinorium, southern Belgium, yielded several chondrichthyan teeth and scales. The teeth belong to three genera: Phoebodus, Cladodoides and Protacrodus. The comparison with selected Late Frasnian chondrichthyan assemblages from the seas between Laurussia and Gondwana revealed substantial local differences of taxonomic composition due to palaeoenvironmental conditions, such as depth, distance to submarine platforms, oxygenation of water, and possibly also temperature. The assemblage from Belgium, with its high frequency of phoebodonts, is the most similar to that from the Ryauzyak section, South Urals, Russia, and the Horse Spring section, Canning Basin, Australia.
