ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 4177
Poster No. = 974


LANDSCAPE CHARACTERISTICS AND BIOTIC ASSOCIATIONS OF A LATE DEVONIAN ARCHAEOPTERIS FOREST, RED HILL, CLINTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, USA


Walter Cressler, Dept. of Geology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6316, USA


The Red Hill locality in Clinton County, north-central Pennsylvania, is a kilometer-long roadcut through the alluvial rocks of the Late Devonian Catskill Formation. It bears an Archaeopteris-dominated plant fossil assemblage that also includes cormose lycopsids, seed cupules, and sphenopteroid whole-plant compressions. Most of the plant fossils are found within a reduced layer that most likely derived from a flood plain pond. The outcrop as a whole represents a large stratigraphic sequence with cyclic fluvial deposition and flood plain soil formation. The paleosols contain abundant large root traces, and vertic features which imply seasonal wet-dry condition. The plant fossils are associated with a rich fauna at Red Hill that includes a diversity of fish as well as tetrapods and terrestrial invertebrates, such as scorpions and a trigonotarbid arachnid. Red Hill provides a detailed window onto a Late Devonian environment in which Archaeopteris was the dominant forest tree.


HTML-Version made 7. July 1999 by Kurt Stüber