Scholarly record

BIODIVERSITY OF THE WESTPHALIAN A MARINE MARKER HORIZON OF THE NORTHWEST EUROPEAN CARBONIFEROUS BASIN: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PALEOECOLOGICAL STUDIES

Ewa Krzeszowska

Abstract

Westphalian A marine horizon Dunbarella is especially important for correlation of Carboniferous in the Lublin Coal Basin (LCB), and in the other basins of the Northwest European Carboniferous Basin (NWECB). Within the horizon Dunbarella an abundant fauna, mainly Mollusca (predominantly bivalves, goniatites, gastropods) and Brachiopoda, were identified. The distribution of fauna in the analysed horizon within the investigated boreholes, fluctuates in terms of both abundance and taxonomy, and cyclic sedimentation typical of marine Westphalian horizons was observed. Palaeontological study of this horizon showed the presence of macrofauna representing different paleoecological conditions, from fully marine, brackish (non-marine) to freshwater conditions. The paper presents changing in biodiversity within the Dunbarella horizon, analyzed using some statistical tools (e.g. species richness S, Margalef Index R1, Simpson's Index D, Shannon index H). The statistical analysis have shown that the trends, recognized in the faunistic diversity, appear to be closely related to the changes in environmental conditions, marine ingressions, and periodic freshening, connected with palaeoclimatic, and palaeogeographic evolution of the Northwest European Carboniferous Basin.

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