The first record of Early Devonian ammonoids from Belgium and their stratigraphic significance
GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Fachgruppe PaläoUmwelt, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Loewenichstrasse 28, 91054 Erlangen; e-mail: kenneth.debaets@fau.de
Operational Direction Earth and Life History, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium, and Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium
Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Paläozoologie III, Senckenberganlage 25, D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Cosmeaduin 19, Leiden 2318 XB, Netherlands
Paläontologisches Institut und Museum, Universität Zürich, Karl-Schmid-Strasse 4, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland
Abstract
The first ammonoids from the Lower Emsian (Devonian) of Belgium are described. They belong to the Anetoceratinae, which show the most plesiomorphic characters of all ammonoids. This is the second report of Early Emsian ammonoids within the Rhenish facies of the Rhenish Slate Mountains (Belgium, Germany), in this case from the Belgian part of the Eifel (Burg Reuland). It highlights the possible importance of ammonoids for the correlation of the Emsian in its traditional German sense and the Emsian in the global sense as delimited by the GSSPs. Newly collected, age-significant brachiopods of the genera Arduspirifer and Euryspirifer and other previously reported fossils indicate a middle or late Early Emsian (Singhofen or Vallendar) age (in German sense) for this locality. We extend the range of Ivoites schindewolfi outside of the Hunsrück Basin and further corroborate an age younger than Ulmen for parts of the Hunsrück Slate.