First steps on land: Arthropod trackways in Cambrian-Ordovician eolian sandstone, southeastern Ontario, Canada
Abstract
Basal terrestrial deposits in the Cambrian-Ordovician Nepean Formation (Potsdam Group) near Kingston, Ontario, contain arthropod-produced trackways that extend the record of the first arthropod landfall back by as much as 40 m.y. The presence of large, simple cross-beds and of wind-produced structures, including adhesion ripples and wind-ripple lamination, indicates that the host strata were deposited in an eolian dune field, probably in a marginal-marine setting. The trackways were preserved mainly as undertracks and record the activities of large, amphibious arthropods, possibly euthycarcinoids.
- Publication:
-
Geology
- Pub Date:
- May 2002
- DOI:
- 10.1130/0091-7613(2002)030<0391:FSOLAT>2.0.CO;2
- Bibcode:
- 2002Geo....30..391M