Paleo-biogeography summaries
http://www.bechly.de/paleodat.htm
"Pre Cambrian"
An enigmatic fauna the Vendobiota or Vendozoa
http://www.swcp.com/~diamond/trilobites.html
http://www.kheper.auz.com/gaia/biosphere/biota/Vendian.html
The relationships of these fossils remains unclear
But these fossils along with microfossils such as the acritarchs
http://alun.uio.no/palmus/galleri/montre/english/mic02.htm
Show some biogeographical patterns suggesting a super continent with Antarctica+India+North
China + South China to the north and Africa+South America + Siberia + Baltica to the south
clustered around Laurentia (N America)
Palmer's Cambrian trilobite study
http://www.aloha.net/~smgon/trilobite.htm
Two provinces
Olenellid Province North & South America N. Western Europe - Scandinavia
Redlichiid Province China; South Asia Australia and Antarctica
A mix in SW Europe adjacent parts of North Africa and Asiatic Russia
As many as 7 identifiable regions
Antarctica strikingly similar to Siberia
Argentina strikingly similar to N America
Argentine very different from Antarctica
Ordovician trilobites
Early
A Bathyurid fauna in N America plus Greenland + Great Britain westernmost Scandinavia and
north and central Asia
An Asaphid fauna in Baltic and Urals regions as far North as Novaya Zemlya Island
A Selenopeltis fauna around the Mediterranean Sea
A Hungaiid-calymenid fauna along the Andes NW India East China and Central Australia
Late
A Monorakid-remopleuridid fauna from N America+ Greenland through Great Britain the Baltic
the Urals and N Central Asia
A Trinucleid-Homalonotid fauna mostly circum Mediterranean but some representation in East
Asia
A Pliomerina-calymenid fauna in East Asia the Andes and perhaps the Cape plus Australia
There was an Ordovician Gondwanan distribution represented by the Hungaiid-calymenid
and later Pliomerina-calymenid fauna
Bathyurid and later Monorakid-remopleuridid fauna was northern found widely from The
Canadian shield; Scotland, Norway+ Spitsbergen to North Central Asia
Ordovician conodonts
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/earth/geoscience/conodont.html
http://geology.csusb.edu/cdont_art.htm
A North Atlantic (European) province extending from the rookies southward across southern US
then up along the east coast and across to Great Britain and the Baltic
A Mid-continent province centered in central N. America and extending toward the NE.
Ordovician Brachiopods
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/brachiopoda/brachiopoda.html
http://www.mpm.edu/reef/brachiopod.html
A Gondwonan province throughout the Ordovician that included eastern South America.
Southern and Eastern Africa Southern Arabian Peninsula South Asia south of the Himalayas.
Characterized by the southern Hirnatia fauna
The Northern regions were more complex.
Early Ordovician
An Orthidiella fauna from far Eastern Siberia to western North America
An Orthidium fauna centered in NE North America
A Baltic Gonoambonitid-Lycophoriid fauna
And a central European Daimanillid fauna
Later the Eastern N American seaboard was united with Great Britain/Baltic by the BimuriidChristianiid fauna. The former may have extended as far as central Asia
A Gonambonitid fauna continued in western Asia
The link between central and eastern N America with the British Isles and the Baltic continued
through the Ordovician as did the far west N American-Siberian connection.
Graptolites
http://www.premdesign.com/grapto.html
http://www.toyen.uio.no/palmus/galleri/montre/english/graptolites_liste_e.htm
More mixing and more widely spread
An Atlantic fauna found in British Isles, the Baltic the Mediterranean and N Africa and a Pacific
fauna found in N America East China S E Australia and South Island New Zealand.
The two were found together in the Andes and central and north Asia
Corals showed a similar pattern with a generalized southern fauna and a complex set of northern
faunas
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cnidaria/rugosa.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cnidaria/tabulata.html
Fell attempted to rationalize these patterns1000 genera of sallow water invertebrates.
He found two great faunal provinces
I. Europe Africa S. America
Africa shares 95% of its genera with Europe
S America shares 44% of its genera with Europe
S America shares 37% of its genera with N. America
II N America Australia Greenland Central Asia
Africa shares only 5% of its genera with S. America
Australia shares 75% of its genera with N. America and Asia
But only 9% with S. America and 2% with Africa
Silurian
Brachiopods
I. A Malvino-kaffric province – eastern South America south of the Amazon; and the Cape plus
parts of Antarctica
II. A Northern province
a) A wide spread North Atlantic sub-province stretching from N America East of the
Rockies, South to the Amazon basin and east trough the Baltic, Scandinavia to the Urals
b) a Ural-cordilleran sub-province that ranged through Asia east of the Urals to
Northwestern-most N America and East Australia and New Zealand.
There also existed a very localized Tuvaella brachiopod community in south central Asia.
Devonian
In the lower Devonian Malvinokaffaric brachiopods spread to Antarctica , western S America
and the Gulf of Guinea This wide spread province diminished in range in the upper Devonian.
The lower Devonian Appalachian province (Equivalent to the eastern part of the North Atlantic
sub-province became restricted to eastern N America, but also spread to western S. America
north of the Amazon. This continued through the upper Devonian.
The lower Devonian Old world province (equivalent to the Ural-Cordilleran sub-province ranged
across the far North from NW N America through the Mediterranean and much of Asia of
eastern Australia. In the upper Devonian this province became even more widespread through
Asia
The Devonian saw the rise of fishes which contributed much to our knowledge of
paleobiogeography.
Heterostrachan fishes became common in the Silurian and Devonian. They were mostly centered
in N. America west of the Rockies trough Great Britain, the Baltic Greenland Iceland and NE
Asia.
Much of this diversification was around the shores of a northern sea bounded by the Old Red
Continent and an arctic N central Asian "Tungussian continent.
Land plants also showed this pattern with a set of floras that ranged from N Africa through Great
Britain, the Baltic and Scandinavia through Greenland and Western Canada.
Carboniferous
Corals showed some differentiation in their distribution
I. A Cordilleran-North American region that spread from western North America across
northernmost Asia.
II A Eurasiatic region that was centered around the Mediterranean bud had a broad extension
northward through the Urals and Eastward through Kazakhstan to SE Asia parts of China and N.
E. Siberia to Novya Zemlya. This region also included the tip of Nova Scotia.
III An East Australian region
The Carboniferous also saw the development of amphibian fauns and the early rise of the
reptiles. Some showed a N. American Great Britain central European distribution.
Terrestrial floras during the Carboniferous showed an extremely widely distributed
Lepidodendropsis flora
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/plants/lycophyta/protolepido.html
http://ibs.uel.ac.uk/ibs/palaeo/pfr2/geosites.htm
This world-wide flora was found in both N and S America, Greenland, N. Africa + the Cape;
Great Britain, Iceland, central Europe all the way to eastern Asia and east Australia
The second major flora of the Lower Carboniferous was the Angara flora that was restricted to
NE Asia and Siberia.
An identifiable sub province of the widespread Euramerican province was the Kazakhstan
province running N-S thought Central Asia
In the Upper Carboniferous the Euramerican Province became differentiated into a Cordilleran
and a Cathasian sub-province along with the NE American and European core Euramerican subprovince. The Angaran province remained separate.
Permian
The differentiation of the Euramerian, Cathaysian and N. American provinces continued. The
Angaran spread somewhat westward to include the Urals
Fusulinids exhibited a Tethyan fauna extending E-W from Japan and S.E. Asia through Asia
Europe to eastern N America.
http://www.kgs.ukans.edu/Publications/ancient/f06_fusulin.html
At the time of the late Paleozoic floral differentiation in the northern continents there was a great
revolution n plant biology going on in the south
http://www.paleoweb.org/smmWeb/smm/pages/plants1.htm#glo
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1991/6/91.06.05.x.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/glossary/indexg.shtml#Glossopteris
A new kind of plant life appeared called Glossopteris
http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/bot511/riasfl.htm
http://www.paleoweb.org/smmWeb/smm/pages/plants1.htm
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1991/6/91.06.05.x.html
This genus and related plants and associated flora was wide-spread throughout the 4 southern
continents (Africa, Australia, Antarctica and S. America plus India
It was this flora that was the main underpinning for the theory of a Gondwanan continent.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/earth/Continents.shtml