Paul Copper

Laurentian University · earth sciences

The subfamily Hindellinae is an early group of athyride brachiopods, characterized by a simple jugum that connects the laterally directed spiralia, which are disjunct from the crura. Four genera ( Hindella , Cryptothyrella , Koigia , and Hyattidina ) are reexamined on the basis of their internal structures, such as the crura and their connection to...

Cerasinella, A replacement name for the Silurian brachiopod genus Cerasina Copper 1995, Anticosti Island - Volume 89 Issue 5 - Paul Copper

Refinement of the 105–115 m thick Llandovery Jupiter Formation provides a more precise view of the tropical faunal recovery and radiation on the eastern margins of Laurentia. The formation spans the late Aeronian through mid-Telychian (438–434 Ma) and preserves an ‘experimental laboratory’ for evolution of tropical benthic communities in Laurentia,...

Inner to mid-shelf, shallow marine carbonates of the 80–85 m thick Becscie Formation conformably overlie the Ordovician/Silurian (Hirnantian/Rhuddanian) boundary. The carbonates were deposited on the eastern side of the Laurentia paleoplate, located at about 25° S latitude, within the tropical cyclone belt in the Early Silurian. The section is tect...

In modern marine ecosystems, sea-grass and chlorophyte meadows play an important ecological role by serving as a carbon sink. Despite their generally limited areal distribution, the high productivity of sea-grass meadows makes them an efficient assimilator of CO2. During the early Palaeozoic, complex life was virtually confined to the marine enviro...

ABSTRACT—A large and abundant columnar stromatoporoid, Quasiaulacera n. gen., from the Ellis Bay Formation, up to 3 m long and 40 cm in diameter, marks the Hirnantian (latest Ordovician) of Anticosti Island. Two species are present: Quasiaulacera stellata n. sp. from the basal Ellis Bay Formation (basal Prinsta Member, lower Hirnantian) along the n...

The type sections of the Ellis Bay Formation are revised to incorporate recent stratigraphic correlations east to west on Anticosti Island. This is one of the most complete tropical carbonate sequences spanning one of the major Phanerozoic mass extinction episodes. A richly fossiliferous benthic fauna faithfully records the change-over from the Ord...

An extensive late Aeronian patch reef swarm outcrops for 60-70 km on Anticosti Island, eastern Canada, located in the inner to mid-shelf area of a prominent tropical carbonate platform of southeastern Laurentia, at 20°-25° S paleolatitude of the southern typhoon belt. This complex, described here for the first time, includes more than 100 patch ree...

The 85-100 m thick carbonate succession of the Gun River Formation is revised on the basis of nearly continuous cliff sections measured on the northeast coast, and a re-analysis and re-measurement of the stratotype sections on the southwest coast of Anticosti island, Quebec. The Gun River Formation (Llandovery: lower Aeronian) is herein formally di...

The Late Ordovician culminated in a major glacial period that has been related to one of the strongest mass extinctions recorded during the Phanerozoic. During this interval, Anticosti Island (Québec, eastern Canada) was located at low to intermediate palaeolatitudes (15–30° S) on the eastern margin of Laurentia. It displays a relatively complete s...

From the beginning of the Late Ordovician (Sandbian: 460.9myr) through end Devonian (Famennian: 359.2myr), coral-stromatoporoid sponge reefs formed a remarkable, evolving ecosystem that dominated sediment production on tropical carbonate platforms in a calcitic ocean. This was a time of maximal and unparalleled reef development in the Phanerozoic,...

Multiple latest Ordovician (Rawtheyan–Hirnantian) glaciations in central Africa, with concomitant global sea-level lowstands and cooler, restricted, equatorial carbonate shelves and ramps, interrupted by warmer interstadial highstands, had a dramatic global impact on the tropical shallow-water reef ecosystem and carbonate production. With the Ordov...

This issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences is dedicated to Professor Glen Caldwell in honour of his extensive contributions to the field of paleontology and scientific publishing. After receiving his Ph.D. degree from the University of Glasgow in 1957, Dr. Caldwell joined the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatch...

A 4 m thick section in the late Ordovician sequence on Manitoulin Island revealed four successively shallowing carbonate environments, each with a distinctive fossil assemblage. The lowermost quieter water, muddy level bottom community was dominated by the brachiopod Zygospira. Next, increased laminar current action attracted smaller colonies of th...

The tetradiids were the most common tabulate coral component of the Ordovician (Caradocian–Ashgillian) sequence in the Manitoulin District, locally abundant enough to form biostromal accumulations. Five species, assigned to four genera, including a new subgenus Paenetetradium, are recognized in the section. In sequence, from oldest to youngest, the...

A Hirnantia fauna is recorded for the first time from Anticosti Island, situated 6 m below the beds interpreted here as representing the maximum regression at the eastern end of the island, the latter coinciding with the local top of the revised Ellis Bay Formation. The Ordovician–Silurian boundary on the island is discussed.

Chonetes (Eodevonaria) primigenius Twenhofel 1914, from the Vaureal Formation (Ashgill: Richmondian) of Anticosti Island, is chosen as the type species for a new genus, Archeochonetes, the oldest chonetid brachiopod known. Specimens of Archeochonetes from the overlying Ellis Bay Formation (Ashgili: Gamachian, Himantian) are assigned to a new specie...

Reexamination and serial sectioning of the type material of Reticularia septentrionalis Whiteaves 1904 and Meristina expansa Whiteaves 1904, from the Silurian (upper Llandovery) Attawapiskat Formation, Ekwan River, Hudson Bay Lowlands, indicate that they belong to the same species and that they can be assigned to the genus Pentameroides. These desc...

The middle to late Caradoc Bad Cache Rapids Formation of Southampton Island consists of three "members": a locally present thin siliciclastic unit, overlain by a highly fossiliferous wackestone, capped by a mudstone, all deposited in a broad, shallow shelf setting. This formation is, possibly unconformably, overlain by the early Ashgill Boas River...

The Anticosti carbonate platform-ramp that developed from Katian and Hirnantian through Llandovery (Early Silurian) time was situated in a tropical setting at ca. 25º latitude south of the equator, on the southern side and eastern flanks of Laurentia. This was separated from glaciated Gondwana to the south and subtropical Baltica to the east by rel...

Abstract The Wangchengpo Frasnian section of Dushan County contains two atrypid brachiopod assemblages. The lower is characterized by the Atryparia (Costatrypa) dushanensis fauna that appears at the base of the Hejiazhai Member approximately in the falsiovalis to transitans conodont zones; the upper is characterized by the Radiatrypa yangi fauna, w...

Rare but exquisite phosphatization of intercrystalline soft tissue in some shells of the latest Ordovician orthide brachiopod Plaesiomys anticostiensis from Anticosti Island, eastern Canada, is interpreted to have been microbially induced while the brachiopod was still alive, or immediately after death, before intensive decay of soft issue could ha...

Discovery of a suite of post-mass extinction virgianid brachiopods from the basal Silurian Becscie Formation ofAnticosti Island demonstrates either that the Virgiana lineage originated from Brevilamnulella, or that the two lineages were sister groups. Gradational modifications are observed in a morphoseriesfrom the Hirnantian genus Brevilamnulella,...

The diverse Katian (Late Ordovician) through Llandovery (Early Silurian) crinoid fauna from Anticosti Island is described. Previously, six described species were known; with one now a nomen dubium and two others placed in open nomenclature, herein. In contrast, Katian through Llandovery Anticosti crinoids are now recognized with 49 named species as...

Following the collapse of the >2000 km long Givetian (Middle Devonian) Inuitian/Ellesmere carbonate platform factory in arctic Canada, within the 0° to 10° equatorial palaeolatitudes north, the only Frasnian reefs in high arctic Canada retreated westwards, confined to northeastern Banks Island. These reefs, numbering well over 130, and dominated by...

Well-preserved shells of Ashgill (Katian-Hirnantian) and Llandovery nautiloids from Anticosti Island include the type species of 10 genera. From a diversity high of some 40 described nektic and nektobenthic species during the deeper water, distal shelf facies of the Vaureal Formation (late Katian, Richmondian), the succeeding Hirnantian shows a dec...

Multivariate analyses indicate that the brachiopod fauna of the Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) Ellis Bay Formation of Anticosti Island, eastern Canada, is highly distinct from the pre-Hirnantian epicontinental brachiopod fauna of Laurentia. Among the four types of brachiopod associations of the formation, most are unstable spatially and temporally, b...

Specimens of Favosites from upper Llandovery strata of Anticosti Island show three types of calcite structures, herein interpreted as spicules, preserved within their calices and on top of the last tabula. This is stratigraphically younger material, some 50 m higher than fossils described two decades earlier, in which calcified polyps, each with 12...

Over 1,000 m of Upper Ordovician to Lower Silurian mixed carbonate and clastic strata on Anticosti Island are nearly tectonically undisturbed, despite their proximity to the Northern Appalachians fronting Quebec's Gulf of St. Lawrence. Natural cliffs exposed along the coast and rivers in the eastern part of the island make a relatively conformable...

Rachebaeuf, P. R. & Copper, P. 1990 10 15: The mesolophe, a new lophophore type for chonetacean brachiopods. Lethaia, Val. 23, pp. 341–346. Oslo. ISSN 0024–1164. Following a summary of previous lophophore reconstructions for the chonetaceans, we describe an unusual pyritized structure within the calcite infill of an exceptionally preserved shell of...

Wetheredella tumulus n.sp. was an important constituent, both binder and frame builder, in reef and off-reef sediments of the Ashgillian Ellis Bay Formation of Anticosti Island in eastern Canada. In individual small, stromatolite-like mounds, it built a skeletal platform for attachment of associated serpulid worm tubes, bryozoans, crinoids and smal...

Epipunctae, a new type of shell perforation, are well developed in typical taxa of the family Plaesiomyidae, a group of common orthide brachiopods from Laurentia and some other tropically located tectonic plates of Late Ordovician age. These minute, prominently elongate, tubular structures are similar to endopunctac in size and density, but differ...

Shell-rich Llandovery strata of the Anticosti ramp to shelf tropical carbonate sequence yielded 17 orthide genera, to which are attributed 23 species: 13 of these are new species, one a new subspecies and one a new genus, Jupiterella, type J. eumorpha sp. nov. The other new species/subspecies are Dalejina junonis, ?Diceromyonia ciona, Flabellitesia...

Primary δ18O signals of 97 brachiopod shells from the Lower Silurian (Llandovery) carbonate succession of Anticosti Island were used to test the hypothesis of water-depth and water-temperature gradient for the Silurian onshore–offshore benthic assemblages (BA1–BA5). The analyzed shells were from the Pentamerus palaformis, Pentamerus oblongus, Stric...

Stegerhynchus was perhaps the most common rhynchonellide brachiopod in the Early Silurian (Llandovery) postextinction brachiopod fauna of North America. In shell morphology, it closely resembles the Late Ordovician rhynchonellide Rhynchotrema in having a rostrate shell posterior and simple, strong costae. It differs internally from Rhynchotrema pri...

Bioerosion was a common process affecting corals and stro-matoporoids in reef and off-reef facies on the carbonate ramp that spanned the Ordovician–Silurian boundary on Anticosti Island. The probable worm boring Trypanites was the dominant macroboring, penetrating more than 40% of 2,500 massive tabulate corals and stromatoporoids examined, occasion...

Framework in Silurian reefs from Gotland has been attributed to skeletons of metazoans, calcareous algae or calcimicrobes (e.g., Riding, 1981, Riding & Watts, 1981, Watts & Riding, 2000). Microfacies analysis of reef structures within the Högklint beds here reveal considerable amounts of microbolites [= benthic, non-skeletal, microbial deposits]. E...

Nicholsodiscus anticostiensis new genus and species (Mill Bay Member, Vauréal Formation, Rawtheyan, Upper Ordovician) is described from Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada. Nicholsodiscus anticostiensis n. gen. and sp. is known from two complete specimens preserved in situ with the cupule-bearing side facing toward the bedding surface. Sedimentologica...

Nicholsodiscus anticostiensis new genus and species (Mill Bay Member, Vauréal Formation, Rawtheyan, Upper Ordovician) is described from Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada. Nicholsodiscus anticostiensis n. gen. and sp. is known from two complete specimens preserved in situ with the cupule-bearing side facing toward the bedding surface. Sedimentologica...

2003.03 Copper, P. and Scotese, C.R., 2003. Megareefs in Mid-Devonian supergreenhouse climates. In, M.A. Chan & A.W. Archer (eds.), Extreme depositional environments: mega end members in geologic time, Geological Society America Special Paper 370: 209-230, (93) Abstract: A newly refined reef database, modified to calculate reef tracts in relation...

A newly compiled global reef database indicates that the 5–6 Myr long Frasnian (Late Devonian) metazoan reef episode had relatively low diversity compared to Middle Devonian highs (with over 200 genera of calcitic rugose and tabulate corals). Following an initial early rise after Late Givetian coral and stromatoporoid extinctions, reefs expanded fo...

The Java Sea, one of the few modern tropical epeiric seas, is used as an analogue to examine oceanography, stratigraphy, and reefs of Devonian strata in the Appalachian and Michigan Basins. Nearshore patch reefs and offshore “pinnacle” reefs occur in both the Java Sea and the Emsian-Eifelian Onondaga Formation in the Appalachian Basin. Nearshore pa...

Bioerosion was a significant process in the destruction of reef-building skeletons in early and mid-Paleozoic marine carbonate settings. Ordovician-Silurian corals and stromatoporoids from Anticosti Island show a limited diversity of macroborings, dominated by Trypanites, but also includes rare occurences of an Ordovician bivalve boring (Petroxeste...

The Silurian-Devonian (mid-Paleozoic), a time of periodic, exceptional sea level highstands, vast epicontinental sea lanes, and global greenhouse climates well above Holocene norms, also identifies the maximal extent of Phanerozoic metazoan reef development and the acme of coral and sponge reef biodiversity. Two peaks are identified for reef distri...

Reefs have an immensely long fossil record: those built by prokaryotes (Eubacteria and Archaea) have been with us for over 3 billion years, at a time when the atmosphere was enormously enriched in CO2 (possibly as much as the 95–98% CO2 atmospheres of the nearest planets Mars and Venus) and virtually devoid of oxygen. Skeletal reefs built by single...

Palaeontographica Canadiana No. 18 Late Ordovician and Early Silurian pentamerid brachiopods from Anticosti Island, Québec, Canada By Jisuo Jin and Paul Copper. November 2000. 140 pp., 31 pls. ISBN 0-919216-73-0; ISSN 0821-7556 ABSTRACT Upper Ordovician and Lower Silurian carbonate rocks of Anticosti Island, Québec contain 13 genera and subge...

The Devonian Articulate Brachiopods are not today as esteemed as biochronological tools as in the past, buy they continues to be very useful as index fossils especially at times in which increased provincialism makes difficult ubiquitous occurrence of primary index fossils. As a tool to apply in varied geological tasks, biochronological and biogeog...

Dicoelosia occurs in two deep water benthic shelly assemblages on an Early Silurian (uppermost Aeronian, Stimulograptus sedgwickii Zone) carbonate ramp to shelf, within the 25 m thick bluish-grey mudstone of the Richardson Member in the middle Jupiter Formation, Anticosti Island, Quebec. Dicoelosia dauphinensis new species is erected on the basis o...

A sample set of 164 calcitic brachiopod shells, covering the entire Silurian Period (~30 m.y.) with a resolution of about 0.7 m.y., was collected from stratotype sections at Anticosti Island (Canada), Wales (United Kingdom), Gotland (Sweden), Podolia (Ukraine), Latvia, and Lithuania. They show 87Sr/86Sr values ranging from 0.707930 to 0.708792 that...

Eight global Silurian reef-building episodes coincide with climatic and oceanic conditions characterized by inferred, warmer, high-latitude climates; salinity-dense bottom waters; and accompanying low-diversity, planktic and nektic faunas. Periodic removal of reef and level-bottom community habitats by tectophases and relative sea-level falls appea...

We collected 236 calcitic brachiopod shells, covering the entire Silurian Period (~ 30 m.y.), at high temporal resolution from stratotype sections from Anticosti Island (Canada), Wales (United Kingdom), the Oslo region (Norway), Gotland (Sweden), and Podolia (Ukraine), Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Data from petrography, scanning electron microsc...

Life. A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth. RICHARD FORTEY. Knopf, New York, 1998. xiv, 347 pp., + plates. $30 or C$42. ISBN 0-375-40119-9.

The Frasnian-Famennian (F-F) mass extinctions saw the global loss of all genera belonging to the tropically confined order Atrypida (And Pentamerida): through Famennian forms have been reported in the literature, none can be confirmed. Losses were more severe during the Givetian (including the extinctin of the suborder Davidsoniidina, and the reduc...

Day, J. & Copper, P. 1998. Revision of latest Givetian-Frasnian Atrypida (Brachiopoda) from central North America. -Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 43,2, 155-204. The brachiopod fauna of the Middle-Late Devonian cratonic carbonate platform deposits of the Iowa Basin, central North America, contains twenty species of the order Atrypida, some of which...

Ribbing became an increasingly common feature of pentamerid shells, especially the family Stricklandiidae, during the later Llandovery (Early Silurian). The thin shells of stricklandiids from the Llandovery (Aeronian-Telychian) equatorial carbonate rampshelf of Anticosti Island reveal at least three ribbing designs in various genera; 1) radially ar...

The smooth-shelled, spire-bearing, brachiopod genus Australina Clarke, 1913 (family Lissatrypidae), is revised on the basis of topotypic material collected from the middle and upper parts of the Los Espejos Formation (Ludlow, Upper Silurian) in San Jose de Jachal, northwest Argentina. Serial sectioning of topotypic material from the type species of...

Eight global Silurian reef-building episodes coincide with climatic and oceanic conditions characterized by inferred, warmer, high-latitude climates; salinity-dense bottom waters; and accompanying low-diversity, planktic and nektic faunas. Periodic removal of reef and level-bottom community habitats by tectophases and relative sea-level falls appea...

Eight global Silurian reef-building episodes coincide with climatic and oceanic conditions characterized by inferred, warmer, high-latitude climates; salinity-dense bottom waters; and accompanying low-diversity, planktic and nektic faunas. Periodic removal of reef and level-bottom community habitats by tectophases and relative sea-level falls appea...

Paleozoic-Mesozoic articulate brachiopods differ from bivalves in their preservation and capacity toproduce shellbeds by (1) a stable low-magnesium calcite shell with finely fibrous structure, (2) a stronger tooth-socket hinge, (3) lack of a ligament forcing the shell apart at death, and (4) lower predation susceptibility. Articulate orders and fam...

Abstract: Eight global reef-building episodes have been discerned for the Silurian Period. These episodes coincide with particular climatic and oceanic conditions characterized by inferred warmer high-latitude climates, salinity-dense bottom waters, and accompanying low-diversity planktic/nektic faunas. Such oceanic conditions promoted the developm...

The type species of Parastrophinella, P. reversa, a pentamerid brachiopod from the uppermost Ordovician (Hirnantian) Ellis Bay Formation of Anticosti Island, Quebec, shows that the genus is characterized by three features: 1) a ventral median septum apically buried in a thickened valve floor, but anteriorly rising above valve floor; 2) prominent al...

A number of global reef-building episodes have been discerned for the Silurian. Reef-building episodes coincide with particular climatic and oceanic conditions characterized by inferred warmer high-latitude climates, salinity-dense bottom waters, and accompanying low-diversity planktic faunas. Such oceanic conditions appear to have promoted establi...

Morphological, taphonomical, and sedimentological data from lower Llandovery fossils and strata of Anticosti Island demonstrate that the Virgiana community occupied a wide range of substrate settings from near or above fair-weather wave base to well below normal storm wave base. Globally the large-shelled pentamerid brachiopod genus Virgiana had a...

The late Llandovery through late Ludlow sequences of the stable carbonate platform of Gotland (Baltic Basin; western side of the Silurian paleocontinent Baltica) and the carbonate ramp of the Welsh Borderland area in England contain a richly fossiliferous fauna of atrypid brachiopods, including more than 60 species. This was a time of diversificati...

A number of global reef-building episodes have been discerned for the Silurian. Three are of major paleobiogeographic significance: two Wenlockian episodes, which coincide with acme of tabulate coral and stromatoporoid faunas; and a late Ludlovian episode, comprising more varied but less diverse calcareous- and siliceous-sponge, and coral communiti...

The fixosessile, perireefal to reefal Devonian epibiont Davidsonia cemented itself by its entire ventral valve to the underside of alveolitid tabulate corals, or to stromatoporoid sponges. It occupied a cryptic niche in perireefal biostromal thickets to reef complexes in the Old World faunal realm (Europe, western North America), and Uralian-Centra...

Uninterrupted, ~800 m thick, Ashgill through Llandovery carbonate strata from Anticosti Island (eastern Canada) reveal five new brachiopod genera, enhancing present knowledge about the early evolution of the spire-bearing order Atrypida, spanning some 10.2 million years of time, and a global mass extinction crisis. New taxa include smooth-shelled f...

Givetian species of Chinese brachiopods previously assigned to the genus Spinatrypa or Spinatrypina reveal an internal structure characteristic of other species referred to the Eifelian genus Kerpina and the cosmopolitan Frasnian genus lowatrypa. Serial sections clarify the nature of the Middle Devonian Chinese species, which are described here as...

Reefs of the Lower Silurian Chicotte Formation are the largest and most faunally diverse known on Anticosti Island, Quebec. They reach up to 25 m in thickness and 250 m in diameter and are present predominantly at two intervals, forming a lower and upper reef cluster. Remnants of bioherms are represented on the present-day wave-cut terrace as 60 to...

Cryptonella? cailliaudi Barrois, 1889, from the Lower Devonian of the Armorican Massif, is tenatively assigned to the athyridid brachiopod genus Planalvus Carter, thus far known only from the Lower Carboniferous of eastern North America. In addition, a new species, Planalvus rufus, is described from the Bois-Roux Formation (Pragian) of Brittany, Fr...

Platform carbonate and, particularly, reef ecosystem development (with reefs representing the acme of carbonate platform growth) were highly cyclical in early to mid Paleozoic time, especially in relation to known or postulated times of global warming or cooling. These cycles do not appear to correspond to postulated 26 Ma rhythms seen in diversity...