Late Carboniferous Tropical Dryland Vegetation in an Alluvial-plain Setting, Joggins, Nova Scotia, Canada

Other| June 01, 2003 Late Carboniferous Tropical Dryland Vegetation in an Alluvial-plain Setting, Joggins, Nova Scotia, Canada HOWARD J. FALCON-LANG HOWARD J. FALCON-LANG 1Department of Earth Sciences, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3J5, Canada, howard.falcon-lang@bristol.ac.uk * Current address: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK. Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar PALAIOS (2003) 18 (3): 197–211. https://doi.org/10.1669/0883-1351(2003)018<0197:LCTDVI>2.0.CO;2 Article history accepted: 12 Nov 2002 first online: 03 Mar 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation HOWARD J. FALCON-LANG; Late Carboniferous Tropical Dryland Vegetation in an Alluvial-plain Setting, Joggins, Nova Scotia, Canada. PALAIOS 2003;; 18 (3): 197–211. doi: https://doi.org/10.1669/0883-1351(2003)018<0197:LCTDVI>2.0.CO;2 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyPALAIOS Search Advanced Search Abstract The composition and ecology of Late Carboniferous tropical, dryland plant communities are described for the first time. The study focuses on a 700-m-thick succession through the Langsettian Joggins Formation. Red bed units (5–110 m thick) bearing isolated pedogenic carbonate nodules occur at fourteen intervals and are interpreted as originating in a seasonally dry, well-drained, alluvial-plain setting characterized, in places, by an anastomosing fluvial geometry. A quantitative quadrat analysis of red bed floral assemblages preserved as compressions, impressions, calcareous permineralizations, and charcoal was undertaken. Cordaites, represented by woody trunks, branches, pith casts, leaves, and seeds, comprise 74% of the red bed floral thanatomass, together with minor pteridosperms and sphenopsids, and rare sigillarian lycopsids. Taphonomic data demonstrate that while fire-prone cordaite-pteridosperm vegetation dominated nearly all seasonally dry floodplain niches, hydrophilic lycopsids and sphenopsids were restricted to riparian settings where water availability was greatest. Calculation of standard diversity indices indicates that growing conditions were generally stressful, consistent with a seasonal environment. The composition of these dryland communities differs markedly from lycopsid-dominated wetland communities known from gray, coal-bearing successions at other intervals in the Joggins Formation. Sequence stratigraphic analysis of the Joggins Formation suggests that dryland communities represent the vegetation of seasonal continental-interior environments in contrast to wetland communities that grew in humid coastal settings. Repeated alternations between continental and coastal settings were caused by tectonically and/or eustatically driven base-level fluctuations that resulted in marine transgressive-regressive rhythms minimally hundreds of kilometers long. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.