Significance of crinoid preservation: Clare Shale Formation (Upper Carboniferous), Fisherstreet Bay, Doolin, County Clare, Ireland

Stephen K Donovan; Eamon N Doyle

doi:10.1016/j.pgeola.2020.05.005

Significance of crinoid preservation: Clare Shale Formation (Upper Carboniferous), Fisherstreet Bay, Doolin, County Clare, Ireland

Proc Geol Assoc. 2020 Oct;131(5):601-603. doi: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2020.05.005. Epub 2020 Jul 1.

Authors

Stephen K Donovan^{1

2}, Eamon N Doyle³

Affiliations

¹ Taxonomy and Systematics Group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Postbus 9517, 2300, RA Leiden, the Netherlands.
² c/o Apartment 5, Worsley Point, 251 Worsley Road, Swinton, Manchester M27 0YE, UK.
³ Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark, Clare County Council, Municipal District of West Clare, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Ireland.

Abstract

Some fossils, such as crinoid stems, are not widely appreciated by collectors and researchers, yet can provide unique data regarding taphonomy and palaeoecology. A long crinoid pluricolumnal showing a distinctive pattern of preservation was collected from the Clare Shale Formation (Upper Carboniferous) at Fisherstreet Bay, Doolin, County Clare, western Ireland. The specimen is partly disarticulated and represents the mesistele to mesistele/dististele transition; attachment was by unbranched long, slender radices; pluricolumnal heteromorphic; fragments of pluricolumnal are of multiples of a unit length. This specimen, cladid? sp. indet., slumped to the seafloor after death and started to disarticulate as ligaments rotted. By reference to the broken stick model, the pattern of disarticulation suggests that the noditaxis of the heteromorphic stem was N212.

Keywords: Broken-stick model; Disarticulation; Palaeoecology; Taphonomy; Train crash crinoids.