Rediscovery of Ordovician and Silurian trilobites from the Nares Arctic Expedition of 1875-6 from Ellesmere Island and western Greenland

Abstract

Recent reorganisation of the trilobite collections in the Natural History Museum, London UK, led to the discovery of two drawers of specimens from ‘Arctic America’. These fragmentary specimens had remained unincorporated within the systematic trilobite collections. Original labels identified them as the H.W. Feilden Collection from the Arctic Expedition of 1875-6, led by Sir George Nares with HMS Alert and HMS Discovery. Some of the specimens were described but not illustrated by Robert Etheridge in 1878 but his determinations were approximate at best. The early Ordovician trilobites are an important historic collection, as the first collected from so far north. They are re-described and figured here. They have close affinities with species from East Greenland, Svalbard and western USA. A Silurian pygidium from western Greenland is identified as Ekwanoscutellum agmen. All indicate an origination in shallow carbonate facies of Laurentia.