Siluro-Devonian trace fossils from the Mereenie Sandstone, Kings Canyon, Watarrka National Park, Amadeus Basin, Northern Territory, Australia

Abstract

Gouramanis, C. & McLoughlin, S., January 2016. Siluro-Devonian trace fossils from the Mereenie Sandstone, Kings Canyon, Watarrka National Park, Amadeus Basin, Northern Territory, Australia. Alcheringa 40, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518Nine trackways referable to the ichnogenus Diplichnites are preserved in the upper Silurian to Lower Devonian Mereenie Sandstone at Kings Canyon, Watarrka National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. Eight trackways are consistent with earlier descriptions of D. gouldi, and one trackway could not be assigned to an ichnospecies. The trackways are co-preserved with a range of sub-horizontal burrows referable to Beaconites and Taenidium, and several vertical burrows, surficial circular traces and a horizontal trail of uncertain identities. The ichnofossil assemblage highlights the diversity of animals present in the late Silurian to Lower Devonian paralic to fluvial environments of central Australia at the time of early colonization of the land’s surface. The assemblage is similar to ichnofaunas from coeval strata elsewhere in Australia and throughout Gondwana, and it highlights the potential of this region for further ichnological studies to elucidate the early stages of terrestrialization in the palaeoequatorial belt.Chris Gouramanis [cgouramanis@ntu.edu.sg], Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798; Stephen McLoughlin [steve.mcloughlin@nrm.se], Department of Palaeobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, S-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.