The latest shallow-sea isocrinids from the Miocene of Paratethys and implications to the Mesozoic marine revolution

Abstract

The predation-driven Mesozoic marine revolution (MMR) is believed to have induced a dramatic change in the bathymetric distribution of many shallow marine invertebrates since the late Mesozoic. For instance, stalked crinoids – isocrinids (Isocrinida) have undergone a striking decline in shallow-sea environments and today they are restricted to deep-sea settings (below 100 m depth). However, the timing and synchronicity of this shift are a matter of debate. A delayed onset of MMR and/or shifts to a retrograde, low-predation community structure during the Paleogene in the Southern Ocean were invoked. In particular, recent data from the Southern Hemisphere suggest that the environmental restriction of isocrinids to the deep-sea settings may have occurred at the end of the Eocene around Antarctica and Australia, and later in the early Miocene in New Zealand. Here, we report the anomalous occurrence of the isocrinids in shallow nearshore marine facies from the middle Miocene of Poland (Northern Hemisphere, Central Paratethys). Thus, globally, this is the youngest record of shallow-sea stalked crinoids. This finding suggests that some relict stalked crinoids may have been able to live in the shallow-water environments by the middle Miocene, and further confirms that the depth restriction of isocrinids to offshore environments was not synchronous on a global scale.