Vegetation ecology of Early Pennsylvanian alluvial fan and piedmont environments in southern New Brunswick, Canada

Abstract

The vegetation ecology of Pennsylvanian upland/dryland regions is poorly known, despite its evolutionary significance. Here, fossil plant assemblages are described from well-drained alluvial fan/piedmont deposits in the uppermost Boss Point and Tynemouth Creek formations (late Yeadonian–Langsettian), southern New Brunswick. Beds record the northward building of a large alluvial fan complex over alluvial plain deposits in response to near-continuous sourceland uplift. Proximal alluvial fan environments, characterized by sheetfloods and braided streams, were dominated by large cordaitalean trees, medullosan pteridosperms, ferns, and calamiteans. Distal alluvial fan environments, where braided stream and leveé/splay sedimentation predominated, were covered by similar vegetation, together with lycopsids in localized poorly drained depressions. Calamitean thickets were particularly widespread in rapidly aggrading settings on the distal fan. Well-drained alluvial plains beyond the fan toe were characterized by axial braided rivers containing cordaitalean trunks transported from proximal settings. Piedmont vegetation is otherwise poorly resolved. All studied plant assemblages are of low- to medium-diversity, and dominated by the remains of a single group, cordaitalean seed plants. Such dominance-diversity characteristics, together with the presence of charcoal, the product of wildfire, imply that Pennsylvanian upland/dryland vegetation experienced water-stress and that the seed habit was integral to successful colonization.