Welsh Borderland Research Articles

Preserved appendages in a Silurian binodicope: implications for the evolutionary history of ostracod crustaceans.

Ostracod crustaceans originated at least 500 Ma ago. Their tiny bivalved shells represent the most species-abundant fossil arthropods, and ostracods are omnipresent in a wide array of freshwater and marine environments today and in the past. Derima paparme gen. et sp. nov. from the Herefordshire Silurian Lagerstätte (~430 Ma) in the Welsh Borderland, UK, is one of only a handful of exceptionally preserved ostracods (with soft parts as well as the shell) known from the Palaeozoic. A male specimen provides the first evidence of the appendages of Binodicopina, a major group of Palaeozoic ostracods comprising some 135 Ordovician to Permian genera. The appendage morphology of D. paparme, but not its shell, indicates that binodicopes belong to Podocopa. The discovery that the soft-part morphology of binodicopes allies them with podocopes affirms that using the shell alone is an unreliable basis for classifying certain fossil ostracods, and knowledge of soft-part morphology is critical for the task. Current assignment of many fossil ostracods to higher taxa, and therefore the evolutionary history of the group, may require reconsideration.

The Charnwood Terrane revisited: an integrated petrogenetic and petrophysical model for crustal structure in southern Britain

We based an integrated petrological and petrophysical model for the Ediacaran crust of southern Britain on a review of the c. 570–550 Ma Charnian volcano-sedimentary complex. The latter was emplaced in a magmatic rift wedge within the juvenile continental crust of the c. 720–600 Ma Marches Terrane, a subduction magmatic domain formed at the margin of the Gondwana palaeocontinent. The Charnian magmatic arc is characterized by primitive island arc tholeiite to more evolved calc-alkaline compositions. The inversion of aeromagnetic potential field data and petrophysical modelling reveals details of the internal structure of the Charnian Domain, including a median rift, superimposed annular structures and partitioning lineaments. The modelling suggests that the arc foundation could incorporate magnetite-rich cumulates, which may explain the anomalous geophysical properties, including crustal thickness, rigidity and buoyancy. There is no evidence for significant tectonic displacement between the Charnian Domain and its Marches Terrane host. Instead, the domain likely occupies a wedge-shaped arc/marginal rift basin complex, propagated from a neighbouring ocean into the Gondwana margin. Contemporaneous volcanic rift successions in the Welsh Borderland and Wales of the 570–550 Ma Charnian magmatic phase developed in coeval ensialic rifts within less strongly extended Marches Terrane lithosphere. A comparable diversity of subduction-related magmatism is found in the Neogene–recent Hikurangi destructive margin of New Zealand, providing a plausible analogue for Charnian magmatism. Supplementary material: Supplementary Publication 1 (borehole geophysical log correlation; petrophysical data table; unannotated geophysical maps and sections) and Supplementary Publication 2 (geochemistry analytical conditions and data table) are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6805248

Late Silurian event stratigraphy and facies of South Wales and the Welsh Borderland, United Kingdom

AbstractLithofacies and biostratigraphical analysis has enabled the establishment of a stratigraphic event framework for Ludfordian and Pridoli strata in south Wales and the Welsh Borderland. In SW Wales, the Golden Grove Axis acted as a structural hinge separating the shallow marine storm-influenced Cae’r mynach Seaway from a pediment surface above which Ludfordian colluvium (Abercyfor Formation) was deposited. The Axis seeded four NW-derived river-influenced delta progrades of Leintwardinian to early Pridoli age (Tilestones Formation). A NE-sourced early Pridoli wave-influenced delta deposited the Downton Castle Sandstone Formation (DCSF), coeval to the youngest Tilestones prograde, with a lateral interface existing between Mynydd Epynt and the Clun Forest area. Except for the Malverns area, the DCSF is no longer recognized south of the Neath Disturbance. Early Pridoli forced regression promoted widespread subaerial exposure north of the Neath Disturbance, with incision into tracts close to the Welsh Borderland Fault System. The basinward-shift in facies belts resulted in marine erosion and deposition of a phosphatic ravinement pebble lag. The wave-influenced Clifford’s Mesne Sandstone Formation delta subsequently seeded on the Gorsley Axis with tidally influenced Rushall Formation accumulating in a back-barrier setting. The Pwll-Mawr Formation records the easterly advance of coeval coastal deposits on the western side of the remnant Cae’r mynach Seaway. Behind migrating delta coastlines, green muds accumulated on coastal plains (Temeside Mudstone Formation) with better drained red dryland alluvium (Moor Cliffs Formation) charting expansion of Old Red Sandstone lithofacies. Mid-Pridoli incision preserves the Pont ar Llechau Formation estuarine valley fill.

The Stonehenge Altar Stone was probably not sourced from the Old Red Sandstone of the Anglo-Welsh Basin: Time to broaden our geographic and stratigraphic horizons?

Stone 80, the recumbent Altar Stone, is the largest of the Stonehenge foreign “bluestones”, mainly igneous rocks forming the inner Stonehenge circle. The Altar Stone’s anomalous lithology, a sandstone of continental origin, led to the previous suggestion of a provenance from the Old Red Sandstone (ORS) of west Wales, close to where the majority of the bluestones have been sourced (viz. the Mynydd Preseli area in west Wales) some 225 km west of Stonehenge. Building upon earlier investigations we have examined new samples from the Old Red Sandstone (ORS) within the Anglo-Welsh Basin (covering south Wales, the Welsh Borderland, the West Midlands and Somerset) using traditional optical petrography but additionally portable XRF, automated SEM-EDS and Raman Spectroscopic techniques. One of the key characteristics of the Altar Stone is its unusually high Ba content (all except one of 106 analyses have Ba > 1025 ppm), reflecting high modal baryte. Of the 58 ORS samples analysed to date from the Anglo-Welsh Basin, only four show analyses where Ba exceeds 1000 ppm, similar to the lower range of the Altar Stone composition. However, because of their contrasting mineralogies, combined with data collected from new automated SEM-EDS and Raman Spectroscopic analyses these four samples must be discounted as being from the source of the Altar Stone. It now seems ever more likely that the Altar Stone was not derived from the ORS of the Anglo-Welsh Basin, and therefore it is time to broaden our horizons, both geographically and stratigraphically into northern Britain and also to consider continental sandstones of a younger age. There is no doubt that considering the Altar Stone as a ‘bluestone’ has influenced thinking regarding the long-held view to a source in Wales. We therefore propose that the Altar Stone should be ‘de-classified’ as a bluestone, breaking a link to the essentially Mynydd Preseli-derived bluestones.

Hidden functional complexity in the flora of an early land ecosystem.

The first land ecosystems were composed of organisms considered simple in nature, yet the morphological diversity of their flora was extraordinary. The biological significance of this diversity remains a mystery largely due to the absence of feasible study approaches. To study the functional biology of Early Devonian flora, we have reconstructed extinct plants from fossilised remains in silico. We explored the morphological diversity of sporangia in relation to their mechanical properties using finite element method. Our approach highlights the impact of sporangia morphology on spore dispersal and adaptation. We discovered previously unidentified innovations among early land plants, discussing how different species might have opted for different spore dispersal strategies. We present examples of convergent evolution for turgor pressure resistance, achieved by homogenisation of stress in spherical sporangia and by torquing force in Tortilicaulis-like specimens. In addition, we show a potential mechanism for stress-assisted sporangium rupture. Our study reveals the deceptive complexity of this seemingly simple group of organisms. We leveraged the quantitative nature of our approach and constructed a fitness landscape to understand the different ecological niches present in the Early Devonian Welsh Borderland flora. By connecting morphology to functional biology, these findings facilitate a deeper understanding of the diversity of early land plants and their place within their ecosystem.

The sedimentology, ichnology and invertebrate palaeontology of the late Silurian Downton Bone Bed

The Downton Bone Bed is a Konzentrat-Lagerstätte deposit located in the Welsh Borderlands, United Kingdom. The Downton Bone Bed is late Silurian, considered to be Přídolí in age, and occurs within the Platyschisma Shale Member of the Downton Castle Sandstone Formation. The bone bed is exposed at Weir Quarry (Herefordshire), which this study proposes should become established as the type locality for this stratigraphic horizon, due to the destruction of other localities and lack of access to other sites. As Weir Quarry is one of the last remaining exposures of this unit, the objective of this study is to qualitatively describe the sedimentology, ichnology, and invertebrate palaeontology of the bone bed, to enhance the regional understanding of the palaeogeography, depositional environments and depositional processes of the Welsh Borderlands during the late Silurian. Parasequence thickness and frequency, and sedimentary structures such as hummocky cross stratification, observed within the Downton Castle Sandstone Formation, have traditionally been explained to have formed by sea-level oscillations. These are interpreted to have formed entirely by nearshore to shoreface, shallow marine autogenic sedimentary processes, such as storm events (tempestites) and tidal scour. It is interpreted that formation of the Downton Bone Bed occurred as a by-product of these autogenic sedimentary processes, through winnowing and erosion during storm-driven scour and reworking. The low diversity ichno- and invertebrate fauna observed within the Downton Bone Bed is consistent with a nearshore depositional environment and is indicative of a stressed ecosystem due to fluctuating salinity and oxygen levels.

The Afterlives of Crisis: Harold and Custer on The Slipstream

ABSTRACT My contribution to this cluster seeks to situate and understand the Vita Haroldi through slipstream — a genre of Indigenous Sci-Fi writing that enacts temporal sovereignty in the past, present, and future. The Vita Haroldi (BL Harley MS 3776), a story about King Harold II’s life living in the Welsh borderlands after the Battle of Hastings, can be understood as an alternate temporality constructed as a response to a crisis. Specifically, this essay will read Vita Haroldi alongside Gerald Vizenor’s short story “Custer on the Slipstream” which details the resurrections of General George Armstrong Custer, the infamous US soldier who graduated bottom of his class at West Point in 1861 and was killed by the Oceti Sakowin and their allies at the Battle of Greasy Grass in 1876. This essay will not “i/Indigenize” Harold or early English people more broadly, but instead open up the productions of early medieval settlers to the gaze of contemporary Indigenous scholars, and offer a temporally sovereign theoretical approach to early medieval narrative.

English Landscapes

English Landscapes

Neotypes for some upper Silurian acanthodian taxa from the Baltic Sea Region and the Welsh Borderland

Neotypes for some upper Silurian acanthodian taxa from the Baltic Sea Region and the Welsh Borderland

Picking up the pieces: New charcoalified plant mesofossils (eophytes) from a Lower Devonian Lagerstӓtte in the Welsh Borderland, UK

The discovery of land plant spores with permanent tetrad and dyad configurations in Middle Ordovician rocks indicated a pioneering phase of phytoterrestrialisation that predated trilete spore-bearing tracheophytes. Limited studies on Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian examples suggest that the producers possessed characters of both tracheophytes and bryophytes, leading to the erection of a new clade of eophytes. Here we present an unprecedented comprehensive survey of hundreds of charcoalified eophytic mesofossils from a Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) Lagerstätte in the Welsh Borderland, UK, which reveals a wide range of branching in smooth axes with occasional stomata and conducting cells interpreted as predominantly involved in nutrient transport. Similar anatomy was discovered in fossils with usually fragmentary terminal sporangia containing evidence for permanent cryptospores. This raises the possibility that these small sporophytes of narrow axial diameter exhibited matrotrophy although the nature of the autotrophic gametophytes remains elusive. The sheer numbers of these tiny mesofossils in the fine-grained rocks at the locality indicate that these small plants were an important part of vegetation in Early Devonian times – a component that disappeared as vascular plants diversified and increased in size. Whether or not the pioneering Ordovician vegetation had exactly similar characteristics requires more information of gross morphology and anatomy of fossils in the intervening years.

Piecing together the eophytes - a new group of ancient plants containing cryptospores.

The earliest evidence for land plants comes from dispersed cryptospores from the Ordovician, which dominated assemblages for 60 million years. Direct evidence of their parent plants comes from minute fossils in Welsh Borderland Upper Silurian to Lower Devonian rocks. We recognize a group that had forking, striated axes with rare stomata terminating in valvate sporangia containing permanent cryptospores, but their anatomy was unknown especially regarding conducting tissues. Charcoalified fossils extracted from the rock using HF were selected from macerates and observed using scanning electron microscopy. Promising examples were split for further examination and compared with electron micrographs of the anatomy of extant bryophytes. Fertile fossil axes possess central elongate cells with thick walls bearing globules, occasional strands and plasmodesmata-sized pores. The anatomy of these cells best matches desiccation-tolerant food-conducting cells (leptoids) of bryophytes. Together with thick-walled epidermal cells and extremely small size, these features suggest that these plants were poikilohydric. Our new data on conducting cells confirms a combination of characters that distinguish the permanent cryptospore-producers from bryophytes and tracheophytes. We therefore propose the erection of a new group, here named the Eophytidae (eophytes).

Middle-Upper Ordovician conodonts from the Ffairfach and Golden Grove groups in South Wales, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT The conodont fauna of the reference succession of the regional British Llandeilian Stage of the Llanvirn Series was first described in a classical study by Rhodes more than 65 years ago using single element (form) taxonomy. Although several subsequent authors have recorded a substantial number of conodont taxa from the Llandeilo area, the present study is the first to present a modern taxonomic review of these late Darriwilian-early Sandbian faunas that include approximately 20 multielement species. Most prominent are representatives of Amorphognathus, Baltoniodus, Eoplacognathus, and Plectodina. The study faunas have their own biogeographical character. The distinctive genera Complexodus, Protopanderodus, and Pygodus, which are common in coeval Baltoscandic faunas, are not present, but the occurrence of Amorphognathus, Baltoniodus, and Eoplacognathus provides a link to age equivalent Baltoscandic faunas. The presence of abundant specimens of Plectodina and less common representatives of Erismodus and Icriodella are reminiscent of North American Midcontinent faunas. This type of faunal assemblage is in some respects similar to those of the early Caradoc Series of the Welsh Borderland. Biostratigraphically diagnostic species indicate that the Llandeilo study succession ranges from the Eoplacognathus lindstroemi Subzone of the Pygodus serra Zone to the Baltoniodus variabilis Subzone of the Amorphognathus tvaerensis Zone.

The Silurian Transgression of a Palaeoshoreline: The Area between Old Radnor and Presteigne, Welsh Borderlands

AbstractQuarries between Old Radnor and Presteigne, Welsh Borderlands, expose a Silurian nearshore succession, which onlaps a rocky palaeotopography of the Neoproterozoic basement that had been uplifted along the Church Stretton Fault Zone. The succession documents the Aeronian to Sheinwoodian transgression of an island or islands, with the following sequence of events: deposition of shallow marine sandstones (Folly Sandstone Formation), regional uplift, preservation of a rocky shoreline and associated deposits (Dolyhir Rudite Member), deposition of limestones characterized by a profusion of coralline algae and the abundant remains of reefs (Dolyhir and Nash Scar Limestone Formation), and finally deposition of trilobitic silty mudstones (basal Coalbrookdale Formation). Facies analysis, carbon isotope (δ13Ccarb) values, sequence stratigraphy, and collections of bryozoans, conodonts, thelodonts, and trilobites have been used here as a means of refining our stratigraphic understanding of this unique succession. The revised stratigraphy demonstrates many similarities with the adjoining Midland Platform and the wider Silurian world. Notable features include the globally recognized early Sheinwoodian carbon isotope excursion and sea-level changes of regional and global extent. As one of the best examples of its kind, the palaeoshoreline and nearshore succession of Old Radnor and Presteigne acts as a depositional model for ancient rocky shores worldwide.

Further evidence for fungivory in the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) of the Welsh Borderland, UK

The recent demonstrations that widespread mid-Palaeozoic Prototaxites and other nematophytes had fungal affinities indicate that terrestrial fungi were important elements in carbon cycling in the Early Devonian. Here, we provide evidence for their participation in the recycling of nutrients by early terrestrial invertebrates. Evidence is in the form of coprolites, both those associated with nematophytes or containing their fragmentary remains. Cylindrical coprolites consistently associated with fungal mats are placed in a new ichnospecies, Bacillafaex myceliorum. Their contents are granular to amorphous, suggestive of complete digestion of the ingested hyphae, with the inference of possession of chitinases in the digestive tracts of the consumers. A further single example comprises a cluster of cylindrical bodies attached to the lower surface of a Nematothallus fragment. Here, homogenisation was less complete, with traces of hyphae remaining. Terrestrial animal fossils have not been found at the locality, but scorpions, pseudoscorpions, Opiliones, mites, centipedes (carnivores) and millipedes, and Collembola (detritivores) have been recorded from the slightly younger Rhynie cherts. Studies of fungivory in extant arthropods have concentrated on Collembola and, to a lesser extent, mites, but their faecal pellets are much smaller than the fossil examples. Millipedes, based on body size and faeces of extant forms, are considered more realistic producers, but little is known about fungal feeding in these animals. Regardless of the affinities of the producers, the diversity in morphology, sizes, aggregations, and composition of nematophyte-containing examples suggests that fungivory was an important component of carbon cycling in early terrestrial ecosystems.

Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England

Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England

An appreciation: Charles Hepworth Holland (1923–2019), founding editor of the <em>Irish Journal of Earth Sciences</em>

AN APPRECIATION: CHARLES HEPWORTH HOLLAND (1923–2019), FOUNDING EDITOR OF THE IRISH JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES PATRICK N. WYSE JACKSON, MATTHEW A. PARKES and JOHN MURRAY Charles Hepworth Holland, who died recently, could be described without fear of contradiction as the pre-eminent geologist who worked in Ireland over the last sixty years. A native of Southport, Lancashire, he was educated at Manchester where he held his first academic position. Although he commenced his postgraduate studies there, his PhD was awarded by Royal Holloway in London (Holland 1956; see also Holland 1958). He later taught at Bedford College in London, becoming a senior lecturer. His association with Ireland commenced in 1966 when he was appointed Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at Trinity College, Dublin, following worthies such as John Phillips, Samuel Haughton and John Joly as holders of this particular Chair (Wyse Jackson 1994). He quickly expanded the Department of Geology, recruiting more staff and firmly obtaining an increase in its annual budget from the college. Charles Holland was a founding editor, together with David Naylor and Ian Sanders, of the Irish Journal of Earth Sciences, and according to Ian its distinctive colour branding was actually based on the colour of Charles’ favourite tie! The ‘purple journal’ as it would become affectionately called remains an important vehicle for the dissemination of research on the geology and geomorphology of Ireland. Prior to its inception in 1978, papers on Irish geology published in Ireland generally appeared as separate issues in either the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section B or the Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, Series A, or more occasionally within the Irish Naturalists’ Journal. Irish Journal of Earth Sciences 38 (2020), 1–4 doi: https://doi.org/10.3318/IJES.2020.38.1© 2020 Royal Irish Academy Charles Holland in the field (Photograph ­ courtesy of Celia Holland). 2 Irish Journal of Earth Sciences (2020) Begun as a means to cater for increased research output from the Irish university and professional sectors, to foster publication in a timely manner, and also to highlight both in Ireland and abroad the elevated interest in Ireland’s rich geological heritage, the first five volumes were published by the Royal Dublin Society when it was styled the Journal of Earth Sciences, Royal Dublin Society. In 1984 the Royal Irish Academy assumed responsibility for the publication of the journal, which then was renamed the Irish Journal of Earth Sciences. Aside from editing duties, Charles also contributed a number of papers to the journal (Clayton et al. 1980; Holland et al. 1988; Hutton and Holland 1992; Ferretti and Holland 1994; Holland 1996; Holland and Yochelson 2000, 2002), which were focused on aspects of Paleozoic palaeontology and stratigraphy. A short note published in 1990 with his co-editors provided a retrospective view of what had been achieved with the first ten volumes of the Irish Journal of Earth Sciences (Holland et al. 1990). Charles’sgeologicalresearchinterestswerebroadly four-fold: he was a stratigrapher, a cephalopodologist, a skilled commentator on landscapes and their geological foundations, and also a thinker on deep time. This appreciation will focus largely on his contributions on Irish geology. Further biographical information, a discussion of his academic work, and a detailed bibliography to 2001 can be found in the Special Papers in Palaeontology volume dedicated to him and published by the Palaeontological Association in 2002 to mark his retirement (Wyse Jackson et al. 2002). Charles Holland’s interest in stratigraphy began as a student in Manchester. His studies led him to carry out detailed mapping and assessments of the Silurian sequences of the Welsh Borderlands, which was conducted alongside the work of Vic Walmsley and Jim Lawson (Holland et al. 1963). Soon after his arrival at Trinity he embarked on mapping the Silurian of the western end of the Dingle Peninsula (Holland 1969), a field area that drew him back many, many times (Holland 1987a; 1988a). He established a programme of mapping and description of the stratigraphy and relationships of Paleozoic inliers across the country and supervised the studies of a number of PhD students, including John Parkin, John Doran, John Feehan and Audrey Jackson. His study on the Silurian sequences of the Cratloe...

Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England, by Lindy Brady

Lindy Brady’s book is laudable for tackling a subject that has hitherto received very little attention. Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Wales are all too often treated as if they were discrete entities divided by a precise frontier line, helpfully demarcated for us by King Offa in the eighth century. Recent work, particularly by T.M. Charles-Edwards, has helped to dispel such preconceptions by showing how delicately interconnected were the worlds of the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons during the early Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the spaces where those two worlds collided, and indeed co-existed, are still little understood. In this book, Brady addresses the deficit by examining these spaces through the lens of Anglo-Saxon literature. Brady’s central contention is that the geographical region that she calls the ‘Welsh borderlands’ was perceived by the English between the seventh and eleventh centuries as a distinctive space with its own special characteristics. More often than not, she finds the Welsh borderlands to be a locus of political harmony traversing ethnic boundaries, as encapsulated in microcosm by her opening case-study on the Dunsæte Agreement. This observation allows her to position herself against those who insist on reading the relationship between the English and the Welsh in post-colonial terms, treating the ultimate conquest of Wales in the thirteenth century as a foregone conclusion. She successfully combats such views by exploring the multiplicity of relationships that existed within and across the Welsh borderlands during her period of study.

Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo‐Saxon England. By LindyBrady. ArtesLiberales. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2017. x + 202 pp., 3 maps. £75 (hardback); £90 (eBook). ISBN 978 1 7849 9419 8 (hardback); ISBN 978 1 5261 1575 1 (eBook).

Early Medieval EuropeVolume 27, Issue 2 p. 299-301 Book review Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England. By Lindy Brady. Artes Liberales. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2017. x + 202 pp., 3 maps. £75 (hardback); £90 (eBook). ISBN 978 1 7849 9419 8 (hardback); ISBN 978 1 5261 1575 1 (eBook). C.P. Lewis, Corresponding Author C.P. Lewis chris.lewis@sas.ac.uk Institute of Historical Research King's College LondonSearch for more papers by this author C.P. Lewis, Corresponding Author C.P. Lewis chris.lewis@sas.ac.uk Institute of Historical Research King's College LondonSearch for more papers by this author First published: 23 April 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.12332Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume27, Issue2May 2019Pages 299-301 RelatedInformation

Llandovery Brachiopods From England and Wales

Diverse Early Silurian (Llandovery) rocks with shelly benthic faunas have been known for nearly 200 years from Wales and the Welsh Borderland of England, and this monograph revises the Llandovery (...

Chitinozoans and scolecodonts from the Silurian and Devonian of Japan

AbstractSilurian and Devonian chitinozoans and scolecodonts are recorded from strata of the Hida‐Gaien Terrane, central Honshu. Silurian chitinozoans include Eisenackitina, Bursachitina, and the species Angochitina elongata. The latter provides a precise biostratigraphical tie between the Japanese succession and the Type Ludlow Series of the Welsh Borderland, UK, and indicates a Ludlow age (Gorstian or early Ludfordian) for the upper member of the Yoshiki Formation in the Ichinotani Valley. Chitinozoans from other Yoshiki Formation localities contain other specimens of Lagenochitinidae. Scolecodonts are more common than chitinozoans in the palynological residues, but are mostly represented by fragments or minor apparatus elements with a low biostratigraphical value. However, material from the Yoshiki and Fukuji Formations includes several species of Mochtyella as well as representatives of Oenonites, Kettnerites, Lunoprionella, Vistulella? and possibly other placognath taxa. Scolecodonts are also present in the Silurian Middle Member of the Gionyama Formation, Kyushu, including a well‐preserved jaw of Pistoprion, and fragments of putative Kettnerites and Oenonites. These finds of scolecodonts suggest close similarity in assemblages between Paleozoic polychaete faunas of Japanese terranes and those of Baltica‐Laurentia.