Aspects of the palaeontology of Salthill Quarry, Clitheroe, Lancashire (Mississippian), NW England

Abstract

Salthill Quarry, Clitheroe, Lancashire (Mississippian, early Visean, Chadian) is a Site of Special Scientific Interest on the basis of its diverse fauna of invertebrates preserved in a Waulsortian mud mound setting. Important new specimens are described from the limestones and thin mudstones of the Hodder Mudstone Formation, on the southern margin of the quarry. A rare echinoid, archaeocidarid? gen. et sp. indet., is incomplete, but unusually retains the original curvature of the test. A columnal of Bystrowicrinus (col.) westheadi Donovan was derived from a radicular runner and has a dense cluster of radice scars on one side only. The columnal had a wedge-like section, thus suggesting a curvature of the stem. A cluster of solitary rugose corals on the base of a limestone bed includes at least two geniculated specimens in life position, the calice raised above the base of the bed. This is more likely to be due to burial in situ than a current accumulation. Ostiocavichnus Bohatý et al. is not an ichnotaxon, but a palaeopathology identified as a swollen crinoid pluricolumnal; broadly analogous structures are identified in fossil decapod crustaceans.