Preliminary radiolarian zonation for Late Devonian through Permian time

Possible Boundaries between <I>Pseudoalbaillella</I> and <I>Follicucullus</I> (Follicucullidae, Albaillellaria, Radiolaria): An Example of Morphological Information from Fossils and Its Use in Taxonomy

“…Holdsworth and Jones (1980) Wang and Yang (2007, 2011) and Wang et al (2012 reassigned F. monacanthus to the genus Pseudoalbaillella on the basis of the evolutionary sequence from Ps. fusiformis to Ps.…”

“…1. The shell of Pseudoalbaillella is composed of three parts, an apical cone, a winged pseudothorax and a pseudoabdomen (Holdsworth and Jones, 1980); that of Follicucullus consists of an apical portion and a weakly inflated to subspherical region (Ormiston and Babcock, 1979). Moreover, Pseudoalbaillella has wing(s) whereas Follicucullus has no wing in the original diagnoses.…”

Tetrentactinia barysphaera Foreman, 1963: skeletal structure and age of a biostratigraphically important Famennian (Upper Devonian) radiolarian from the Ohio Shale, USA

“…More recently, radiolarians have been demonstrated to provide vital information for biostratigraphy, structural geology and plate tectonics in Palaeozoic to Cenozoic successions (e.g., Jones and Murchey 1986;Aitchison 1990; Aitchison and Murchey 1992;Ziabrev et al 2003;Baxter et al 2009;Kurihara et al 2009). Radiolarians have been used frequently to date Devonian successions, and a reasonably detailed biostratigraphy has been established for certain intervals in the Devonian (Holdsworth and Jones 1980;Kiessling and Tragelehn 1994;Aitchison et al 1999;Noble and Aitchison 2000). However, many details of the faunas are still unexplored, and the biostratigraphic resolution is still fairly poor in some time intervals.…”

“…The entire Famennian is subdivided into eight conodont zones, but was equated to only three radiolarian assemblages (Holdsworth and Jones 1980;Aitchison 1993). Wang et al (2007: Fig.…”

Radiolaria – Siliceous plankton through time

“…This changed when radiolarian workers discovered the use of hydrofluoric acid to extract Radiolaria from chert and other siliceous rocks (Dumitrica 1970, Pessagno & Newport 1972 The new method allowed to work on land samples from mountain ranges that had undergone burial diagenesis or even metamorphosis. As a consequence, radiolarian biochronology was rapidly extended into the Jurassic, Triassic and the Palaeozoic (Pessagno 1977, Pessagno et al 1979, Yao et al 1980, Nakaseko & Nishimura 1979, Holdsworth & Jones 1980. A major obstacle to the elaboration of detailed biochronozones is the discontinuous nature of the radiolarian record, due to spotty preservation.…”