MIDDLE DEVONIAN BIOGEOGRAPHY OF CLOSING SOUTH LAURUSSIA NORTH GONDWANA VARISCIDES - EXAMPLES FROM THE BOHEMIAN MASSIF (CZECH-REPUBLIC), WITH EMPHASIS ON HORNI-BENESOV

Middle Devonian (Eifelian and early Givetian) brachiopod and coral fau nas of the Bohemian Prague Basin and Moravian Celechovice and Horni Be nesov regions, Czech Republic, are essentially dissimilar to each othe r, although the trilobites of the Prague Basin and Horni Benesov show some similarity. Apart from their mutually low similarity, expressed b y the Otsuka Coefficient, each of the Czech faunas is comparable to fa unas of other regions, particularly to the Rhenish Slate and/or Hart m ountains. Although some of the differences among the respective Bohemi an Massif faunas are mostly facies-controlled, they also appear to be a consequence of dispersal patterns of larvae by marine surface curren ts. Shallow water benthic communities show that oceanic circulation at this time could have been restricted by land masses, and perhaps by q uite disjunct regions that have since been juxtaposed. As the Bohemian massif approached southern Laurussia, a progressive exchange of fauna s from both shelves took place. It appears, moreover, that from late E msian to the present there was not a significant separation between No rth Africa and Europe.