PALEOECOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE OF ANATOMICALLY PRESERVED TERRESTRIAL PLANTS IN UPPER CARBONIFEROUS MARINE GONIATITE BULLIONS

Anatomically preserved plants are described from marine goniatite bull ions of Marsdenian age (Namurian B, Upper Carboniferous) from Star Woo d, Oakamoor, Staffordshire, England. They comprise stems and petioles, up to 15 cm long, predominantly of cordaites (Mesoxylon) and pteridos perms (Sutcliffa), with rare calamites, ferns and lycopsids. and are p reserved as calcareous permineralizations. Rare fusainized plant fragm ents are also found. The flora is similar, although comprising Fewer s pecies, to the roof nodule floras of Langsettian (Westphalian A) age f rom Lancashire which occur above coal seams yielding calcareous coal b alls. The plants preserved in these roof nodules probably grew in well -drained, slightly elevated lowlands, not inundated during marine tran sgression, and contrast in botanical composition to the Boras of lowla nd peat-forming mires represented in typical coal ball floras. The Oak amoor assemblage likewise probably represents an assemblage living in well-drained elevated areas which drifted into the sea and was preserv ed in sediment-starved carbonates during the height of the marine tran sgression. These species of plants appear not to have become part of l owland mire ecosystems until later in the Carboniferous. The occurrenc e of this flora pre-dates that previously described From the Westphali an Coal Measures, and extends the range of several important Upper Car boniferous plant taxa.