Phosphate-bearing rocks of the lower Ordovician Kallavere Formation, n
orthern Estonia, contain diverse fragments and, more rarely, complete
shells of the phosphatic inarticulate brachiopods Schmidtites and Ungu
la. In places the concentration of brachiopod debris in sandstones is
so dense that economically exploitable seams of phosphorite are formed
. A directly analogous situation occurs along the coast of Namibia tod
ay. In places the extant phosphatic inarticulate brachiopod Discinisca
is washed up on the beach in such large numbers that its shells domin
ate the littoral sediment. The distribution range of this species sugg
ests that it is a product of the Benguela upwelling ecosystem, and the
inference is drawn that the Estonian deposits are the products of a s
imilar palaeo-upwelling system.