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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2007; v. 278; p. 219-235;
DOI: 10.1144/SP278.10
© 2007 Geological Society of London

Articles

The biostratigraphical and palaeogeographical framework of the earliest diversification of tetrapods (Late Devonian)

A. Blieck1, G. Clement2, H. Blom2, H. Lelievre3, E. Luksevics4, M. Streel5, J. Thorez6 & G. C. Young7

1 Université de Lille 1, Sciences de la Terre, UMR 8014 du CNRS: Laboratoire de Paléontologie et Paléogéographie du Paléozoïque, F-59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq cedex, France (e-mail: Alain.Blieck{at}univ-lille1.fr)
2 Subdepartment of Evolutionary Organismal Biology, Dept. of Physiology and Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18A, SE-75236 Uppsala, Sweden
3 Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Département Histoire de la Terre, UMR 5143 du CNRS, Case Postale 38, 57 rue Cuvier, F-75231 Paris cedex 05, France
4 University of Latvia, Institute of Geology, Rainis blvd. 19, LV-1586 Riga, Latvia
5 Université de Liège, Département de Géologie, Unité de recherche Paléobotanique-Paléopalynologie-Micropaléontologie, Sart Tilman, B18, B-4000 Liège 1, Belgium
6 Université de Liège, Département de Géologie, Sart Tilman, B18, B-4000 Liège 1, Belgium
7 Australian National University, Department of Earth and Marine Sciences, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia

The earliest diversification of tetrapods is dated as Late Devonian based on 10 localities worldwide that have yielded bone remains. At least 18 different species are known from these localities. Their ages span the ‘middle’–late Frasnian to latest Famennian time interval, with three localities in the Frasnian, one at the F/F transition (though this one is not securely dated) and six in the Famennian. These localities encompass a wide variety of environments, from true marine conditions of the nearshore neritic province, to fluvial or lacustrine conditions. However, it does not seem possible to characterize a freshwater assemblage in the Upper Old Red Sandstone based upon vertebrates. Most of the tetrapod-bearing localities (8 of 10) were situated in the eastern part of Laurussia (=Euramerica), one in North China and one in eastern Gondwana (Australia), on a pre-Pangean configuration of the Earth, when most oceanic domains, except Palaeotethys and Panthalassa, had closed.