|
Department of Paleontology, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
Analysis of various fossil groups, in particular brachiopods, graptolites and trilobites, from Gondwana as a whole, which included much of what is now southern Europe, southern Asia, Africa, South America, Australasia and Antarctica, has determined not only the margins of the Gondwanan palaeocontinent in the early and middle Palaeozoic, but also the relative palaeotemperatures and the probable palaeo-latitudes. The patchy faunal record from Antarctica is reviewed from Cambrian to Devonian times, and this consists of well-dated Early, Middle and Late Cambrian shelly faunas with eastern Gondwanan affinities and deposited under tropical conditions. By contrast, there are no proven Ordovician fossils known and only one disputed Silurian record of two coral specimens from the Beardmore Glacier moraine. In early Devonian times, well-dated Emsian shelly faunas of Malvinokaffric affinity are known from the Horlick Range and there is a diverse Middle Devonian fish fauna from Victoria Land. From these records it can be deduced that, as the large Gondwana plate slid over the contemporary South Pole, the palaeo-latitude of Antarctica slowly increased from tropical to high temperate from Cambrian to Devonian times.
