The Massive Death of Lobsters Smothered Within Their Thalassinoides Burrows: the Example of the Lower Barremian from Lusitanian Basin (Portugal)
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Versão online: http://www.lneg.pt/iedt/unidades/16/paginas/26/30/209 Comunicações Geológicas (2016) 103, Especial I, 143-152 ISSN: 0873-948X; e-ISSN: 1647-581X The massive death of lobsters smothered within their Thalassinoides burrows: the example of the lower Barremian from Lusitanian Basin (Portugal) A morte em massa de lagostas sepultadas no interior das suas galerias do tipo Thalassinoides: o exemplo do Barremiano inferior da Bacia Lusitânica (Portugal) C. Neto de Carvalho 1,* Artigo original © 2014 LNEG – Laboratório Nacional de Geologia e Energia IP Original Article Abstract: Some years ago an exceptional site with the preservation of the evolutiva demonstrada pela ocorrência de Thalassinoides associados a lagostas mecochirid lobster Meyeria rapax (Harbort) within their burrows was glyphoídeos desde o Jurássico Superior ao Aptiano, e à sua progressiva described in the Early Cretaceous of Cabo Espichel sector, Lusitanian Basin, substituição pelos thalassinídeos, com algumas excepções registadas para as Portugal. The large number of articulated specimens preserved at the bottom lagostas queladas, a partir do Cretácico Superior. Esta tendência para a of Thalassinoides burrow systems in, at least, four different beds of the Boca convergência evolutiva no hábito fossorial é comparável com os padrões do Chapim Formation (lower Barremian) suggests that a sudden cyclic event evolutivos de diversificação das lagostas e dos thalassinídeos reconhecidos was responsible for the collective killing below the bottom of a confined recentemente. lagoon, and led to the very rare preservation of both burrows and producers. Palavras-chave: Meyeria rapax ; Thalassinoides suevicus ; morte colectiva; The explanation may be found in the highly heterogranular, coarse-grained convergência comportamental; Barremiano inferior; Bacia Lusitânica clastic filling of the burrow systems which represent influxes of freshwater and large volumes of siliciclastics that may had suddenly drop the salinity 1 Geopark Naturtejo da Meseta Meridional – UNESCO Global Geopark. Geology of the carbonate lagoon and smothered the endobenthic communities. These Office, Municipality of Idanha-a-Nova – Raiano Cultural Centre. Av. Joaquim climate-related events seem to have been spread in a wider region of the Morão, 6060-101 Idanha-a-Nova (Portugal) Lusitanian Basin during, at least, the lower Barremian, since previous *Corresponding author/Autor correspondente: [email protected] . findings took us to discover a new site in the correspondent Ribeira de Ilhas Formation, at Ericeira sector. In this study we also document the evolutionary trend in the occurrence of Thalassinoides associated to glyphoid lobsters since the Early Jurassic to the Aptian, and their replacement in soft substrates 1. Introduction by thalassinideans, with few exceptions for chelate lobsters, after the Late Trace fossils may be used for many different purposes, from Cretaceous. This trend to behavioral convergence of the fossorial habit paleoenvironmental indicators in basin analysis to tangible matches lobster and thalassinidean diversity and evolutionary patterns evidences of behavioral interactions with substrate, and thus, through time recognized recently. valuable tools for paleobiological studies. But for a large majority Keywords: Meyeria rapax ; Thalassinoides suevicus ; mass mortality; of ichnotaxa the same question always arise: “Who did it?” Most behavioral convergence; lower Barremian; Lusitanian Basin of the times the diagenetical conditions, such as bacterial decaying or ion-rich fluid percolation, that made trace fossils more clear Resumo: Há alguns anos atrás descrevemos um sítio paleontológico excepcional onde a lagosta mecochirídeo Meyeria rapax (Harbort) é encontrada within the sedimentary background, are the same unfriendly for the no interior dos seus sistemas de galerias, no Cretácico Inferior do sector do preservation as body fossils of the soft-bodied, or low-mineralized Cabo Espichel, Bacia Lusitânica, Portugal. O elevado número de espécimes skeletal organisms responsible for them. Using morphological articulados, preservados no fundo de galerias do tipo Thalassinoides em, pelo features of burrows, borings, trackways and coprolites one may menos, quatro camadas da Formação de Boca do Chapim (Barremiano compare with similar structures from the present and try to get a inferior), indicia que um evento cíclico instantâneo terá sido responsável pela match that may relate, at least, with few or one clade, many times a morte colectiva abaixo do fundo da laguna confinada, e que levou à muito rara Phyla or a Class only. Although not vital for the development of preservação dos sistemas de galerias conjuntamente com os seus produtores. Ichnology, is frequently really frustrating for the scientist or the A explicação pode ser encontrada no preenchimento clástico heterogranular, science communicator to discuss about the behavior and fundamentalmente grosseiro dos sistemas de galerias, que representa descargas evolutionary significance of a trace fossil having no clues about the de água doce e de grandes volumes de detritos siliciclásticos que terão levado organism to which have physiological relations, also knowing that à descida brusca dos níveis de salinidade na laguna carbonatada e ao sepultamento das comunidades endobentónicas. Estes eventos climáticos the same life form can be responsible for different behavioral parecem ter tido um impacte mais alargado na Bacia Lusitânica, pelo menos interactions with the substrate, and the same trace fossil could be durante o Barremiano inferior, uma vez que achados antigos isolados levaram- the result of convergent behaviors for phylogenetical distant clades, nos à descoberta de um novo sítio na correspondente Formação de Ribeira de reinvented over and over again along the geological record. And Ilhas, no sector da Ericeira. Neste estudo também documentamos a tendência there are the common cases that the behavior become extinct with 144 C. Neto de Carvalho / Comunicações Geológicas (2016) 103, Especial I, 143-152 the producer and only somewhat vague comparisons with other trace et al. , 1989) dated as Late Triassic-Early Jurassic, Late Jurassic and fossils are allowed to be made. So, as the konservate lagerstätten are Lower Cretaceous. This crustal extension was related to the opening so rare but sometimes fundamental to understand the functional of North Atlantic. During the Oxfordian-Tithonian stretching episode morphology of an organism, or the whole paleocommunity the Lusitanian Basin was segmented into a number of rapidly dynamics, well preserved evidences of behavior frozen with the subsiding subbasins, major half-grabens tilted blocks, with species responsible for it open new windows to understand subsequent facies differentiation. The western Iberian margin biological evolution, or at least corroborate with clear evidences constitutes a passive margin during the 4 th rifting episode (late hypotheses or ideas in the making. Berriasian-late Aptian) with the filling of the subbasins and the Since Thalassinoides ichnogenus was erected by Ehrenberg opening of the shelf to full marine conditions southwards (Kullberg (1944, see also 1938) these very common burrows in Mesozoic and et al. , 2013). The general filling of the basin is marked by siliciclastics Cenozoic shallow marine deposits have been mostly attributed to transported by rivers from the Iberian Massif positioned to the east. the work of decapod crustaceans, and among these particularly Unconformities and major cycles during the Lower Cretaceous were thalassinoidean (most of Axiidea and Gebiidea) shrimps ( e.g. , controlled mostly by the opening of the Atlantic (Rey et al. , 2006). A Ehrenberg, 1938; Mertin, 1941; Fiege, 1944; Glaessner, 1947; second order T-R cycle was identified for the interval Valanginian- Bromley, 1967; Miller and Curran, 2001; Mourik et al. , 2005; lower Barremian. A transgressive open carbonate platform was Seilacher, 2007; table 1 with occurrences of fossil callianassid developed, with a rapid rise in relative sea-level (Dinis et al. , 2008). remains preserved within burrow structures or associated with Several somewhat hypersaline lagoons were developed and strongly burrows of Hyžný, 2011; Hyžný and Klompmaker, 2015), but also confined by rudist barriers located to west. These lagoons were often and less commonly to stomatopods, crabs and lobsters ( e.g. , invaded by coarse-grained fluvial siliciclastics (Rey, 1992). Bromley and Frey, 1974; Pemberton et al. , 1984; Neto de Carvalho The northern coast of Cabo Espichel exposes a continuous et al. , 2007). Common integradation between the ichnogenera Lower Cretaceous (lower Berriasian-to-Albian) succession (Rey; Ophiomorpha , Thalassinoides and Spongeliomorpha (O-T-S) has 1972) of mixed carbonate-siliciclastic shallow marine and continental been repeatedly described ( e.g. , Bromley and Frey, 1974; Fürsich, deposits 350 m thick (Fig. 1). The lower Barremian depositional 1973, 1974; Schlirf, 2000), and they mostly result from burrowing sequences of third order are composed by Areia do Mastro (partim), for dwelling and feeding in different substrate consistencies, from Papo Seco, Boca do Chapim and Regatão (partim) formations, soup- to soft/stiff- and firmgrounds, by the same kind of producer, showing eustatic oscillations of one million years range (Rey, 1992, and not represent different burrowing behaviors for distinct 2006). Boca do Chapim Formation, 16 m thick, is composed by burrowers. It