Palæos: Paleozoic		Mississippian Epoch
CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD		Serpukhovian Age

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The Serpukhovian Age

The Serpukhovian Age of the Mississippian Epoch: 328 to 318 million years ago

 

Paleozoic Era     Cambrian Period     Ordovician Period     Silurian Period     Devonian Period     Carboniferous Period        Mississippian Epoch             Tournaisian Age          Viséan Age          Serpukhovian Age       Pennsylvanian Epoch          Bashkirian Age          Moscovian Age          Kasimovian Age          Gzhelian Age    Permian Period

Introduction Geography Stratigraphy   Sites Invertebrates Vertebrates  Links References

Introduction

The Serpukhovian is the last of the three ages that make up the Mississippian Epoch. This is the Age from which come the remarkable tetrapods of East Kirkton and the Dora Bone Beds, as well as the wonderful chondrichthyan fauna of Bear Creek.  This Age saw the appearance and rapid diversification of of winged insects, "typical" Paleozoic tetrapods, proto-amniotes, and the great Coal Swamp forests.

Sea levels were moderate throughout the Carboniferous.  The seas rose steadily through most of the Sepukhovian, but fell rather sharply at the end of the Age, coincident with the onset of icehouse conditions and the beginnings of the Pennsylvanian Ice Age.  Grossman et al. (2002); Mii et al. (2001). At about this same time, the connection between the Rheic and Paleotethys Oceans closed as Gondwana met and sutured to Laurussia (North America plus Baltica) to form Pangaea.  This resulted in partial thermal isolation of the Paleotethys, which became a great semi-tropical bay.  The climate, which had been fairly equable throughout most of the Mississippian, became more strongly zonal.  Interestingly, these dramatic climate changes in the Late Serpukhovian occurred at just about the same time as the major evolutionary events of the Age: the sudden spread of winged insects, the evolution of protoamniotes (e.g., Embolomeri), and a rapid turnover in brachiopod genera.

ATW041224.  Public domain.  No rights reserved. 

Serpukhovian Geography

ATW041219.  Map public domain.  No rights reserved.  An enormous, 2400 x 1200 pixel, unlabelled version of this map is available (free) in all the usual formats, including a Photoshop^® .psd file with each topographical type on a different layer.  That one is 13 MB.  Email augwhite@sbcglobal.net. 

Stratigraphy

The following table correlates strata with tetrapod fossils (amphibians):

Important Fossil Sites

The Dora lagerstätten of East Kirkton, Scotland, stands out as a unique glimpse of Middle Carboniferous vertebrates.

Invertebrates

Goniatites suffer a mass extinction but a few lineages continue onto the following Bashkirian epoch.

Sudden appearance of winged insects of various kinds

Phylum : Echnioderma Class: Blastoidea Order: Spiraculata Family: Pentremitidae Pentremites godoni

Vertebrates

Class: Tetrapoda Order: Anthracosauria Suborder: Embolomeri Family: Eoherpetontidae Eoherpeton Horizon: Locality: East Kirkton Comments: drawing by Mike Coates