The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event: Insights from the Tafilalt Biota, Morocco

About 40 million years after the Cambrian Explosion, the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) represents a second and dramatic burst in marine biodiversity, with major changes in the structure of ecosystems and the progressive replacement of the distinctive Cambrian Evolutionary Fauna by the Paleozoic Evolutionary Fauna. However, the GOBE is not a single, worldwide, short-term event, but rather the complex sum of successive diversifications occurring in distinct taxonomic groups, trophic guilds and regions. This book focuses on the Late Ordovician Tafilalt Biota, Anti-Atlas Morocco, which provides a snapshot of the GOBE in high-latitude regions of the Southern Hemisphere. A series of contributions explore different aspects of the Tafilalt Biota, including its geological setting, the international fossil trade in this area and a series of detailed systematic contributions describing many new taxa of marine invertebrates. This volume represents a significant contribution to the understanding of the Tafilalt Biota and its significance to the GOBE.
New rhombiferan blastozoans (Echinodermata) from the Late Ordovician of Morocco
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Published:May 24, 2022
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CiteCitation
Samuel Zamora, Elise Nardin, Jorge Esteve, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez-Marco, 2022. "New rhombiferan blastozoans (Echinodermata) from the Late Ordovician of Morocco", The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event: Insights from the Tafilalt Biota, Morocco, A. W. Hunter, J. J. Álvaro, B. Lefebvre, P. Van Roy, S. Zamora
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Abstract
New Upper Ordovician Echinoderm–Lagerstätten from the Anti-Atlas of Morocco have provided large collections of blastozoan echinoderms. The echinosphaeritid Echinosphaerites dianae n. sp. preserves the oral region, stem and brachioles, characteristics absent in many species of the same genus. Homocystites adidiensis n. sp. is represented by almost 50 specimens that provide details on the growth in this taxon. This is the only species of Homocystites with granules in the external ridge of the outer proximal stem columnals. The genus Rhombifera is recognized for the first time in Morocco based on one partially preserved thecal plate. Assemblages are characterized by low...