Graduation Semester and Year
Winter 2025
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Earth and Environmental Science
Department
Earth and Environmental Sciences
First Advisor
Merlynd Nestell
Second Advisor
Galina Nestell
Third Advisor
James Barrick
Fourth Advisor
Nathan Brown
Fifth Advisor
Megan Korchinski
Abstract
This study describes the diverse and abundant agglutinated foraminifers recovered from samples of the Late Silurian (Ludlow, Gorstian – Přídolí) Henryhouse Formation and lower beds of the earliest Devonian (Lochkovian) Haragan Formation. To date, foraminifers of the Henryhouse and Haragan formations have never been systematically studied, with only three species previously reported from the Henryhouse, and six from the Haragan. The foraminifers reviewed in the present study occur in argillaceous limestones at seven localities in the Arbuckle Mountains and Lawrence Uplift of south-central Oklahoma. Stratigraphically significant conodont species are found with foraminifers, establishing the relative age of the samples (Barrick et al. 2010a, Barrick et al. 2024). Significant faunal turnovers are observed in foraminifers, associated with the mid-Ludfordian Lau Event between the lower and upper members of the Henryhouse Formation and the Klonk Event near the Henryhouse – Haragan boundary. Sixty-six of the species are new, as are four of the subspecies. Evidence is presented that eighteen of the species form colonies. Twelve previously known species are identified and distinguished. Herein, emendations are proposed for the genera Sorostomasphaera McClellan 1966, Thekammina Dunn 1942, and Webbinelloidea Stewart and Lampe 1947. The genera Metamorphina Browne and Schott 1963 and Patellammina Bell 1996 are considered synonyms of the genus Webbinelloidea. Five new genera are described, subfamilial affiliations of several genera are changed and the generic affiliations of thirty species are changed. At the suprageneric level, an emendation is proposed for the family Lacustrinellidae Mikhalevich 1995, and three subfamilies within family Lacustrinellidae are proposed: Lacustrinellinae Mikhalevich 1995, Sorostomasphaerinae subfam. nov., and Thekammininae Dunn 1942 emend. herein. It was necessary to investigate and redescribe numerous Silurian type species in Grubbs and Ireland collections deposited in the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) in Chicago, Illinois to determine their affinity toward the description of new species. Additionally, to observe the internal morphology of the foraminifers and aid in taxonomic classifications, a newly developed method of clarifying the foraminiferal tests is described.
Keywords
Protist, Colony, Biostratigraphy, Microscopy, Paleozoic, Pridoli, Ludlow, Lochkovian, Grubbs, Ireland
Disciplines
Paleontology
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
McCauley, Christopher M., "TAXONOMY OF LATE SILURIAN AND EARLY DEVONIAN AGGLUTINATED FORAMINIFERS OF THE HENRYHOUSE AND HARAGAN FORMATIONS, SOUTH-CENTRAL OKLAHOMA, USA" (2025). Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations. 95.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/ees_dissertations/95
Comments
I thank Dr. Merlynd Nestell for introducing me to paleontology and micropaleontology and funding my participation in the FORAMS 2023 conference, Perugia, Italy to present the preliminary findings of my dissertation project. I thank Dr. Galina Nestell for entrusting me with this project and patiently reading through thousands of pages of wayward verbosity. I thank Dr. James Barrick for providing the sample residues that form the basis of this project. I thank Dr. Nathan Brown and Dr. Megan Korchinski for serving on my committee and for their great help in encouraging this project to reach its completion. I thank Dr. Paul S. Mayer of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois for extensive access to the type specimens of the Ireland, Grubbs, and Dunn collections, and Cameron Schwalbach of the Cincinnati Museum Center of Cincinnati, Ohio for access to the type specimens of McClellan. I thank Dr. Brian Huber and Nicholas Drew of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., for photographing numerous type specimens at my request. I thank Dr. Clary and Amy Moe-Hoffman, M.S., of the Dunn-Seiler Museum at Mississippi State University, Clarksville, Mississippi for access to Dunn’s extra foraminifers.
This work was supported in part by scholarships provided by the Dallas Paleontological Society and the Fort Worth Geological Society. Another major source of support was a summer dissertation fellowship provided by the graduate school of the University of Texas at Arlington which afforded time for much of the writing of this document. I would also like to thank the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department and the graduate school of the University of Texas at Arlington for funding a research travel grant to the 2023 USGS Connects Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.