DATA ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND PRESERVATION OF LATE PALAEOZOIC TETRAPODS

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Abstract
Summary: The tetrapods from early Carboniferous to early Triassic times comprise the majority of fossil amphibia and the first great development of the reptiles. They are found associated with two main facies: Coal Measures in a wide sense (Carboniferous and some early Permian beds of Europe), and Permian and Lower Triassic red beds and related sediments. In the former most of the vertebrate localities represent small lakes and pools, the faunas living in them or nearby. In the latter there are much larger areas where fluviatile conditions are common and a greater range of ecological types; dry-land faunas are dominant though the sediments are still largely water-laid. Data on locomotion and food are mainly drawn from comparative anatomy, and on conditions of burial and preservation more from sedimentology and mineralogy. The liability of the calcium phosphate of bone to solution in exceptionally acid waters may partly account for the sporadic distribution and locally poor preservation of some Carboniferous faunas; in other respects the coal swamps should have produced favourable living conditions. Faunas and environments from Europe, North America and South Africa are considered briefly in this framework.