Community Paleoecology as a geologic tool: The Chinese Ashgillian-Eifelian (latest Ordovician through early Middle Devonian) as an example

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Abstract
For the first time the faunal data for the Chinese Ashgillian through Eifelian interval are presented in a community, a community group, and community evolution context. These Chinese data are compared and contrasted with similar data for the same time intervals available from other parts of the world. A brief review of the techniques of community analysis is provided. Emphasis is placed on the nature and preparation of community frameworks, and on the use of the community group concept in classifying communities into a form more useful for purposes of basin analysis. We conclude that community evolution, under appropriate conditions of biogeographic isolation from many other parts of the contemporary marine world, proceeded in China along lines similar to those recognized elsewhere in the world. Our data are cast into a basin analysis framework, time interval by time interval, through the use of 11 community framework diagrams. More than 60 community units are defined and described, most of which are assigned to a community group. Most of the communities described here from the Chinese Ashgillian through Eifelian interval represent relatively near-shore, shallow-water, photic zone equivalent, Benthic Assemblage 2 and 3 communities. Notable too is the relatively small number of communities, representing an equivalent or even smaller number of community groups, for each of the time intervals selected for community analysis. This indicates the importance of analyzing a very large part of the world when doing such work, and also the need to compare conclusions derived from one area with work done in another area for internal consistency. The high level of endemism characteristic of most of the Chinese Ashgillian through Eifelian ensures that most of the communities from this part of the Paleozoic will be unique, rather than shared with other, previously analyzed parts of the world such as North America and Europe.

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