The Granton ‘shrimp-bed’, Edinburgh—a Lower Carboniferous Konservat-Lagerstätte

Abstract

ABSTRACTNewly discovered crustaceans from the Granton ‘shrimp-bed’ (Dinantian, Lower Oil Shale Group) are described: Bairdops elegans, Minicaris sp., Palaemysis, Tealliocaris cf. woodwardi, Pseudogalathea ornatissima, Anthracocaris scotica, Paraparchites cf. okeni, Beyrichiopsis plicata, and Eocypridina cf. aciculata, and new observations on Waterstonella grantonensis are reported. Tealliocaris woodwardi alone is recorded from bed o, a level ca 1 m below the ‘shrimp-bed’. The Granton ‘shrimp-bed’ biota is reviewed—the geological and lithological context of the deposit, the distribution and taphonomy of the biota, its life environment, palaeoecology, the likely causes of mortality, and comparisons are made with contemporaneous shrimp biotas. The nature of this unusual Konservat-Lagerstätte reflects conditions in the sheltered, periodically emergent lagoon which it represents.