Nearshore articulate crinoid from the Albian of Alberta, Canada (Early Cretaceous, Echinodermata)

Abstract

During the middle Albian, a southward incursion of the Boreal Ocean flooded northern Alberta and adjacent British Columbia, forming a large embayment known as the Hulcross Sea. Marine mudstones of the Hulcross Formation and Harmon Member of the Peace River Formation record transgression, whereas sandstones of the Cadotte Member of the Peace River Formation record shoreline regression to the north. Abundant hummocky and swaley lamination in the Cadotte sandstone attest to the influence of storms on a shallow shelf. The Cadotte sandstone undergoes a lateral facies change from mud-free shoreface sandstone in the south to heterolithic offshore facies in the north. An articulated crinoid was found within a hummocky sandstone bed about 15 km seaward (north) of the shoreface-shelf facies transition. The articulated state of the crinoid indicates that it was buried very rapidly, and never exhumed. The arms through 20 mm of the column are preserved, but because the details of the aboral cup are not well preserved, this specimen must be left in open nomenclature. The elliptical columnals with a concave latus in the distal portion of the preserved column ally this specimen to the Bourgueticrinida, although with details of the aboral cup lacking and other characters atypical for Mesozoic bourgueticrinids, the Canadian specimen is placed in Bathycrinidae indeterminate. The oldest previously recorded bathycrinids were from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian), thus this report extends their range to the Lower Cretaceous (Albian).