Middle Pennsylvanian Ichnofauna from Eastern Oklahoma, USA

Abstract

The Keota site, in the Middle Pennsylvanian (Desmoinesian) Keota Sandstone Member, McAlester Formation (Krebs Group) of Haskell County, Oklahoma, yields an extensive ichnofossil assemblage of arthropod trackways, insect resting traces, arthropod feeding and grazing traces, fish swimming traces, and tetrapod footprints. This ichnofossil assemblage occurs in a 0.8 to 1.5-m-thick unit of thinly laminated and ripple-laminated sandstone at the base of the Keota Sandstone Member that is interpreted as a tidal flat sandstone. The arthropod traces are assigned to the ichnotaxa Diplichnites gouldi Gevers types A and B, Diplopodichnus biformis Brady, Paleohelcura tridactyla Gilmore, Tonganoxichnus buildexensis Mángano, Buatois, Maples and Lanier, Gordia marina Emmons, cf. Cochlichnus sp. and Treptichnus bifurcus Miller. The fish swimming traces are assigned to Undichna britannica Higgs, and the tetrapod tracks to Notalacerta ichnosp. and Pseudobradypus ichnosp. The Keota ichnofossil assemblage thus documents the first North American Pennsylvanian record of Paleohelcura tridactyla and the first record of Pseudobradypus from the western United States. This ichnofossil assemblage also provides compelling evidence of a freshwater habitat in a tidal flat setting during deposition of the fossil-bearing sandstone at the Keota site. Indeed, the Keota ichnofossil assemblage is characteristic of a Carboniferous-Permian Tonganoxichnus assemblage that identifies nonmarine tidal flat settings.

Keywords:

• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvanian
• Keota Sandstone Member
• ichnofauna
• trackways
• arthropod
• tetrapod
• tidal flat
• Tonganoxichnus assemblage

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

James Bruner discovered the Keota site and brought it to our attention and generously donated the specimens in the NMMNH collection. Simon Braddy, George Pemberton, and Neil Suneson provided helpful comments on the manuscript. We dedicate this paper to the late Bill Sarjeant, a true renaissance man whose many contributions to paleontology included ground-breaking work in ichnology.