Early Carboniferous Benthic Communities in New South Wales

Visean-Delepinea aspinosa Zone fossil data from marine shelf environments in New South Wales. Multivariate cluster analysis identifies recurrent species associations within the Inflatia elegans and Linoprotonia tenuirugosa subzones. The dataset is provided by the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Use Cases

• Identify distinct fossil communities like the Unispirifer striatoconvolutus community using cluster analysis on species presence/abundance data.
• Analyze species composition changes between the Inflatia elegans and Linoprotonia tenuirugosa subzones, tracking persistent communities like Rhipidomella australis.
• Model paleoenvironmental gradients by correlating community distributions (e.g., Unispirifer striatoconvolutus near wave-base) with inferred shelf depth settings.
• Study community intergradation and overlap using data on species associations across the Rhipidomella australis and Leptagonia analoga communities.

Strengths

• Analysis covers all known fossiliferous intervals from two defined subzones in the study area.
• Multivariate methods including Euclidean distance and weighted-pair grouping provide structured community identification.
• Results are compared with faunas from the succeeding Rhipidomella fortimuscula Zone for temporal context.

Limitations

• Specific sample count, row count, and data granularity (e.g., per-species counts) are not provided.
• Data is confined to a specific geologic zone (Visean-Delepinea aspinosa) in New South Wales, limiting geographic scope.
• Primary data format is documented in HTML/PDF, which may require extraction for quantitative analysis.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Multivariate cluster analysis of fossil samples collected from known fossiliferous intervals.

Time Range

Early Carboniferous (Visean-Delepinea aspinosa Zone).

Freshness

null

Geography

New South Wales, Australia.