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ISBN: 978-1-897095-80-5

ISSN: 0821-7556

Upper Mississippian rugose corals representing 11 families are described from uppermost Viséan to middle Serpukhovian open marine carbonates of the Western Interior and eastern Alaska coral provinces in western and northern Canada.  This fauna is mainly from the uppermost Mount Head Formation and the overlying Etherington Formation of the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains and is also present in the middle Alapah Formation of the British Mountains in northern Yukon.  The families include two new subfamilies (Schoenophyllinae, Petalaxinae), 20 genera of which one is new, and 36  species of which 31 are newly named or left in open or uncertain nomenclature.

In the southern Rocky Mountains five widespread coral zones are established, based mainly on the biostratigraphic succession in the Lizard Range, where they are dated by associated world-wide foraminiferal zones 16-18.  In ascending order, these are the Upper Viséan Siphonodendron, Palaeosmilia, and Enniskillenia zones, the uppermost Viséan to lowest Serpukhovian Lublinophyllum Zone and the Lower to Middle Serpukhovian Cystolonsdaleia Zone.

The presence of genera common to upper Viséan/Serpukhovian coral faunas of western Canada and the Western Paleotethyan Coral Realm indicates east-west faunal exchange through a shallow marine corridor separating Laurentia and northern Gondwana at this time. Diversity in these faunas reached a maximum during the latest Viséan, followed by a marked decrease during the Serpukhovian, reflecting the development of conditions unfavourable for coral development during the early phases of the Appalachian and Variscan orogens.

Joint Committee on Paleontological Monographs

Softcover 169 pp., 26 pls. (2017)