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Information about Goniatite

Goniatite
Fossil range: Early Devonian - Permian
Enlarge picture
Drawing of a goniatite fossil displaying
characteristic 'zigzag' sutures

Drawing of a goniatite fossil displaying
characteristic 'zigzag' sutures
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Mollusca
Class:Cephalopoda
Subclass:Ammonoidea
Order:Goniatitida
Hyatt, 1884
Suborder


Goniatites are an extinct group of ammonoid, which are shelled cephalopods related to squids, belemnites, octopi, and cuttlefish, and more distantly to the nautiloids. Early in the Devonian period, some 400 million years ago, goniatites originated from within the more primitive anarcestine ammonoids. Surviving the Late Devonian biotic crises, goniatites flourished during the Carboniferous and Permian periods and finally became extinct in the Permian–Triassic extinction event at the close of the Paleozoic Era some 251.4 million years ago. They were survived by their cousins the ceratite ammonoids, also descendants of the anarcestine ammonoids.

The goniatites all possessed an external shell, which is divided internally into chambers. The animal lived in the largest of the external chambers, and the internal chambers would have been filled with gas, making the animal buoyant in the water. The general structure of the goniatites would have been similar to that of their relatives the ammonites, being a free swimming animal possessing a head with two well developed eyes and arms (or tentacles).

Enlarge picture
A polished Goniatite fossil


Goniatites are small to medium in size, almost always being less than 15 centimetres (6 inches) in diameter and often smaller than 5 centimetres (2 inches) in diameter. The shell is always planispirally coiled, unlike that of the later ammonites of the Mesozoic era, some of which evolved into partially coiled or completely uncoiled forms (called heteromorphs). The shape of most goniatite shells suggests that they were poor swimmers.

The thin walls between the internal chambers of the shell are called the septa, and as the goniatite grew it would move its body forward in the shell secreting septa behind it, thereby adding new chambers to the shell. The sutures (or suture lines) are visible as a series of narrow, wavy lines on the surface of the shell. The sutures appear where each septa contacts the wall of the outer shell.

A distinctive feature of the goniatites is the "zigzag" pattern of their sutures. The sutures of nautiloids are by comparison somewhat simpler, being either straight or slightly curved, whereas later ammonoids showed suture patterns of increasing complexity. One explanation for this increasing extravagancy in suture pattern is that it leads to a higher strength of the shell.

Ecologically, goniatites were limited to environments of normal-marine salinity -- as appears to be the case for all cephalopods throughout their history. Goniatites are much more abundant and speciose in rocks understood to represent cratonic (also called epicontinental or inland) sea sediments than they are in rocks understood to represent open ocean sediments. Within these inland seas, goniatites' greatest abundance and diversity appears to have been achieved in offshore deep ramp and basinal environments rather than in nearshore environments. Known nearshore (e.g., lagoonal) occurrences have generally been ascribed to wash-in of shells from offshore waters.

Due to lack of strong evidence for any particular life mode (e.g., nektonic, planktonic, demersal, planktivorous, piscivorous), it remains unclear what resources goniatites were capitalizing on in these offshore environments. Only a few goniatites' full trophic apparatuses have ever been described, and reports of stomach contents in these creatures' fossils remain questionable at best. However, goniatites clearly lacked the calcified jaw apparatuses developed later in ammonoid history by the ammonites; this has been cited as evidence against a durophagous (shell-crushing) diet for goniatites.

Goniatites are found in North America, Europe, North Africa and Australasia. However, they seem to occur mostly in areas which at the time would have been tropical to subtropical. Most any fossil-bearing limestone or shale from inland seas of the late Paleozoic tropics or subtropics is likely to yield some goniatites. In the USA, such rocks are found from Maine, New York, and Virginia and in every state west to Nebraska and south to Texas and Alabama; as well as in parts of almost every western state (with North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, and Hawai'i as the exceptions).

Notable goniatite occurrences include the following: Certain limestones in western part of the Republic of Ireland are packed with beautifully preserved goniatite fossils. They are also found in marine bands of the Carboniferous coal measures in Europe, and in marine rocks of the Pennsylvanian period in Arkansas. Large numbers of goniatites occur in rocks from the Devonian period of Morocco, and they are important zone, or index fossils used in dating the rocks of that period.

See also

Devonian is a geologic period of the Paleozoic era spanning from roughly 416 to 359 million years ago. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied.
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Permian is a geologic period that extends from about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma to 251.0 ± 0.4 Ma (million years before the present; ICS 2004). It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era.
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Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. Scientific classification also can be called scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis.
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Mollusca
Linnaeus, 1758

Classes

Caudofoveata
Aplacophora
Polyplacophora
Monoplacophora
Bivalvia
Scaphopoda
Gastropoda
Cephalopoda
† Rostroconchia
† Helcionelloida
† ?Bellerophontida
The molluscs
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Cephalopoda
Cuvier, 1797

Orders

Subclass Nautiloidea
  • †Plectronocerida
  • †Ellesmerocerida
  • †Actinocerida
  • †Pseudorthocerida
  • †Endocerida
  • †Tarphycerida
  • †Oncocerida

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Alpheus Hyatt
Born March 5 1838(1838--)
Washington, D.C.
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Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. Scientific classification also can be called scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis.
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Goniatitina

Superfamilies
  • Adrianitaceae
  • Cyclolobaceae
  • Dimorphocerataceae
  • Gastriocerataceae
  • Goniatitaceae
  • Goniolobocerataceae
  • Marathonitaceae
  • Neodimorphocerataceae
  • Neoglyphiocerataceae
  • Neoicocerataceae

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Tornoceratatina
Wedekind, 1914

Superfamilies
  • Dimerocerataceae
  • Prionocerataceae
  • Pseudohaloritaceae
  • Tornocerataceae


Tornoceratatina is one of two suborders of the Goniatitida order.
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extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point).
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Cephalopoda
Cuvier, 1797

Orders

Subclass Nautiloidea
  • †Plectronocerida
  • †Ellesmerocerida
  • †Actinocerida
  • †Pseudorthocerida
  • †Endocerida
  • †Tarphycerida
  • †Oncocerida

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For other uses, see Squid (disambiguation).


Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUID) are very sensitive magnetometers used to measure extremely small magnetic fields, based on superconducting loops
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Belemnoidea

Extinct Orders

Aulacocerida
Phragmoteuthida
Belemnitida
Diplobelida
Belemnoteuthina

Belemnites (or belemnoids) are an extinct group of marine cephalopod, very similar in many ways to the modern squid and closely related to the
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Octopoda
Leach, 1818

Suborders

†Pohlsepia (incertae sedis)
†Proteroctopus (incertae sedis)
†Palaeoctopus (incertae sedis)
Cirrina
Incirrina
Synonyms

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Sepiida
Zittel, 1895

Suborders and Families
  • †Vasseuriina
  • †Vasseuriidae
  • †Belosepiellidae
  • Sepiina

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Nautiloidea
Agassiz, 1847

Orders

Palcephalopoda
  • †Plectronocerida
  • †Ellesmerocerida
  • †Actinocerida
  • †Pseudorthocerida
  • †Endocerida
  • †Tarphycerida
  • †Oncocerida

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Devonian is a geologic period of the Paleozoic era spanning from roughly 416 to 359 million years ago. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied.
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Late Devonian extinction was one of five major extinction events in the history of the Earth's biota. A major extinction occurred at the boundary that marks the beginning of the last phase of the Devonian period, the Famennian faunal stage, (the Frasnian-Famennian boundary), about
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The Carboniferous is a major division of the geologic timescale that extends from the end of the Devonian period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Ma (million years ago), to the beginning of the Permian period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma (ICS 2004).
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Permian is a geologic period that extends from about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma to 251.0 ± 0.4 Ma (million years before the present; ICS 2004). It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era.
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The Paleozoic Era (from the Greek palaio, "old" and zoion, "animals", meaning "ancient life") is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon.
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Gas is one of the four major states of matter, consisting of freely moving atoms or molecules without a definite shape. Compared to the solid and liquid states of matter a gas has lower density and a lower viscosity.
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In physics, buoyancy is the upward force on an object produced by the surrounding fluid (i.e., a liquid or a gas) in which it is fully, or partially immersed, due to the pressure difference of the fluid between the top and bottom of the object.
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Tentacles can refer to the elongated flexible organs that are present in some animals, especially invertebrates, and sometimes to the hairs of the leaves of some insectivorous plants. Usually, they are used for feeding, feeling and grasping.
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The Mesozoic Era is one of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon. The division of time into eras dates back to Giovanni Arduino, in the 18th century, although his original name for the era now called the 'Mesozoic' was 'Secondary' (making the modern era the 'Tertiary').
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An epeiric sea (also known as an epicontinental sea) is a large but shallow body of salt water that lies over a part of a continent.

Epeiric seas are usually associated with the marine transgressions of the early Cenozoic and other eras.
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An epeiric sea (also known as an epicontinental sea) is a large but shallow body of salt water that lies over a part of a continent.

Epeiric seas are usually associated with the marine transgressions of the early Cenozoic and other eras.
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