First occurrence of jumping trackway in upper Paleozoic glacially-related deposits, Paraná Basin, Brazil, and paleoenvironmental implications

Abstract

Abstract Ichnology is fundamental to understanding characteristics of paleoenvironments such as hydrodynamic energy, oxygenation, salinity and substrate consistency. The Itararé Group is a Mississippian-Cisuralian lithostratigraphic unit of the Paraná Basin, in which trace fossils have been increasingly employed in paleoenvironmental reconstructions during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age in western Gondwana. The upper unit of the Itararé Group, the Rio do Sul Formation, exhibits a diverse trace fossil assemblage preserved in fine-grained rhythmites deposited in glacially related aquatic environments. In these rhythmites, trackways and trails produced by terrestrial and aquatic organisms were previously described. In this paper we report a new trace fossil collected from a rhythmite quarry near Trombudo Central, Santa Catarina state, and discuss potential paleoenvironmental implications. The studied specimen consists of an arthropod jumping trackway which could indicate a subaerial paleoenvironmental setting corroborating previous ichnological studies.