The highly diversified rugose coral fauna from the Lower Givetian Meerbüsch quarry in the Eifel Hills (Germany)

Abstract

Twenty taxa of Lower Givetian rugose corals have been investigated in the Dreimühlen Formation from the Meerbüsch quarry, in the Eifel Hills. The fauna consists mostly of solitary coralla associated with some fasciculate specimens of Disphyllum caespitosum (Goldfuss, 1826) and with large massive colonies of Argutastrea briceae (Rohart, 1988). The genus Marennophyllum n. gen. is introduced with Cystiphylloides marennense Coen-Aubert, 2019 as type species to include the solitary species previously assigned to the fasciculate genus Cystiphylloides Chapman, 1893. Three species are new: Marennophyllum wenningi n. sp., Grypophyllum schroederi n. sp. and Macgeea mistiaeni n.sp. The stratigraphic distribution of the material observed in Meerbüsch quarry is compared with that of the Middle Devonian in the Eifel Hills as a whole, the southern part of Belgium, and other countries of Western Europe. Some species such as Acanthophyllum heterophyllum (Milne-Edwards & Haime, 1851), A. vermiculare (Goldfuss, 1826), Grypophyllum convolutum (Wedekind, 1925), Stringophyllum acanthicum (Frech, 1885) and Aristophyllum luetti Coen-Aubert, 1997 are also present at the northern margin of Gondwana (Ma’der in Morocco, Zemmour in Mauritania, and Alborz Mountains in Iran). The occurrence of Heliophyllum cf. cribellum Oliver & Sorauf, 2002 in Meerbüsch quarry suggests an Eastern North American influence.