258 CONFERENCE ON PALEOZOIC PALEOGEOGRAPHY 



PALEOQEOGRAPHIC AND GEOLOGIC SIGNIFICANCE OF RECENT BRACHIO- 



PODA^ 



BY CHARLES SCHUCHERT 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Number and rank of recent brachiopods 258 



Bathymetric range 260 



In general 260 



Inarticulata genera 261 



Articulata genera 265 



Shell characters of deep-water species i . . . . 266 



Geologic history of living brachiopods 266 



Geographic situation of recent brachiopods 268 



In general 268 



Distribution of the genera 269 



Deep-sea realm 269 



Boreal region 270 



Austral region 270 



Oceanica 271 



Gondwana 271 



Equatorial Atlantic 274 



Number and Rank of recent Brachiopods 



There is no class of living shelled animals better known as to their 

 structure, habitat, and geographical distribution than the Brachiopoda. 

 They have been persistently dredged for because of their rarity by many 

 exploring vessels, in all seas and in all depths, and have been studied by 

 many workers, chiefly in Europe, America, and Japan. A careful study 

 of the rather diffuse literature^ reveals 166 more or less well known 



1 Manuscript received by the Secretary of ttie Society May 28, 1911. 



2 Ttie information here given has been gathered from many sources, but the more im- 

 portant worlss are as foUows : 



Beecher : Revision of the families of loop-bearing Brachiopoda and development of 

 Terehratalia ohsoleta Dall ; Trans. Conn. Acad., 9, 1893. 



Blochmann : Untersuchungen iiber den Bau der Brachiopoden, Jena, 1892 and 1909. 

 Neue Brachiopoda d. Valdivia u. Gauss Expedition, Zool. Anzeiger, 30, 1906. Zur Sys- 

 tematische u. Geographische Verbreitung d. Brachiopoden, Zeit. f. Wiss. Zool., 90, 1908. 



Buckman : Antarctic fossil Brachiopoda, Schwedische Siidpolar-Expedition, 1910. 



Dall : Many papers from 1870-1909. 



Davidson : A monograph of recent Brachiopoda, Trans. Linnean Soc. London, 4, 3 

 parts, 1886-1888. 



Hall and Clarke : An introduction to the study of Brachiopoda, Rep. N. Y. State Geol., 

 1894. 



Schuchert : A synopsis of American fossil Brachiopoda, Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., 87, 

 1897. 



Yatsu : Notes on the histology of Lingula anatina, Jour. Coll. Sci., Imp. Univ., Tokio, 

 17, 1902. Habits of the Japanese Lingula, Annot. Zool. Japonenses, 4, 1902. 



