BRITISH AVONIAN CONODONT FAUNAS 9 
The Franco-Belgian Province 
Studies of the Franco-Belgian Lower Carboniferous conodont faunas are com- 
paratively recent. Serre & Lys (1960) described the distribution of Tournaisian and 
Viséan conodonts in the Avesnois, Boulonnais and Hainault regions of Northern 
France and Belgium, and Conil, Lys & Mauvier (1964) recorded the ranges of conodont 
species in the type formations of the Dinantian in the Franco-Belgian Province. 
More recently Bouckaert & Ziegler (1965) have published an account of the conodont 
faunas of the Famennian Stage in Belgium. 
Conodont studies in the Franco-Belgian Province are important because these 
sections have yielded the type specimens of many Lower Carboniferous cephalopods. 
Unfortunately, however, neither Serre & Lys nor Conil, Lys & Mauvier have system- 
atically described or illustrated their specimens, and they have given no exact 
distribution or abundance data for individual species. Thus the work at present is 
of limited value. Few correlations can be made, although one which can be made 
with a fair degree of certainty is based on the distribution of Scaliognathus anchoralis. 
This species is restricted to Tng, in the Franco-Belgian Province and to the Cu 
II 8 y horizon in Germany. This is important, because hitherto it has been con- 
sidered likely that the Tournaisian—Viséan boundary in Germany should be drawn 
at the base of Cu II 8 y, based on the distribution of Pericyclus princeps. This is the 
zonal fossil for Cu II « in Germany and was first found and described from the Tn 3c 
of Belgium. If the conodont correlations based on anchoralis are accepted, they are 
at variance with the “ well established ”’ goniatite evidence, although the literature 
does not contain a single reference to Pericyclus princeps having ever been found in 
Germany. It is therefore a very dubious “ zonal fossil ’’. 
The need for systematic descriptions and illustrations of the Franco-Belgian 
conodonts is thus urgent for it may provide the key for unravelling the German 
succession and for filling the gaps which are present in Germany. 
The United States 
Lower Carboniferous conodont research in North America began in the mid 
nineteen-thirties. Huddle (1934) described the conodont fauna of the New Albany 
Shale in Indiana and Branson & Mehl, working in Missouri, described the conodont 
faunas of the Bushberg Sandstone (1934A), of the ‘‘ Lower Mississippian Formations”’ 
(1938A), of the Caney Formation (1940) and of the Keokuk Formation in Iowa and 
Missouri (1941A). E.R. Branson (1934) also described conodonts from the Hannibal 
Formation in Missouri. 
Cooper (1939) described conodonts from the Bushberg Hannibal strata in Okla- 
homa and later, with Sloss (1943), described a fauna from a Lower Mississippian 
black shale in Montana and Alberta. 
Mehl & Thomas (1947) described the conodont fauna of the Fern Glen Formation 
in Missouri, and Thomas (1949) described the faunas of Lower Mississippian age from 
the English River and Prospect Hill Siltstones of South East Iowa. 
Hass described Lower Carboniferous conodonts from the Arkansas Novaculite of 
