Cambrian (Series 3 – Furongian) conodonts from the Alum Shale Formation at Slemmestad, Oslo Region, Norway

Nine samples from the Alum Shale of Slemmestad, Oslo Region, were processed for conodonts. The limestone-rich interval extending from the mid Cambrian Paradoxides paradoxissimus trilobite Zone to the Lower Ordovician Boeckaspis trilobite Zone yielded a sparse conodont fauna. The fauna is dominated by the protoconodont species Phakelodus elongatus (Zhang in An et al., 1983) and Phakelodus tenuis Müller, 1959, the paraconodont species Westergaardodina polymorpha Müller & Hinz, 1991, Westergaardodina ligula Müller & Hinz, 1991, Problematoconites perforatus Müller, 1959 and Trolmenia acies Müller & Hinz, 1991; the euconodont species Cordylodus proavus Müller, 1959 is present in the Acerocarina Superzone. The presence of the cosmopolitan Cordylodus proavus Müller, 1956 at Slemmestad provides an important tie for regional and international correlation.publishedVersio

Cornell's Depression for Dementia Scale : A psychometric study among Norwegian nursing home residents

Background: Depression is common among residents in long term-care facilities. Therefore, access to a valid and reliable measure of depressive symptoms among nursing home (NH) residents is highly warranted. Aim: The aim of this study was to test the psychometrical properties of the Norwegian version of the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD). Methods: A sample of 309 NH residents were assessed for depressive symptoms using the CSDD in 2015-2016. Data on CSDD were missing for 64 residents, giving an effective sample of 245 (79.3%). Principal component and confirmatory factor analysis were used. Results: A five-dimensional solution yielded the best fit with the data (χ2=174.927, df=94, χ2/df=1.86, p=0.0001, RMSEA=0.058, p-value for test of close fit=0.152, CFI=0.94, TLI=0.92 and SRMR=0.056). As expected, higher depressive symptoms correlated positively with higher scores on the Minimum Data Set Depression Rating Scale (MDSDRS) and correlated negatively with Quality of life assessed with the Quality of Life in Late Stage-Dementia Scale. Limitations: The excluded residents (n=64, 20.7%) had lower cognitive function, which may limit the generalizability of the study results. Conclusion: This study suggests a five-dimensional solution of the CSDD scale. Sixteen of the 19 original items showed highly significant loadings, explaining a notable amount of the variation in the CSDD-construct. Further development and testing of a well-adapted scale assessing depression in the nursing home population with and without dementia is required.publishedVersio

Scale dependent diversity of bryozoan assemblages in the reefs of the Late Ordovician Vasalemma Formation, Estonia

The fieldwork for BK and AP was partly funded by the Academy of Finland project ‘Ecological Engineering as a Biodiversity Driver in Deep Time’ (Decision No. 309422). Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is appreciated for financial support of AE (project ER 278/10.1). The work is a contribution to the IGCP program 735 ‘Rocks and the Rise of Ordovician Life’.The reefs of the Vasalemma Formation, late Sandbian, Late Ordovician, of northern Estonia contain an exceptional rich and abundant bryozoan fauna. They are an example of contemporaneous bryozoan-rich reefs known from around the world, representing the peak diversification interval of this group during the Ordovician. The global Ordovician bryozoan diversification was associated with a decrease in provinciality, a pattern known from other skeletal marine metazoans of this period. The diversification is associated with climatic cooling and increasing atmospheric and sea water oxygenation. However, the mechanisms that led to the bryozoan diversification are poorly known. Here we estimate the bryozoan richness (α and γ diversity) and turnover (β diversity) at the level of samples, reefs, and formations in the Vasalemma Formation and in contemporaneous reef limestone occurrences of the Baltoscandian region. The resulting richness and turnover values differ among the three observational levels and hence are scale dependent. A consistent pattern with lowest between-reef turnover and relatively high between-sample turnover could be detected, reflecting high small-scale (within reef) heterogeneities in lithology and original bryozoan habitat. This is consistent with published work, in which evidence has been presented for small-scale substrate heterogeneity as the most important diversification driver of the Ordovician brachiopod diversification in the Baltoscandian region. The fact that reefs and their local substrate are strongly organism moderated environments sheds light on the potentially important ecosystem engineering role of organisms, such as bryozoans, for the Ordovician diversification.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Large onychites (cephalopod hooks) from the Upper Jurassic of the Boreal Realm

We report on the discovery of large cephalopod arm hooks (mega−onychites) from the Kimmeridgian and Volgian of Spitsbergen (Agardhfjellet Formation). This includes a largely uncompressed hook in a seep carbonate, with preservation of surface sculpture. We suggest the use of logarithmic spirals as morphological descriptors for the outer part of cephalopod arm hooks, with implications for systematics and functional morphology. Comparison with Upper Jurassic material from Greenland, northern Norway and the North Sea demonstrates a remarkably consistent morphology, which we assign to the same form species, Onychites quenstedti. Considering the relatively small stratigraphic (Kimmeridgian–Volgian) and biogeographic (Boreal) range of this large form, it is likely that it represents a single biological species or genus

A Cambrian–Ordovician boundary section in the Rafnes–Herøya submarine tunnel, Skien–Langesund District, southern Norway

Rock specimens and contained fossils collected in 1976 from a submarine tunnel driven between Herøya and Rafnes in the Skien–Langesund area of southern Norway, have been restudied. The contained fossils include olenid and agnostoid trilobites, graptolites and brachiopods, groups described in detail for the first time from the area and documenting a Cambrian–Ordovician boundary section unique in the district where the upper Cambrian Alum Shale Formation is elsewhere overlain by the Middle Ordovician Rognstranda Member of the Huk Formation (Kundan in terms of Baltoscandian chronostratigraphy). The hiatus at the base of the Huk Formation is thus smaller in the section described herein, beginning at a level within rather than below the Tremadocian. Estimated thickness of the Alum Shale includes 10–12 m of Miaolingian and 20–22 m of Furongian strata with trilobite zones identified, and a Tremadocian section of 8.1 m identified by species of the dendroid graptolite Rhabdinopora in the basal 2.6 m and Bryograptus ramosus at the top. The Tremadocian section is preserved in a postulated zone of synsedimentary subsidence along the Porsgrunn–Kristiansand Fault Zone, while at the same time there was extensive erosion across an emergent, level platform elsewhere in the Skien–Langesund District and the southern part of the Eiker–Sandsvær District to the north. Aspects of stratigraphy and tectonics are highlighted together with a discussion on the Cambrian– Ordovician boundary locally and worldwide

Forprosjekt RFF Innlandet: KOLS og telemedisin i Kongsvinger. Erfaringer fra en kommunal telemedisinsk tjeneste for pasienter med KOLS – et utviklingsprosjekt. Rapport fra arbeidspakke 5.

publishedVersio

Diversity and spatial turnover of bryozoan assemblages in the reefs of the Vasalemma Formation (Late Ordovician), Estonia

The reefs of the Vasalemma Formation, late Sandbian, Late Ordovician, of northern Estonia contain an exceptionally rich and abundant bryozoan fauna. They are an example of contemporaneous bryozoan-rich reefs known from around the world, representing the peak diversification interval of this group during the Ordovician. The diversification is associated with global climatic cooling and increasing atmospheric and sea water oxygenation. However, the mechanisms that led to the bryozoan diversification are poorly known. Here we estimate the bryozoan richness (α and γ diversity) and turnover (β diversity) at the level of samples, reefs, and formations in the Vasalemma Formation. The resulting richness and turnover values differ among the three observational levels and hence are scale dependent. A pattern with lowest between-reef turnover and relatively high between-sample turnover could be detected, reflecting high small-scale (within reef) heterogeneities in lithology and original bryozoan habitat. This is consistent with the hypothesis that small-scale substrate heterogeneity was the most important diversification driver in the Vasalemma Formation

Brachiopods from Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous hydrocarbon seep deposits, central Spitsbergen, Svalbard

Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (Late Volgian–latest Ryazanian) rhynchonellate brachiopods are described from eight out of 15 hydrocarbon seep deposits in the Slottsmøya Member of the Agardhfjellet Formation in the Janusfjellet to Knorringfjellet area, central Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The fauna comprises rhynchonellides, terebratulides (terebratuloids and loboidothyridoids) and a terebratellidine. The rhynchonellides include: Pseudomonticlarella varia Smirnova; Ptilorhynchia mclachlani sp. nov.; and Ptilorhynchia obscuricostata Dagys. The terebratulides belong to the terebratuloids: Cyrtothyris? sp.; Cyrtothyris aff. cyrta (Walker); Praelongithyris? aff. borealis Owen; and the loboidothyridoids: Rouillieria cf. michalkowii (Fahrenkohl); Rouillieria aff. ovoides (Sowerby); Rouillieria aff. rasile Smirnova; Uralella? cf. janimaniensis Makridin; Uralella? sp.; Pinaxiothyris campestris? Dagys; Placothyris kegeli? Harper et al.; and Seductorithyris septemtrionalis gen. et sp. nov. The terebratellidine Zittelina? sp. is also present. Age determinations for all but one of the brachiopod-bearing seeps are based on associated ammonites. Five of the seep carbonates have yielded Lingularia similis?, and it is the only brachiopod species recorded from two of the seeps. Other benthic invertebrate taxa occurring in the seeps include bivalves, gastropods, echinoderms, sponges, and serpulid and non-serpulid worm tubes. The brachiopod fauna has a strong Boreal palaeobiogeographic signature. Collectively, the Spitsbergen seep rhynchonellate brachiopods exhibit high species richness and low abundance (<100 specimens from 8 seeps). This contrasts markedly with other Palaeozoic–Mesozoic brachiopod-dominated seep limestones where brachiopods are of low diversity (typically monospecific) with a super-abundance of individuals. The shallow water environmental setting for the Spitsbergen seeps supported a diverse shelf fauna, compared to enigmatic Palaeozoic–Mesozoic brachiopod-dominated seeps

Sequence stratigraphy, basin morphology and sea-level history for the Permian Kapp Starostin Formation of Svalbard, Norway

Based on seven measured sections from Svalbard, the marine strata of the Permian Kapp Starostin Formation are arranged into seven transgressive–regressive sequences (TR1–TR7) of c. 4–5 Ma average duration, each bound by a maximum regressive surface. Facies, including heterozoan-dominated limestones, spiculitic cherts, sandstones, siltstones and shales, record deposition within inner, middle and outer shelf areas. The lowermost sequence, TR1, comprises most of the basal Vøringen Member, which records a transgression across the Gipshuken Formation following a hiatus of unknown duration. Temperate to cold, storm-dominated facies established in inner to middle shelf areas between the latest Artinskian and Kungurian. Prolonged deepening during sequences TR2 and TR3 was succeeded by a long-term shallowing-upward trend that lasted until the latest Permian (TR4–TR7). A major depocentre existed in central and western Spitsbergen while to the north, Dickson Land remained a shallow platform, leading to a shallow homoclinal ramp in NE Spitsbergen and Nordaustlandet. The Middle Permian extinction (late Capitanian) is recorded near the base of TR6 in deeper parts of the basin only; elsewhere this sequence is not recorded. Likewise the youngest sequence, TR7, extending to the upper formational contact of latest Permian age, is found only in the basin depocentre. Comparison with age-equivalent strata in the Sverdrup Basin of Canada reveals a remarkably similar depositional history, with, for example, two (third-order) sea-level cycles recorded in the Late Permian of both regions, in keeping with the global record. Sequence stratigraphy may therefore be a powerful correlative tool for onshore and offshore Permian deposits across NW Pangaea