Palaeoichthyological investigation in the Luga area of Leningrad Region: past and present

Abstract

A list of Devonian vertebrates from the Luga District of the Leningrad Region (Russia) was originally mentioned by P. N. Venyukov (1884). However, detailed palaeoichthyological studies in this territory started in only during 1926-1931 in the framework of the geological mapping programme. Two field crews studied the sections of the Middle and Upper Devonian by the Luga, Lemovzha, Oredezh, Tesovaya and Vruda rivers. One of the teams was the Devonian Lithological expedition under guided by R. F. Hecher. D. V. Obruchev was also involved in the works of this expedition. Other team headed by B. P. Asatkin surveyed the western part of the Leningrad Region. Both teams sampled numerous outcrops and boreholes, and collected abundant vertebrate remains. As a result the Devonian deposits were subdivided into the regional beds characterized by diverse vertebrate assemblages. Collectioning and research of Devonian vertebrates in this area continued in the 1950-1960ties by D. V. Obruchev and his students: V. N. Karatajute-Talimaa, E. Mark-Kurik, L. A. Lyarskaya. Their descriptions of Eifelian-Frasnian agnathans and fishes were published in the series of monographs or papers (e.g. Karatajute-Talimaa, 1963, Obruchev & Mark-Kurik, 1965, Lyarskaya, 1981). During the last thirty years J. Valiukevicius and some of the authors of the present report supplemented the vertebrate collections from some sections. The new localities in this area were reported by the 2001 Latvian-Russian Expedition (A. Ivanov, E. Luksevics, I. Zupins and others). The 2009-2010 Russo-Franco-Latvian expedition discovered a new diverse material from the historical and new localities of that area.Origin, ecology and environments of the earliest tetrapods from the Upper Devonian (Frasnian) and paleogeography in the Eastern "Old Red Sandstone Continent"