Abstract
THOUGH abounding in ill-preserved plant remains, the Old Red Sandstone rocks of Shetland have hitherto yielded none of those characteristic fossil fishes which would enable us to compare them with rocks of similar age elsewhere in Scotland. On the general evidence of lithological features and the supposed identity of their respective floras, they have been regarded usually as a northward extension of the “Orcadian” beds of Caithness and the Orkneys. Two years ago Mr. John S. Flett, M.B., B.Sc, of Edinburgh University, was able to report that he had found certain obscure fish remains in Shetland, and, this summer, assisted by a grant from the Royal Society of London to defray the expenses of quarrying, he has succeeded in obtaining a number of undoubted fish remains from the flag-stones of Brissay, near Lerwick. In this collection, which consists mostly of broken and detached plates, Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S., has recognised fragments of an Asterolepis (probably a new species) and of Holoneina, a fish new to Britain, but occurring in the Chemung (Upper Devonian) of North America. A full description of these will, no doubt, shortly be forthcoming. In the meantime, it seems certain that the fauna of these beds is distinct from any fauna of Old Red age at present known in Britain, and, until more fully investigated, its horizon remains open to question; but Mr. Flett inclines to believe that its real position will turn out to be intermediate between the John-o'-Groat's beds (the highest of the Orcadian series of the Orkneys) and the true Upper Old Red of Moray and Elgin. The genus Asterolepis, so characteristic of the Upper Old Red, was shown by him two years ago to occur also in the Thurso beds of the Orkneys, and the general forms of the Shetland flora would indicate a connection with the Orcadian. Nevertheless, the whole aspect of the fauna is Upper Old Red; not one of the commoner Orcadian fishes has been obtained in Shetland. An interesting problem is opened up by these discoveries, to which it is to be hoped further investigations will furnish a definite solution.
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The Old Red Sandstone of Shetland . Nature 61, 80 (1899). https://doi.org/10.1038/061080a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/061080a0