Siboglinidae Caullery, 1914

Georgieva, Magdalena N., Little, Crispin T. S., Watson, Jonathan S., Sephton, Mark A., Ball, Alexander D. & Glover, Adrian G., 2019, Identification of fossil worm tubes from Phanerozoic hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 17 (4), pp. 287-329 : 306

?Family Siboglinidae Caullery, 1914 (?vestimentiferan)

‘Prince Patrick tubes’

( Fig. 11C, F, G )

1992 serpulid worm tubes Beauchamp & Savard: 438, figs 2a, 5a, 8c, d.

Material. NRC C-453952 1-4, Prince Patrick Island, many small tubes cemented together in a large bundle. NRC C-453961 PPL, C-453989 PPL, tubes observed in thin section. Provided by S. E. Grasby.

Occurrence. Prince Patrick Island seep carbonates, Arctic, Canada. Christopher Formation, Lower Albian, Cretaceous ( Beauchamp et al. 1989; Beauchamp & Savard 1992).

Description. Carbonate tubes mostly 1.0 mm in diameter, but tubes of up to 5 mm also occur in these clumps ( Fig. 11C ). Tubes are unattached, non-branching and non-agglutinated. Ornamentation of the tube walls is largely obscured due to surface mineralization. In thin section, the tube walls are very similar to those of the large tubes from the same deposit: they are mostly thick and comprise many superimposed layers ( Fig. 11F ), but some are thinwalled ( Fig. 11G ). Tube cross-sections are distinctly round ( Fig. 11F ) suggesting that tubes were originally rigid. Some of the smaller tubes contain small transparent spheres within their interior ( Fig. 11G ).

Remarks. Tubes from Prince Patrick Island have also been interpreted as having been made by serpulids ( Beauchamp & Savard 1992). However, these tubes were probably not originally calcareous in composition due to the absence of chevron-like layering, their neatly laminated tube walls and the separation of wall layers in places, which is unlikely to occur in cemented mineral tubes. Although outer tube wall ornamentation could not be assessed, the at times thick walls that these tubes possess, in combination with the morphology of the tube cluster, suggest that they may represent the fossilized root portions of vestimentiferan tubes (cf. Fig. 8I ). These tubes are resolved near siboglinid tubes in the PCA plot ( Fig. 21 ) and near vestimentiferans in the less conservative cladistic analysis ( Fig. 24B ), and are therefore also tentatively assigned to the vestimentiferans.

Figures

Figure 8. A–H, ‘Omagari tubes’, Campanian, Hokkaido, Japan; A, OMG03-4a, hand specimen with many, similar-diameter tubes with brown walls encased in carbonate; B, OMG03-3b, detail of tube with brown wall, outer wall appears smooth; C, D, OMG03-1, cluster of tubes (C) with mineralized walls but not encased in carbonate, and detail of individual tubes (D); E, OMG03-2, tubes with brown walls in section; F, OMG03-4b, large-diameter tube in transverse section with wall comprised of many layers; G, OMG03-1, preserved tear in the wall of a tube suggesting an originally fibrous nature; H, clump of Omagari tubes (reproduced from Hikida et al. 2003). I, clump of the roots of the seep vestimentiferan Lamellibrachia luymesi (donated by C. Fisher). Scale bars: A = 10 mm; B = 1 mm; C = 5 mm; D, E = 2 mm; F = 500 µm; G = 50 µm; H, I = 20 mm.

Figure 11. Tubes from the Albian Christopher Formation, Canada. A, B, D, E, ‘Ellef Ringnes tubes’; A, NRC C-581891 QQA-10-22, tubes in hand specimen; B, NRC C-581891 QQA-10-22, sections of tubes; D, NRC C-541891CPPL, detail of a transverse section of a tube showing thick, multi-layered tube walls, with some possible misaligned torn fibres (white arrow); E, NRC C-541891CPPL, detail of a transverse section of a tube showing a break in the tube wall where it appears broken fibres have curved slightly and misaligned (white arrow). C, F, G, ‘Prince Patrick tubes’; C, NRC C-453952 1–4, tubes in hand specimen; F, NRC C-453961PPL, transverse section of a tube exhibiting thick, multi-layered tube walls; G, NRC C-453989PPL, longitudinal section of a tube with thinner walls containing round pellets. Scale bars: A–C = 10 mm; D, F, G = 1 mm; E = 500 µm.

Figure 21. Principal coordinate analysis plot of modern and fossil annelid tubes, based on the 48 characters scored for this study. Fossils (grey crosses): 1. Yamankasia rifeia; 2, Eoalvinellodes annulatus; 3, ‘Sibay tubes’; 4, Tevidestus serriformis; 5, ‘Figueroa tubes’; 6, ‘Sassenfjorden area tubes’; 7, ‘Cold Fork Cottonwood Creek tubes’; 8, ‘Prince Patrick tubes’; 9, ‘Ellef Ringnes tubes’; 10, ‘Troodos attached tubes’; 11, ‘Troodos wrinkled tubes’; 12, ‘Troodos collared tubes’; 13, ‘Okukinenbetsu yellow tubes’; 14, ‘Okukinenbetsu brown tubes’; 15, ‘Omagari tubes’; 16, ‘Canyon River tubes’; 17, ‘Murdock Creek tubes’; 18, ‘West Fork Satsop River tubes’; 19, Serpulidae sp., ‘Bexhaven’; 20, ‘Upper Waiau River tubes’; 21, ‘Rocky Knob tubes’. Modern tubes: Chaetopteridae (orange dots): 22, Chaetopterus cf. variopedatus; 23, Chaetopteridae id83; 24, Phyllochaetopterus polus; 25, P. gigas; 26, P. claparedii; 27, P. prolifica; 28, P. socialis; 29, Spiochetopterus izuensis; 30, S. sagamiensis; 31, S. costarum; 32, S. typicus; 33, Mesochaetopterus taylori. Siboglinidae, frenulata (dark blue filled triangles): 34, Galathealinum arcticum; 35, Lamellisabella denticulata; 36, Oligobrachia gracilis; 37, Polybrachia canadensis; 38, Siboglinum ekmani; 39, S. lacteum; 40, Siphonobrachia lauensis; 41, Unibrachium colombianum; 42, Zenkevitchiana longissima; 43. Siboglinidae, Sclerolinum (light blue outline triangle): S. contortum; Siboglinidae, vestimentiferans (light purple filled inverted triangles): 44, Alaysia spiralis; 45, Arcovestia ivanovi; 46, Escarpia southwardae; 47, Lamellibrachia anaximandri; 48, Paraescarpia echinospica; 49, Ridgeia piscesae; 50, Riftia pachyptila; 51, Tevnia jerichonana; 52, Seepiophila jonesi; Siboglinidae, vestimentiferan roots (dark purple outline inverted triangles): 53, E. southwardae root; 54, L. anaximandri root; 55, S. jonesi root; 56, P. echinospica root; Alvinellidae (maroon outline diamond): 57, Alvinella sp.; Ampharetidae (fuchsia outline rhombus): 58, Glyphanostomum sp.; Serpulidae (lime filled squares): 59, Serpulidae sp. JCR; 60, Serpula vermicularis; 61, Vermiliopsis infundibulum; Sabellidae (yellow outline squares): 62, Sabella pavonina; 63, Megalomma vesiculosum; Oweniidae (dark green outline dot): 64. Owenia fusiformis.

Figure 24. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy spectra of the organic tubes of vent and seep annelids. Spectra are offset on the absorbance axis, and key spectral absorbance peaks are labelled with the types of chemical bonds they represent: -NH, nitrogenhydrogen; -CH, carbon-hydrogen; -OH, oxygen-hydrogen. The regions of the tube analysed are as follows: Tevnia jerichonana (anterior, inner tube wall); Zenkevitchiana longissimi (middle, outer tube wall); Lamellibrachia anaximandri (posterior, outer tube wall); Sclerolinum contortum (anterior, outer tube wall); Alvinella sp. (middle); Spiochaetopterus izuensis (middle, outer tube wall).