Conodonts and brachiopods from the upper Givetian Renyi Section, eastern Guangxi

The Renyi Section is a newly discovered section in the vicinity of Renyi Town, Hezhou City of Guangxi, in which a continuous marine sedimentary succession of the Middle and Upper Devonian is well developed and out-cropped. The succession yields abundant benthic and pelagic fossils. This paper presents a preliminary research resulton the conodonts and brachiopods from the middle part of the Middle-Upper Devonian Baqi Formation (ca. 80 m thick) at this section. Ten species (or subspecies) of three genera of conodonts are recognized from the studied interval, including Polygnathus alatus, P. cf. collieri, P. cristatus, P. dubius, P. dengleri, P. dengleri sagitta, P. webbi, P. xylus, Klapperina disparalvea and Schmidtognathus wittekindti. Seventeen species of 16 genera of brachiopods are also reported herein, including Schizophoria sp., Gypidula sp., productoid gen. et sp. indet., Leiorhynchus kwangsiensis, Coeloterorhynchus sp., Hypothyridina sp., Uncinulus? sp., Fitzroyella sp., “Ypsilorhychus” subellipticus, Desquamatia sp., Spinatrypina douvillii, Spinatrypina sp., Emanuella sp., Mucrospirifer sp., Undispiriferoides tianqipuensis, Cryptonella? sp. and Oligothyrina? sp. According to the distribution of the conodonts, three conodont zones (S. hermanni, P. cristatus and K. disparilis zones) have been recognized from the studied interval, suggesting an age of late Givetian of the Middle Devonian. The brachiopods were mainly collected from two fossiliferous layers near the base and top of the studied interval, representing two different brachiopod assemblages. The brachiopod fauna from the lower fossiliferous layer (ca. 20 cm thick, S. hermanni Zone) is relatively monotonous in composition, mainly consisting of L. kwangsiensis. This finding verifies the Middle Devonian occurrence of the genus Leiorhynchus in South China. The upper fossiliferous layer (ca. 3 m, upper K. disparilis subzone) yields a diverse brachiopod fauna, including at least 15 genera and displaying the highest diversity of brachiopods ever recorded in a single fossiliferous bed from the upper Givetian of South China.

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