Anisian - Stratigraphic Definitions

Stratigraphic Definitions

The stage and its name were established by Austrian geologists Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen and Carl Diener in 1895. The name comes from Anisus, the Latin name of the river Enns. The original type locality is at Großreifling in the Austrian state of Styria.

The base of the Anisian stage (also the base of the Middel Triassic series) is sometimes laid at the first appearance of conodont species Chiosella timorensis in the stratigraphic record. Other stratigraphers prefer to use the base of magnetic chronozone MT1n. The global reference profile for the base (the GSSP or golden spike) is at a flank of the mountain Deşli Caira in the Romanian Dobruja.

The top of the Anisian (the base of the Ladinian) is at the first appearance of ammonite species Eoprotrachyceras curionii and the ammonite family Trachyceratidae. The conodont species Neogondolella praehungarica appears at the same level.

Sometimes (especially in Central Europe) the Anisian stage is subdivided into four substages: Aegean, Bythinian, Pelsonian and Illyrian.

The Anisian contains six ammonite biozones:

  • zone of Nevadites
  • zone of Hungarites
  • zone of Paraceratites
  • zone of Balatonites balatonicus
  • zone of Kocaelia
  • zone of Acrochordiceras

Read more about this topic:  Anisian

Famous quotes containing the word definitions:

    What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty.
    —G.C. (Georg Christoph)