| Description: |
Marine vertebrates from the Cisuralian Epoch early Permian Period) are rare in the global fossil record. In particular, species-rich faunas from individual localities are poorly represented, with single occurrence localities that do not fully capture faunal tends in marine vertebrate ecology across this interval. This dissertation helps to close this gap by reporting marine vertebrate fossils from five localities across central North America, containing four to 15 unequivocal vertebrate taxa, as well as a new single occurrence locality near the Carboniferous-Permian boundary. This survey includes representatives from the first three of the four Cisuralian faunal stages, and is the result of new field and lab investigations of vertebrate macro and microremains. An analysis of the number and identity of these fossils at the ordinal level indicates marine vertebrate communities during this interval were likely dominated by hybodontiform and ctenacanthiform chondrichthyans. Other groups such as the Petalodontiformes, Symmoriiformes, Eugeneodontiformes, and Osteichthyes were major components to these many of these assemblages as well. Orodontiforms, neoselachians, bransonelliforms, and cochliodontiforms also occurred in smaller numbers at various points during the Cisuralian Epoch. |