Shark fauna and depositional environment of the earliest Cretaceous Vitabäck Clays at Eriksdal, southern Sweden

ABSTRACT A section of the Vitabäck Clays at Eriksdal in southern Sweden was sampled for vertebrate fossils. Large bulk samples were collected from three horizons, including two coquina beds, VC3 and VC11, and a silty clay bed, VC7. Shark teeth are very common and constitute the main portion of the vertebrate material discussed herein. The selachian tooth faunas are almost exclusively represented by hybodonts, although a single tooth from a neoselachian shark, Squatinidae indet., was recorded from one horizon (VC3). Hybodont species identified from the Vitabäck Clay samples include Egertonodus basanus, Hybodus parvidens and Parvodus rugianus. Hybodont remains, other than teeth, include five morphotypes of placoid scales, incomplete cephalic spines and fragmentary fin spines. Other fossil groups represented in the sieved residues from the bulk samples include bivalves, gastropods and bony fish. Together with the selachians, they indicate fluctuating palaeosalinities in the area. The lower coquina bed, VC3, includes taxa indicating mesohaline conditions while the composition of the fauna in the other coquina bed, VC11, suggests oligohaline settings. In bed VC7, the presence of amphibian remains and the rarity of selachian fossils indicate an even lower salinity. Palynomorphs from the basal part of the section, immediately below bed VC3, indicate an earliest Cretaceous (Berriasian) age.