Hamilton Quarry is a Late Carboniferous lagerstätte near Hamilton, Kansas, United States. It has a diverse assemblage of unusually well-preserved marine, euryhaline, freshwater, flying, and terrestrial fossils (invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants).[1] The habitat of some of these faunal elements, as for anamniotic stegocephalians, is debated; although some of these have traditionally been interpreted as freshwater inhabitants,[2] some may have been euryhaline.[3][4] This extraordinary mix of fossils suggests it was once an estuary.[5] This type of Lagerstätte is considered a Konservat-Lagerstätte (or conservation lagerstätte), due to the quality the preservation of soft tissue (skin preservation).
The lagerstätte occurs within a paleovalley that was incised into the surrounding Carboniferous cyclothemic sequence during a time of low sea level and was then filled in during a subsequent transgression. The channel has a capping series of interbedded laminated limestones and mudstones for which are designated the Lagerstätte beds or ‘vertebrate horizon’. This facies contains a well-preserved mixed assemblage of terrestrial (conifers, insects, myriapods, reptiles), freshwater (ostracods), aquatic (amphibians, reptile), brackish or euryhaline (ostracods, eurypterids, microconchids, fish), and marine (brachiopods, echinoderms) fossils.
↑Laurin, Michel (30 December 2024). "Habitat of early stegocephalians (Chordata, Vertebrata, Sarcopterygii): a little saltier than most paleontologists like?" (in en). Fossil Record27 (3): 299–332. doi:10.3897/fr.27.123291. ISSN2193-0074.
↑Beck, Kimberly; Soler-Gijon, Rodrigo; Carlucci, Jesse; Willis, Raymond (2014). "Morphology and histology of dorsal spines of the xenacanthid shark Orthacanthus platypternus from the Lower Permian of Texas, USA: palaeobiological and palaeoenvironmental implications". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. doi:10.4202/app.00126.2014. ISSN0567-7920.
↑Reisz, Robert; Haridy, Yara; Müller, Johannes (9 November 2016). "Euconcordia nom. nov., a replacement name for the captorhinid eureptile Concordia Müller and Reisz, 2005 (non Kingsley, 1880), with new data on its dentition." (in en). Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology3. doi:10.18435/B53W22. ISSN2292-1389.
↑deBraga, Michael; Reisz, Robert R. (1995). "A new diapsid reptile from the uppermost Carboniferous (Stephanian) of Kansas". Palaeontology38 (1): 199-212.