Discoaster

Discoaster is a genus of extinct star-shaped marine algae, with calcareous exoskeletons of between 5-40 μm across that are abundant as nanofossils in tropical deep-ocean deposits of Neogene age. Discoaster belongs to the haptophytes. About 100 species can be recognized.

Discoaster

Hannes Grobe ( talk ), Alfred Wegener Institute · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
PrymnesiophycidaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Haptophyta
Life habit
planktonic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Haptophyta
Motility
passively mobilePBDB, for Haptophyta
Environment
oceanic,oligotrophic,marine,brackishPBDB, for Haptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 89 million years on record.

The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 47 of 12000 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 31 of 12000 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 1190 of 12000 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 654 of 12000 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 5880 of 12000 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3259 of 12000 occurrencesPleistocene — about 939 of 12000 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 3 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 8 occurrences89–85 Mya — about 16 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 18 occurrences82–79 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences79–75 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences75–72 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences72–68 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 1 occurrence65–62 Mya — about 3 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 10 occurrences58–55 Mya — about 39 occurrences55–51 Mya — about 77 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 74 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 205 occurrences44–41 Mya — about 245 occurrences41–38 Mya — about 271 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 263 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 215 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 166 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 242 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 391 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 480 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 580 occurrences14–10 Mya — about 1178 occurrences10–6.8 Mya — about 2184 occurrences6.8–3.4 Mya — about 3292 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 2036 occurrences89.8 Mya129 ka103 Mya0 Mya

12,000+ occurrences of Discoaster on record. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

12,000 occurrences read

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. The read hit its cap, so every figure above is a floor and the shares are of the occurrences read. More on what this infers.

Found in

at least 20 formations

Butano — 37.42°N, 122.20°WButano — 37.34°N, 122.21°WButano — 37.27°N, 122.29°WMap — 9.55°N, 138.15°EMap — 9.56°N, 138.20°EKuma — 44.74°N, 33.88°EJuanilla — 10.98°N, 85.71°WWadi Esh-Shallala — 31.57°N, 37.12°EBorbon — 1.00°N, 79.75°WMikindani — 10.26°S, 40.19°EBrockenhurst Beds — 50.82°N, 1.57°WBlue Bluff — 33.14°N, 81.76°WEsmeraldas — 1.00°N, 79.75°WKoun — 40.50°N, 49.53°ELangental Beds — 27.40°S, 15.41°EWilliamsburg — 33.40°N, 79.93°WWilliamsburg — 33.28°N, 79.64°WFormación Coquimbo — 29.08°S, 71.46°WNovopavlovka — 44.74°N, 33.88°EShihmen — 23.91°N, 121.05°EQuilon Limestone — 8.97°N, 76.63°EOld Church — 37.60°N, 77.09°WStadium — 32.78°N, 117.15°WPedro Luro — 39.71°S, 61.04°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Discoaster has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. The read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 11,889 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

593 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 838 sites for Discoaster, and this reads 240 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

at least 99 references

Each of the 12,000 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. That read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 87 further references are not listed. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Discoaster

Credit
Hannes Grobe ( talk ), Alfred Wegener Institute
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPrymnesiophycidae through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Tan 1902