The Pentamerus community was an early Silurian community dominated by the large-shelled brachiopod (lamp shell) of the species Pentamerus oblongus. The community often included 5 to 20 associated species, although enormous populations of only one species sometimes are found preserved in growth position. The Pentamerus community and its slightly older and younger equivalents dominated by similar pentamerid species in the genera Virgiana, Borealis, Pentameroides, and Kirkidium all occupied a bathymetric zone of medium water depth. These pentamerid communities are known to have lived in sunlit waters because they are associated with robust, calcareous green algae. The waters were not too shallow, however, because pentamerid brachiopods lost their pedicle (the fleshy appendage that tethers the shell to the seafloor) as they matured, and thus unsecured populations were vulnerable to disruption by steady wave activity. The pentamerid communities thrived within depths of perhaps 30 to 60 metres (100 to 200 feet). This was below the level of normal (fair weather) wave activity but still in reach of storm waves. At their lower depth limit, the pentamerid communities were out of reach of all but the most intense and infrequent storms.
In regions such as Wales that are characterized by clastic rock deposition, an onshore-offshore array of five brachiopod-dominated communities may be mapped in belts running parallel to the ancient shoreline. Listed in order from shallowest to deepest position, they are the Lingula, Eocoelia, Pentamerus, Stricklandia, and Clorinda communities. Below a relatively steep gradient, the centre of the Welsh Basin was filled by graptolitic shales.
Other areas, such as the Laurentian and Siberian platforms, characterized by carbonate deposition, typically developed a continuum of coral-stromatoporoid, Pentamerus, and Stricklandia communities. (Stromatoporoids are large colonial marine organisms similar to hydrozoans.) Clorinda communities were rare in this setting. Stricklandia communities sometimes included smaller, less-robust individuals of calcareous green algae, indicating a slightly deeper-water environment than that occupied by the Pentamerus community. Coral-stromatoporoid communities, which sometimes formed reef mounds, preferred wave-agitated waters shallower than 30 metres (100 feet). Much like the reef communities of today, they could not tolerate the more excessive rates of sedimentation typical of clastic settings. Bathymetric relief on carbonate platforms was very gentle; the full spectrum of available communities was likely often expressed over a gradient hundreds of kilometres long. In contrast, the bathymetric gradient on the Welsh shelf was no more than a few tens of kilometres long. Like the Pentamerus community, the other early Silurian communities have ecological equivalents that took their place in later Silurian time.
In regions such as Wales that are characterized by clastic rock deposition, an onshore-offshore array of five brachiopod-dominated communities may be mapped in belts running parallel to the ancient shoreline. Listed in order from shallowest to deepest position, they are the Lingula, Eocoelia, Pentamerus, Stricklandia, and Clorinda communities. Below a relatively steep gradient, the centre of the Welsh Basin was filled by graptolitic shales.
Other areas, such as the Laurentian and Siberian platforms, characterized by carbonate deposition, typically developed a continuum of coral-stromatoporoid, Pentamerus, and Stricklandia communities. (Stromatoporoids are large colonial marine organisms similar to hydrozoans.) Clorinda communities were rare in this setting. Stricklandia communities sometimes included smaller, less-robust individuals of calcareous green algae, indicating a slightly deeper-water environment than that occupied by the Pentamerus community. Coral-stromatoporoid communities, which sometimes formed reef mounds, preferred wave-agitated waters shallower than 30 metres (100 feet). Much like the reef communities of today, they could not tolerate the more excessive rates of sedimentation typical of clastic settings. Bathymetric relief on carbonate platforms was very gentle; the full spectrum of available communities was likely often expressed over a gradient hundreds of kilometres long. In contrast, the bathymetric gradient on the Welsh shelf was no more than a few tens of kilometres long. Like the Pentamerus community, the other early Silurian communities have ecological equivalents that took their place in later Silurian time.
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