Significant geologic events
The union of the paleocontinents of Laurentia and Baltica occurred near the beginning of the Devonian to form a single landmass that has been referred to both as Laurussia and as Euramerica. The northern portion of the combined landmass gave rise to widespread areas of continental desert, playa, and alluvial plain deposits that form one of the earliest documented large areas of nonmarine sedimentation. These terrestrial deposits, known as the Old Red Sandstone, covered much of the then-united areas of North America, Greenland, Scandinavia, and the northern British Isles. They contain remarkable documentation of the colonization of land by vertebrates as well as that of freshwater rivers and lakes by plants and fish. The two latter groups existed prior to this time, but they had their earliest extensive evolutionary radiation during the Devonian.
The areas south of the Old Red Sandstone, including sectors of eastern and western North America, central and southern Europe, and parts of European Russia, were often covered by shallow continental shelf seas with local deeper marine troughs.
The continental collision that united these paleocontinents, which began during the Silurian Period, resulted from the closing of the Iapetus Ocean (which was the precursor of the Atlantic Ocean) and is known as the Iapetus suture. It was marked by a mountain-building event, the Caledonian orogeny, that established a mountain chain stretching from present-day eastern North America through Greenland, western Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, and northern England and south to the fringes of western North Africa. Considerable igneous activity was associated with the Caledonian orogenic belt, both intrusive (emplacement of magmatic bodies at depth) and extrusive (volcanic activity at the surface). Sediments derived from erosion of the mountain belt formed locally important strata such as the European deposits laid down during the Lower Devonian and the Catskill Delta in New York state begun in the Middle Devonian.
The present-day southern continents of South America, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica and the Indian subcontinent were joined together as the enormous continental mass called Gondwana during the Devonian. Large areas of Asia east of the Ural Mountains were divided into separate landmasses at this point in Earth history. Their distribution is poorly understood, but many of them may have been attached to the margins of Gondwana. Also during the Devonian Period, Gondwana began impinging upon Laurussia. There is evidence that these two landmasses completely fused together during the Late Carboniferous or Early Permian periods.
Sea level rose (transgressed) and fell (regressed) frequently during the Devonian. Some of these episodes were accompanied by a brief period of deposition of anoxic (oxygen-depleted) black shales or limestones. Many of these deposits are quite widespread. Some are associated with the extinction of important groups of fossil organisms.
Economic significance of Devonian deposits
In many countries Devonian rocks have provided building stone, refractory and building brick, glass sands, and abrasive materials. Marble of Devonian age has been quarried in France and Belgium. German medieval castles are mostly clad with Devonian slates. In areas of European Russia and in Saskatchewan, Can., evaporites, including anhydrite and halite, are commercially exploited. Lodes of tin, zinc, and copper occur in several areas where Devonian rocks have been subject to orogenic (mountain-building) processes, such as in Devon and Cornwall in England and in central Europe. Since the 19th century, oil and natural gas have been produced from Devonian rocks in New York and Pennsylvania. In the 1930s, oil was found in Devonian sandstones in the Ural-Volga region and later in the Pechora area of northern European Russia. In 1947 oil was discovered in an Upper Devonian reef at Leduc, Alta., Can.; this was followed by vigorous exploration, and oil production from the area remains significant today.
Major subdivisions of the Devonian System
The rocks formed during Devonian time are known as the Devonian System. These rocks occur on all continents both at the surface and as substrata. Extensive areas of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia are underlain by Devonian rocks. Subsequent folding has made such rocks common in many ancient fold belts.
The rocks of the Devonian System are divided into the Lower Devonian Series (419.2 million–393.3 million years ago; comprising the Lochkovian, Pragian, and Emsian stages), the Middle Devonian Series (393.3 million–382.7 million years ago; comprising the Eifelian and Givetian stages), and the Upper Devonian Series (382.7 million–358.9 million years ago; comprising the Frasnian and Famennian stages).
Establishing Devonian boundaries
During the last half of the 20th century, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) defined the boundaries and subdivisions of the Devonian System using a series of Global Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs). The base of the Lochkovian Stage—that is, the Silurian-Devonian boundary—is in a section at Klonk, Czech Rep. A point at La Serre in southern France has been identified as the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary. All stages and series of the Devonian were ratified by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) using GSSPs during the period 1972 to 1995. The standard stages are shown on the . The base of the Pragian Stage is defined at Velká Chuchle, near Prague; the base of the Emsian Stage is defined in the Zinzil’ban Gorge in Uzbekistan; the base of the Eifelian Stage is defined near Wetteldorf in the Eifel Hills of Germany; the base of the Givetian Stage is defined at Mech Irdane, near Erfoud in southern Morocco; and the bases of the Frasnian and Famennian stages are both defined near Cessenon in southern France.
Stratigraphic boundaries within the Devonian System are correlated using various fossil groups. In Devonian marine deposits, small toothlike conodonts and chambered cephalopod ammonites are especially important, but spores, brachiopods (lamp shells), and corals are also useful. In nonmarine deposits, freshwater fish and plant spores are employed for correlation. In the past, considerable difficulty was encountered in correlating the Silurian-Devonian boundary, and serious errors were made. This situation resulted because of the misconception that graptolites became extinct at the boundary. It is now known that these invertebrates range into the Emsian. In areas where graptolites range into the Early Devonian, especially in mainland Europe and Asia, much miscorrelation occurred. Today the base of the graptolite zone of Monograptus uniformis is regarded as marking the base of the Devonian.
Occurrence and distribution of Devonian deposits
Europe and North America were united approximately along their present continental slope margins during the Devonian Period. The collision of these two landmasses resulted in the Caledonian orogeny. At the close of the Silurian and continuing in the Early Devonian, considerable igneous activity (both extrusive and intrusive) occurred in the Caledonian mountain belt, which stretched from New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Scotland, and Scandinavia to eastern Greenland. Radiometric dating of granitic intrusions associated with the Caledonian orogeny yields ages between about 430 million and 380 million years. The igneous activity that produced such intrusions constituted the final stages of subduction and obduction (that is, overthrusting of the edge of one lithospheric plate over another at a convergent boundary), leading to the union of the constituent parts of Laurussia.
The Caledonian mountains were undergoing active uplift during the Devonian. The Old Red Sandstone deposits appear to be the detritus produced by the erosion of these mountain areas. Clastic material from the belt dominated the European Lower Devonian but was local and limited after that point. In eastern North America similar activity near the Silurian-Devonian boundary was followed by renewed activity during the Middle Devonian that was associated with the Acadian orogeny and the commencement of the Catskill Delta. The easterly derived fan clastics of the latter are increasingly dominant eastward across New York state, and its mostly nonmarine alluvial rocks are best seen in the Catskill Mountains near Albany.
Marine Devonian rocks provide evidence that marine waters encircled Laurussia. These rocks are now located in western Canada and the Arctic islands of Canada, in a belt from Montana to New York in the United States, in Europe from Devon to the Holy Cross Mountains of Poland, and on the Russian Platform and Novaya Zemlya.
It is clear that there was probably easterly directed subduction in western North America during the Devonian. Relics of this process are incorporated into the Cordilleran mountain chain as discrete terranes that were accreted to the continent during or after the Devonian. The clearest evidence is from the mid-Famennian Antler orogeny, during which a tectonic event resulted in clastic material being shed eastward. This event is well documented, especially in Nevada.
In many areas Devonian rocks have been heavily deformed and folded by subsequent tectonic activity. These fold belts may be distinguished from cratonic areas where sediments remain much as they were when formed. The main fold belts in North America are the Cordillera (western mountain ranges, including the Rocky Mountains) and the Appalachian belts to the east. In contrast, the Devonian of the Midwestern United States and adjoining areas is flat-lying. In South America the main fold belt is the Andes and sub-Andes; east of this line, the Devonian rocks are little disturbed. In Australia the main fold belt is in the east from Queensland to Tasmania. In Europe the Armorican fold belt stretches eastward from Cornwall and Brittany. To the south of this line from the Pyrenees to Malaysia, Devonian rocks are caught up in the Alpine-Himalayan fold belt. Similarly, the Devonian of the Ural Mountains is disturbed, whereas to the west, on the Russian Platform, and to the east there is less deformation. In all these cases the folding occurred well after the Devonian, but there is evidence that Devonian sedimentation contributed to the oceanic belts that were sites of the mountain building that occurred later.
In the regions that have suffered severe deformation, the Devonian sediments are frequently metamorphosed into slates and schists and often lose all the characteristics by which they may be dated. In areas where little change has taken place, all rock lithologies occur, from those characteristic of continental and desert conditions to the varied lithologies associated with continental shelf and deep-sea accumulation. Contemporary igneous activity was widespread in the form of extrusive lavas, submarine pillow lavas, tuffs, agglomerates, and bentonites, as well as igneous intrusions. Extrusive activity is found in both continental and marine environments, whereas plutonic intrusions are usually linked with areas of uplift such as the Caledonian and Acadian belts of Europe and eastern North America.
A wide range of terrestrial and marine sediments of Devonian age are known internationally, and there is a corresponding variety of sedimentary rock types. Devonian igneous activity was considerable, albeit localized. Laurussia is thought to have been near-tropical and sometimes arid. Playa facies, eolian dunes, and fan breccias are known. Fluviatile sediments, deposited by water under flash-flood conditions, have been identified, and these are correlated to alluvial sediments of broad coastal flats. There are lacustrine deposits of freshwater or supersaline type. Similar facies are known in other continental areas of the Devonian. Similarly, nearshore clastic, prodelta, and delta sandstones and offshore mud facies are comparable to those known in other periods.
Devonian sedimentary rocks include the spectacular carbonate reef deposits of Western Australia, Europe, and western Canada, where the reefs are largely formed of stromatoporoids. These marine invertebrates suddenly vanished almost entirely by the end of the Frasnian Age, after which reefs were formed locally of cyanobacterian stromatolites. Other areas have reefs formed by mud mounds, and there are spectacular examples in southern Morocco, southern Algeria, and Mauritania. Also distinctively Devonian is the development of locally extensive black shale deposits. The Upper Devonian Antrim, New Albany, and Chattanooga shales are of this variety, and in Europe the German Hunsrückschiefer and Wissenbacherschiefer are similar. The latter are frequently characterized by distinctive fossils, though rarely of the benthic variety, indicating that they were formed when seafloor oxygen levels were very low. Distinctive condensed pelagic limestones rich in fossil cephalopods occur locally in Europe and the Urals; these form the facies termed Cephalopodenkalk or Knollenkalk in Germany and griotte in France. In former times the latter was worked for marble. Evaporite deposits are widespread, but coals are rare. There is no firm evidence for glacial deposits except in the late Devonian of Brazil. Various types of volcanic rocks have been observed in the areas that were converging island-arc regimes. Some volcanic ash horizons, such as the Tioga Metabentonite of the eastern United States, represent short-term events that are useful for correlation.
A line passing from the Bristol Channel eastward to northern Belgium and Germany roughly demarcates the Devonian marine area from the Old Red Sandstone continental deposits to the south. The continental deposits, which characteristically are red-stained with iron oxide, extend also to Greenland, Spitsbergen, Bear Island, and Norway. The British geologist Robert Jameson coined the term Old Red Sandstone in 1808, mistakenly thinking it to be A.G. Werner’s Aelter Rother Sandstein, now known to be of Permian age. The rocks of this wide area have a remarkable affinity in both fauna and rock type and are usually considered to have been united in Devonian times. The relationships with the underlying Silurian System are seen in the classic Welsh borderlands, where the Ludlow Bone Bed was taken as the boundary until international agreement placed it somewhat higher. In Wales, southern Ireland, and the Scottish Lowlands, thicknesses of detrital deposits, chiefly sandstones, accumulated to as much as 6,100 metres (20,000 feet) in places. These sediments are rich in fish and plants, as are the eastern Greenland and Norwegian deposits. Widespread volcanics occur in Scotland.
Devonian rocks in Devon and Cornwall are mostly marine, but there are intercalations of terrestrial deposits from the north. In northern Devon, at least 3,660 metres (12,000 feet) of shales, thin limestones, sandstones, and conglomerates occur. The latter two lithologies are typical of the Hangman Grits and Pickwell Down Sandstones, which are the main terrestrial intercalations. However, in southern Devon, reef limestones occur in Middle Devonian formations, and the Upper Devonian formation locally shows very thin sequences formed on submarine rises and contemporary pillow lavas in basinal areas. In northern Cornwall both the Middle and Upper Devonian formations primarily occur in slate facies. Fossils found in these rocks have permitted detailed correlations with the Belgian and German sequences.
Devonian rocks of mixed terrestrial and marine type are known from boreholes under London, and these form a link with the Pas de Calais outcrops and to the classic areas of the Ardennes. There, between the Dinant Basin and Namur Basin to the north, is evidence of a northward landmass, as in Devon. Both the Lower and Upper Devonian formations consist of nearshore and terrigenous sediments that reach thicknesses of 2,740 metres (9,000 feet) and 460 metres (1,500 feet), respectively. The Middle Devonian and lower Upper Devonian (that is, the Eifelian, Givetian, and Frasnian stages, whose former type sections are here) structures consist mainly of limestones and shales and reach at least 1,500 metres (4,900 feet) in the south. Reefs are especially well developed in the Frasnian and occur as isolated masses, usually less than about 800 metres (2,600 feet) in length, separated by shales. Equivalents to the north show red and green silts and shales of marginal continental marine sediments. Because the Belgian Devonian rocks are well exposed along a north-south line, their changes in thickness, lithology, and fauna have been well documented.
The Eifel forms a natural eastern extension of the Ardennes, and a somewhat similar succession occurs there. The Lower Devonian pattern is nonmarine, and the Middle Devonian and Frasnian formations have a poor reef development, but the calcareous shales and limestones carry a rich and famous fauna. The GSSP defining the Lower-Middle Devonian boundary and base of the Eifelian Stage is at Schöenecken-Wetteldorf in the Eifel. The uppermost Devonian structure is not preserved.
The Rhine valley, along with the Middle Rhine Highlands to the east, has been the subject of extensive study by the numerous German universities that surround it since the early days of geology. Again, a northern sediment source is generally indicated, but a borehole well to the north near Münster has encountered Middle and lower Upper Devonian marine limestones. To the south, approaching the Hunsrück-Taunus mountains, there is also evidence of a landmass. Between these areas a rich Devonian sequence is exposed in folded terrain. The maximum thickness is 9,140 metres (30,000 feet). The Lower Devonian formation consists of slates and sandstones. The slate has been much worked to clad houses and castles. A ledge of Emsian sandstone in the Rhine gorge is the setting for the Lorelei legend. Limestones are common in the Givetian and are termed Massenkalk. Middle and Upper Devonian areas of thin sedimentation, as in Devon, are interpreted as deposits on submarine ridges. These are commonly nodular limestones that are rich in cephalopods and that occur between thick shale sequences. Evidence of volcanic activity is common, and this has been invoked to explain the concentrations of sedimentary hematite iron ores in the Givetian and Frasnian. The Harz Mountains show a more calcareous Lower Devonian section. Here, copper, lead, and zinc have been exploited from lodes in the famous Wissenbach Slate.
A calcareous Lower Devonian succession, the Bohemian facies, occurs in the Prague Basin of eastern Europe. A continuous marine succession formed from the Silurian into the Devonian, and the boundary is drawn at the top of the Silurian Series with the crinoid genus Scyphocrinites. The overlying Lochkovian and Pragian formations include the Koneprusy Limestone, which contains substantial reef deposits. The GSSP defining the base of the Devonian System and the Lochkovian Stage is at Klonk, and that defining the base of the Pragian is at Velká Chuchle, near Prague. The Upper Devonian structure is not preserved. In Moravia, complete successions of calcareous and basinal volcanic sediments occur.
Devonian rocks of a type analogous to those of southern England and the Ardennes crop out in Brittany. Farther south, outcrops occur in France, Spain, and Portugal. The GSSPs defining the Middle-Upper Devonian boundary and base of the Frasnian Stage, the base of the Famennian Stage, and the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary are drawn near Cessenon in southern France. The successions of the Pyrenees, Noire Mountains, and Carnic Alps include deepwater limestones. Marine deposits occur in the Balkan Peninsula, including Macedonia as well as Romania. The southern Polish outcrops of the Holy Cross Mountains are especially famous. They include a lower marine and continental series with a calcareous Middle Devonian section and an Upper Devonian section of reefs and shales rich in ammonites and trilobites.
In Podolia along the Dniester (Dnestr) River are fine marine sections that go up well into the Lower Devonian and are overlain by the Dniester Series of the Old Red Sandstone type. During the entire Devonian, the Ural Mountains formed a depressional trough linked northward to Novaya Zemlya and southward to the Crimean-Caucasian geosyncline that, along with the southern European outcrops already mentioned, formed part of the original Tethyan sediments of the Alpine-Himalayan fold system of the present day. In European Russia, Old Red Sandstone deposits are widespread, but marine tongues stretched westward from the Urals to reach Moscow in the Middle Devonian and St. Petersburg in the lower Upper Devonian. A remarkable series of boreholes revealed these relationships in great detail, and there is widespread evidence for salt lakes. Apart from the St. Petersburg outcrop and those along the Don River south of Moscow, the salt lakes are known from subsurface data only. Of economic importance here are the Timan-Pechora oil and gas field and the oil and potash of the Pripet Marshes. The North African areas of Algeria and especially Morocco are noted for their wealth of Devonian fossils. The GSSP defining the base of the Givetian Stage is at Mech Irdane, near Erfoud in southern Morocco.
Devonian rocks are widespread in Asia east of the Ural Mountains; however, in Devonian time Asia was composed of separated microcratons, or terranes, that appear to have been attached or adjacent to the northern margin of Gondwana. The coalescence into present-day Asia took place after the Devonian. Devonian rocks are well known to fringe the central Siberian craton (a Devonian microcontinent), particularly in some of the northern coastal islands, the Kolyma River basin, and even farther east in Siberia. A particularly good record has been found in Kazakhstan. Devonian rocks occur in the Caucasus and Tien Shan mountains along the southern border of Kyrgyzstan, and there is an excellent carbonate sequence in the Salair and a full marine sequence in the Altai. The Altai-Sayan area contains a wealth of Old Red Sandstone fishes and plants. The GSSP defining the base of the Emsian Stage is in the Zinzil’ban Gorge of Uzbekistan.
Scattered Devonian sequences occur in Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, but the Himalayan records need revision, as it has now been determined that reported significant fossils are spurious and come from quite different areas. Isolated Devonian rocks are known in Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), and Malaysia.
The Greater Khingan Range has a good record of Middle and Upper Devonian marine deposits. China is especially noted for its Devonian rocks; both marine and nonmarine facies occur. Reefs and carbonate deposits also are well developed, and the photographically spectacular sugar-loaf hills near Guilin are of Devonian age. Much research by Chinese geologists since the early 1980s has led to great advances in knowledge of the Devonian in the many outcrops in China. Devonian rocks in Japan contain the plant genus Leptophloeum, which is also widespread in China.
In New Zealand the Lower Devonian is known in the Reefton and Baton River areas. The brachiopods in the faunal assemblages include European elements and have few typical austral types.
Devonian rocks are known in eastern Australia in a belt from Queensland to Tasmania as part of the Tasman geosyncline. Fluviatile sediments are found to the west. Thicknesses of 6,100 metres (20,000 feet) are known. Leptophloeum is found in the Upper Devonian portion. Devonian rocks occur in central Australia in Lake Amadeus and along the western coast in the Carnarvon, Canning, and Bonaparte Gulf basins. Complex facies changes are known, and the Canning Basin reef complexes show every detail of forereef, reef, and backreef structures exposed by modern erosion.
In the Antarctic both marine and continental Devonian strata occur, the latter rich in fossil fishes of European genera. The marine Lower Devonian shows some affinity with the Bokkeveld in South Africa, which in turn has strong links with South America. No Devonian strata are known in Africa between the Bokkeveld and sections in Ghana and northwestern Africa.
Early Devonian marine rocks are well developed in South America, but the Late Devonian is poorly documented. In the western mountains of the Andes and sub-Andes, Devonian remnants are preserved from southern Chile north to Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia. The Devonian rocks of Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil are thought to represent marine transgression from the west. Both continental and marine fossils have been documented. The fauna of the Falkland Islands as well as of the Paraná and Parnaíba basins include many genera of brachiopods and trilobites that are common within the circum-Antarctic region but unknown in the Northern Hemisphere. In Venezuela and Colombia, however, plant, animal, fungus, and microorganism fossils of Appalachian type dominate, although austral elements such as the brachiopod Australospirifer linger.
The Appalachian area of eastern North America shows spectacular and historically famous Devonian rocks that were first described by James Hall in New York state between 1836 and 1855. A source of sand and other clastics in the east provided a flood of sediment from an eastern land area, which formed the Devonian Catskill Delta that filled a broad sedimentary trough. In the area encompassing Ontario, Michigan, and Indiana, early thin calcareous sequences give way to deeper-water marine black shales, which were formed especially in the area of the Great Lakes and south beyond Indiana. The central area of the United States formed a mid-continental rise during the Devonian, and the Devonian rock record there is thin and incomplete. Devonian rocks are well developed in New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and north to Montana, where evaporites in the subsurface are known to extend into Saskatchewan. In the mountainous area of the eastern United States, Devonian rocks are scattered and may have coalesced from separate microcratons or microplates over a long period of time. Very thick sequences of Devonian volcanics are known, for example, in the Sierra Nevada of California. In western Canada, flat-lying Devonian rocks are well known in the subsurface of Saskatchewan, and in Alberta they include oil-bearing Devonian reefs. Devonian reef complexes also occur along the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Involved in the thrusting of the Rockies, they can be seen in Alberta’s Banff and Jasper national parks. In more-scattered outcrops to the east, it would appear that deeper-water facies are represented. Following the discovery of oil in a Devonian reef at Leduc, Alta., much detailed exploration was undertaken. Rocks of Devonian age are widespread from there northward to the Canadian Arctic islands and Alaska. Their faunal assemblages show many similarities with those of Europe.
Correlation of Devonian strata
Most groups of fossil forms contribute to the establishment of a faunal and floral chronology that enables Devonian rocks to be correlated. For the continental deposits, fish and plant spores are most important. The fishes give a very precise zonation in parts of the system. The Baltic Frasnian, for example, can be divided into at least five time zones using psammosteids (Agnatha), thus probably equaling the precision possible for the better-known marine Frasnian sequences. Many problems remain, however, in the correlation of the continental and the marine deposits.
The faunal succession in marine strata has been established for many groups, but only those of significance for international correlations are mentioned here. Traditionally, the goniatites and clymenids (ammonites) form the standard. The succession established first in Germany by the paleontologist Rudolf Wedekind in 1917 has been found to hold for all continents where representatives have been discovered.
Rivaling the ammonites in most parts of the Devonian and useful for defining the divisions of the system are the conodonts. The Late Devonian was characterized by a spectacular evolutionary radiation of Palmatolepis and its relatives.
The brachiopods, although more restricted, are also important. This is particularly true of the spiriferids of the Early Devonian and of the entry and evolution of the cyrtospiriferid types in the Late Devonian. The rhynchonellids also are of great value in the subdivision of the Late Devonian. Some brachiopods, however, show diverse distribution patterns. Stringocephalus, a well-known Middle Devonian guide fossil in the western United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, is entirely absent from the rich New York succession; yet Tropidoleptus, elsewhere confined to the Lower and Middle Devonian, ranges high in the Devonian of New York. Corals also have been used for correlation, but further work suggests they were particularly sensitive to changing local environments and thus are poor time indicators.