Abstract
The Eocene Popiele Beds of the Skole Nappe (Outer Carpathians, Poland) are exceptional among the predominantly deep-water lithofacies of Outer Carpathians because of their proximal origin and subsequent mass resedimentation into deeper parts of the flysch basin. Consequently, this lithostratigraphic unit contains unusually rich macrofossil assemblages within otherwise generally fossil-poor flysch successions. During a multidisciplinary study of the fossiliferous mudstone matrix from the Koniusza locality, we identified, in addition to abundant foraminifera, molluscs, bryozoans, other marine organisms, and abundant palynological organic matter, rare remains of stalked crinoids, including isocrinids, and bourgueticrinids. These echinoderms are represented by small columnals that show minimal abrasion, and in some cases little disarticulation indicating rapid burial and limited transport. Their rarity and small size may suggest the presence of a relict population inhabiting environments already strongly affected by post-Mesozoic ecological restructuring. At Koniusza, this setting was most likely a nearshore, nutrient-rich marine environment influenced by strong terrestrial input. Sedimentological and palynological evidence indicates a shallow-neritic setting with normal salinity and elevated productivity. The occurrence of stalked crinoids in such a proximal, probably shallow-marine environment provides new insight into the palaeoenvironmental preferences of these echinoderms and their ecological persistence during the Palaeogene.
Similar content being viewed by others
The latest shallow-sea isocrinids from the Miocene of Paratethys and implications to the Mesozoic marine revolution
Modeling present and future distribution of plankton populations in a coastal upwelling zone: the copepod Calanus chilensis as a study case
Mitogenome of the extinct Desert ‘rat-kangaroo’ times the adaptation to aridity in macropodoids
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and constructive suggestions, which helped to improve the clarity and quality of this manuscript. The authors would also like to thank Mr. Krzysztof Dembicz for his field guidance regarding the studied area.
Funding
The spore-pollen research (EW) was supported by statutory funding from the W. Szafer Institute of Botany PAS. MK was supported by a subsidy granted to AGH University of Krakow by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The research has been partially supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland, within the statutory activities of Institute of Botany, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University (N18/DBS/000002) to BJP.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Salamon, M.A., Gedl, P., Worobiec, E. et al. A unique occurrence of stalked crinoids in the Eocene Popiele Beds (Outer Carpathians, Poland).
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53006-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53006-4
Source: Ecology - nature.com
