boundaries

firm grounds

ichnofacies

lowstand systems tract

maximum flooding surface

parasequence

regression

trace fossil literature

transgressive surface

The glossifungites facies are an ichnofacies which represents an assemblage of burrows (vertical, U-shaped, or sparsely branched) that occur in firm, but not lithified siliciclastic and/or carbonate muds and silts of the intertidal and shallow marine where scouring has often removed the unconsolidated layers at the sediment surface. The surfaces on which glossifungites occur are interpreted to have formed following a regression and sea level fall and just after the inital transgressive phase immediately following sea level lowstands. At these discontinuity surfaces sedimentation appears to have temporally ceased, and erosion has occurred. Examples of these surface include the transgressive surfaces formed just below the maximum flooding surfaces of parasequence boundaries.

This image from the University College of London course on trace fossils.

This ravinement surface is penetrated by glossifungites in the Cretaceous prograding shoreline at the Book Cliffs in Utah. (Photograph by Janiel Rivera in 2002).

Link to the Ichnology Research Group (IRG) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada web site logo to the left for a more complete description of this and other ichnofacies.

Reference
Pemberton, S. George, 1998, Stratigraphic applications of the Glossifungites ichnofacies; delineating discontinuities in the rock record, 1998-1999 AAPG distinguished lecturers; abstracts, AAPG Bulletin, 82 (11), p. 2155.