Anisian | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chronology | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Etymology | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Name formality | Formal | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Celestial body | Earth | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Regional usage | Global ( ICS) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Time scale(s) used | ICS Time Scale | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Definition | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Chronological unit | Age | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Stratigraphic unit | Stage | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Time span formality | Formal | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Lower boundary definition | Not formally defined | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Lower boundary definition candidates |
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Lower boundary GSSP candidate section(s) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Upper boundary definition | FAD of the Ammonite Eoprotrachyceras curionii | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Upper boundary GSSP |
Bagolino,
Lombardian pre-Alps,
Italy 45°49′09″N 10°28′16″E / 45.8193°N 10.4710°E | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Upper GSSP ratified | 2005 [6] |
In the geologic timescale, the Anisian is the lower stage or earliest age of the Middle Triassic series or epoch and lasted from 247.2 million years ago until 242 million years ago. [7] The Anisian Age succeeds the Olenekian Age (part of the Lower Triassic Epoch) and precedes the Ladinian Age.
The stage and its name were established by Austrian geologists Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen and Carl Diener in 1895. The name comes from Anisus, the Latin name of the river Enns. The original type locality is at Großreifling in the Austrian state of Styria.
The base of the Anisian Stage (also the base of the Middle Triassic series) is sometimes laid at the first appearance of conodont species Chiosella timorensis in the stratigraphic record. Other stratigraphers prefer to use the base of magnetic chronozone MT1n. There is no accepted global reference profile for the base, but one ( GSSP or golden spike) was proposed at a flank of the mountain Deşli Caira in the Romanian Dobruja. [8]
The top of the Anisian (the base of the Ladinian) is at the first appearance of ammonite species Eoprotrachyceras curionii and the ammonite family Trachyceratidae. The conodont species Neogondolella praehungarica appears at the same level.
Especially in Central Europe the Anisian Stage is sometimes subdivided into four substages: Aegean, Bythinian, Pelsonian and Illyrian.
The Anisian contains six ammonite biozones:
* Tentatively assigned to the Anisian; age estimated primarily via terrestrial tetrapod biostratigraphy (see Triassic land vertebrate faunachrons)