On yesterdays #paleostream we covered the Gogo formation, a diverse assemblage from the Devonian of Australia. It is an extremely productive formation with high levels of preservation, giving us stull like the oldest preserved heart and placoderms mid birth.
Gogo is one of these places though where "formation doesn't equal ecosystem" holds true a lot. In this case not because the animals were preserved over a very long time span but because the formation doesn't at all reflect where these animals lived.
The Gogo formation is a bunch of little hypoxic (low oxygen) basins in which the carcasses accumulated and were preserved in hard concretions. They lived however in and around the reefs that surround these basins.
These reefs formed massive limestone platforms that can still be seen to this day. They were build largely by stromatoporid sponges of the genus Actinostroma. However on the edges of the reef we also have colonies of corals and that's where I wanted to set this piece.
As a reef community, most stuff from here isn't that large. As you can see in these size charts by Discord member JW, the largest diversity can be found in the placoderms but funnily enough some of the largest animals are actually phyllocarid crustaceans.
