Oligocene Digestichnia in the lower part of the Valea Caselor facies from Fieni (Romania) – a preliminary report

Abstract

The paleoichthyological site located in the Fieni City has been the source of knowledge for more than 120 years of fossil fish associations,provided by the samples extracted from the Valea Caselor Facies. However, despite the long time span, the presence of coprolites and regurgitalites(Digestichnia sensu Vallon, 2012) was never discussed before. Therefore, this paper reports the first findings of such fossil traces of fish, belonging to thelower limb of dysodilic schist with menilite of Rupelian age. For the regurgitalites, a classification based on the mucus (m)/figurative elements (fe) ratiois proposed: m<fe = decapsulate type; m>fe = capsulate type. The reported observations are intended to open new chapters in the paleoichnologicalinvestigations that needs in the series of bitumolites with fossil fish from the Oligocene formation scattered in different parts of Romania, using modernresearch approaches, both in the field and the laboratory.