Lake ecosystems of Cretaceous Lebanon

[Halichoeres]

You might be familiar with the Cenomanian lagerstätte in Lebanon that's given us some of the oddest pycnodonts, best-preserved sclerorhynchoids, and other "Middle" Cretaceous fishes. Here's a new lagerstätte from a little bit earlier (the Barremian), and from a lake instead of a marine setting. This offers a brief summary of some of the plants, fishes, snails, ostracods, insects, and turtles. There will probably be a fair number of new species described from this locality in coming years. This region was part of northeastern Gondwana during the Lower Cretaceous, for geographic context.

Some fish skeletons, including teleosts, primitive neopterygians, a mawsoniid coelacanth, and sturgeon-like fishes:


And a depiction of the overall environment (much of this great preservation is due to ashfall, hence the inclusion of a volcano):


Paywall (but as always, get in touch for a pdf): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104732

[TethysaurusUK]

The preservation instantly makes me think of the Gara Sbaa fossil Lagerstätte.

[Halichoeres]

Yeah, they definitely look similar, in spite of being different kinds of environments.