Paleoecology of Sphenothallus on an Upper Ordovician hardground

A hardground from the Upper Ordovician Dillsboro Formation near Dillsboro, Indiana, U.S.A., preserves an assemblage of encrusting and boring fossils on both top and bottom surfaces. The slab is inferred to have been an undercut ledge, and the dominant fossils of the assemblage, holdfasts of the tube-building worm Sphenothallus and trepostome bryozoans, are prevalent on both sides. The clumping of Sphenothallus holdfasts has been statistically demonstrated using a nearest-neighbor technique. Sphenothallus has also been shown to withstand overgrowth in interactions with bryozoans.