Abstract

Evolutionary lineages within the Carboniferous ammonoid superfamily Goniatitaceae can be recognized using cladistic and stratophenetic analyses, showing that both approaches lead to coinciding results. In the late Vis6an and Namurian A, ammonoid provinces can be defined by the distribution of lineages within the goniatite superfamily Goniatitaceae. The first province corresponds to the Subvariscan Realm (where the superfamily became extinct near the Vis6an-Namurian boundary), and the second em- braces the majority of the occurrences, e.g. the south urals, central Asia, and North America (where the superfamily with different independent lieages continued up into the late Namurian A). In the Visean, the superfamily was, in two short epochs, globally distributed with major transgressions, which probably led to migration events.The first is at the end of the late Vis6an A(G. fimbrians and G. spirifer Zones, when the genus Goniatites had a world-wide distribution with various species),and the second at the beginning of the late Visean C (L. poststriatum Zone, when Lusitanoceras is globally distributed).