Permian bryozoans from Svalbard – a review.

Bryozoans together with brachiopods and crinoids are the main faunal elements through the Permian succession of Svalbard, Arctic Norway. The lower Permian mainly warm water carbonate rocks contain cosmopolitan palaeostomate taxa. Typical genera here are Coscinium, Ascopora, Rhabdomeson, as well as various fenestrates and trepostomes. The shallow-water evaporitic sequence contains very few bryozoans like the endemic trepostome Toulapora. The upper part, with predominantly cold water siliceous deposits contain taxa typical of the “Boreal” region (today’s Svalbard, Greenland, Canadian- and Russian Arctic) like Ramipora, Permoheloclema, Primorella, and Clausotrypa. The biostratigraphic dating is based on fusulinids and conodonts in the lower part, whereas the upper part is less well age constrained. More work is in the pipeline, e.g. the youngest faunas are not systematically described yet, nor is the rich bryozoan fauna from the island Bjørnøya. Permian bryozoans from stratigraphic cores in the Barents shelf strata are soon open for systematic descriptions.