Late Cretaceous flora of James Ross Island (Antarctica) – preliminary report

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 96-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiří Kvaček ◽  
Jakub Sakala

Fossil plants from Late Cretaceous strata (Hidden Lake Formation and Santa Marta Formation) of James Ross Basin exposed in the northern part of the James Ross Island are preliminary described. Both formations contain plant mega fossils, petrified wood, and charcoalified mesofossils. Fossil plants from the Hidden Lake Formation are represented by leaf impressions of pteridophytes (Microphyllopteris, Delosorus, Lygodium), conifers (Elatocladus, Brachyphyllum, Pagiophyllum, Araucaria, Podozamites vel Lindleycladus), Bennettitales vel Cycadales (Zamites vel Dioonites sp.) and angiosperms (Cinnamomoides, Dicotylophyllum ssp., Proteophyllum, Juglandi-phyllum vel Dicotylophyllum). Fossil wood can be attributed to the very broadly defined morphogenus Antarctoxylon Poole & Cantrill.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub Sakala ◽  
Radek Vodrážka

AbstractA new species of Antarctoxylon is described from the Coniacian Hidden Lake Formation of James Ross Island as A. mixai Sakala, sp. nov. This angiosperm fossil wood shows a unique combination of features in having indistinct growth ring boundaries, scalariform perforation plates with about 30 bars and rays both narrow (1–6-seriate) and very wide (up to 18-seriate). Its systematic affinities and exact living relative at the specific, generic or even familial level cannot be specified. Along with Weinmannioxylon nordenskjoeldii from James Ross Island and the angiosperm woods from the Williams Point on Livingston Island, this record provides further evidence of the earliest record of arboreal angiosperms in Antarctica.



2009 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor E. Rivera Sylva ◽  
Eberhard Frey ◽  
Francisco J. Palomino Sánchez ◽  
José Rubén Guzmán Gutiérrez ◽  
Jorge A.  Ortiz Mendieta


2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Brinkman

A Field Museum expedition to collect Late Cretaceous dinosaurs operated for three and a half months in the summer of 1922 in the Red Deer River badlands (Oldman and Dinosaur Park formations, Belly River Group) in an area now known as Dinosaur Provincial Park in southern Alberta, Canada. Associate Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Elmer S. Riggs led the expedition. He was ably assisted by veteran collectors George F. Sternberg and John B. Abbott. A trio of novice collectors, Anthony Dombrosky, George Bedford and C. Harold Riggs, Elmer's youngest son, rounded out the party. The expedition was a success, netting several quality specimens of duckbilled dinosaurs; one small, partial theropod skeleton; an unidentified duckbilled dinosaur skull; four turtles; other miscellaneous fossil vertebrate remains; numerous fossil plants and invertebrates; and a large fossil log. In 1956, one of these specimens—a nearly complete lambeosaurine hadrosaur reconstructed as Lambeosaurus—debuted as the less fortunate partner of Gorgosaurus in the museum's iconic ‘Dinosaurs, Predator and Prey’ exhibit in Stanley Field Hall. Both of these specimens are still on display in a permanent exhibit called ‘Evolving Planet’. Another notable specimen prepared in 1999-2000 after nearly eighty years in an unopened field jacket has been identified as a juvenile Gorgosaurus. This specimen—nicknamed ‘Elmer’—was recently touring the globe as part of the ‘Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries’ exhibit. More importantly, the expedition was an invaluable shakedown experience for the fossil hunting crew and their new equipment in the months before they left on an ambitious, multi-year fossil mammal collecting expedition to Argentina and Bolivia. An oft-repeated myth holds that Riggs viewed the Alberta expedition as a failure and departed the field the moment he obtained permission to go to South America. This paper shows that myth to be unfounded.



2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Concheyro ◽  
Andrea Caramés ◽  
Cecilia R. Amenábar ◽  
Marina Lescano

AbstractMicropaleontological and palynological samples from three Cenozoic diamictites at Cape Lamb, Vega Island, James Ross Basin were analysed. Fossiliferous samples yielded reworked and autochthonous assemblages of Mesozoic calcareous nanno− fossils, impoverished Cretaceous foraminifera together with Neogene species, as well as Late Cretaceous dinoflagellate cysts, pollen, spores and abundant Cenozoic micro− foraminiferal linings. The recovered nannoflora indicates Early Cretaceous (Hauteri− vian-Albian) and Late Cretaceous (Santonian-Early Campanian) ages, suggesting an in− tensive reworking of marine sediments. The presence of the Early Cretaceous species Nannoconus circularis Deres et Acheriteguy in the diamictite represents its first record for the James Ross Basin. The scarce foraminiferal fauna includes Pullenia jarvisi Cushman, which indicates reworking from lower Maastrichtian-lower Paleocene sediments, and also the Neogene autochthonous Trochammina sp. aff. T. intermedia. The in− ner−organic layer observed inside this specimen appears to be identical to microfora− miniferal linings recovered from the same sample. Palynomorphs found in the studied samples suggest erosion from the underlying Snow Hill Island and the Lopez de Bertodano Formation beds (upper Campanian-upper Maastrichtian). These recovered assemblages indicate either different periods of deposition or reworking from diverse sources during Cenozoic glaciation, originating in James Ross Island and the Antarctic Peninsula with the influence of local sediment sources.



2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Jonathas S. Bittencourt ◽  
Pedro L. C. R. Vieira ◽  
Raphael M. Horta ◽  
André G. Vasconcelos ◽  
Natália C. A. Brandão ◽  
...  

We report new data on the geology and the fossil record of the Sanfranciscana Basin in sites to the north of the traditionally explored localities within Minas Gerais. The strata in the new explored area are formed by distinct lithologies, encompassing pelitic rocks with caliche levels and metric bodies of cross-bedded sandstone towards the top, similar to the fluviolacustrine beds of the Areado Group in the southern portions of the basin. Also similar to other regions of the São Francisco Craton, the deposits of the Sanfranciscana Basin studied herein lie discordantly to the rocks of the Bambuí Basin. We preliminarily report neopterygian fish scales, little informative archosaurian bones and an association of the ostracods Ilyocypris- Fossocytheridea. This ostracod association is registered for the first time in the Cretaceous of the Sanfranciscana Basin. The ostracods have been collected from the lacustrine, vertebrate-bearing rocks cropping out in Lagoa dos Patos and Coração de Jesus. The cytherideid Fossocytheridea assigns a minimal Aptian age to its bearing rocks. Its association with Ilyocypris was also reported in Upper Cretaceous oligohaline paleoenvironments in Brazil and Argentina, indicating similar depositional conditions to the strata reported in this paper. The putative affinities of the specimens of the Sanfranciscana Basin with F. ventrotuberculata, and their association with Ilyocypris, raise the hypothesis of a younger age for some levels of that basin in northern Minas Gerais, perhaps ranging into the Late Cretaceous. Keywords: Ostracoda, Archosauria, Areado Group, Cretaceous, Gondwana







2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Dolezych ◽  
Lutz Reinhardt

We describe a new fossil wood species of pine, Pinuxylon selmeierianum sp. nov., for a piece of petrified wood encased within a concretion that was recovered in marine, fine-grained sandstones of the Paleogene Eureka Sound Group on Wootton Peninsula, Ellesmere Island. The fossil wood is allochthonous, having drifted in from a nearby landmass. Within the fossil wood genus Pinuxylon Gothan, 1905, Pinuxylon selmeierianum sp. nov. shares anatomical characteristics with the haploxylon sections Parrya Mayr, 1890 and Strobus Little and Critchfield, 1969. The new species is most closely related to the extant Pinus lambertiana Douglas, 1827, a species belonging to section Strobus. Our study provides the first evidence for a fossil Pinus Linné, 1753 on Wootton Peninsula, supporting the idea that Pinus was an “Arctic conifer”, and providing insights into Paleogene vegetation at high latitudes.



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