Huemacaspis (Trilobita, Kerfornellinae) from the Late Ordovician of the Argentine Cordillera Oriental.

WAISFELD, B.G.; HENRY J-L.

GEOBIOS

Elsevier

Lugar: Lyon; Año: 2003 p. 491 - 499

0016-6995

The trilobite genus Huemacaspis Pribyl and Vanek, 1980 is redescribed from well-preserved material from the Santa Gertrudis Formation (early Caradoc), Argentine Cordillera Oriental. The new species H. gallinatoensis is described and figured. Huemacaspis is widely distributed in the southern part of the Central Andean basin during the early Caradoc and it is a key taxon for the correlation of different units from the Cordillera Oriental and Sierras Subandinas of Argentina and the Cordillera Oriental of Bolivia. This taxon is one of the few records of trilobites of early Caradoc age found in the shallow shelf environments of southwestern Gondwana. Huemacaspis is accommodated within the Kerfornellinae, a subfamily otherwise known from southern central Europe and northern Africa. The trilobite fauna from the early Caradoc of the central Andean basin suggests a faunal exchange with the latter regions indicating the persistence of a broadly similar biogeographic pattern to that documented in earlier Ordovician times.