MACNBR   00242
MUSEO ARGENTINO DE CIENCIAS NATURALES "BERNARDINO RIVADAVIA"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
NEW VERTEBRATE ASSEMBLAGE FROM THE BROCHERO FORMATION (LATE PLIOCENE), CORDOBA PROVINCE, ARGENTINA
Autor/es:
CRUZ, LAURA E.; FERNICOLA, JUAN C.; CARIGNANO, CLAUDIO.; BARGO, M. SUSANA; BOND, MARIANO; BRIZUELA, SANTIAGO; CANDELA, ADRIANA M.; DESCHAMPS, C.M.; KALUZA, JONATAN; ORTIZ, PABLO; PARDIÑAS, ULYSES F.J. ; PEREZ BEN, CELESTE; TETA, PABLO; VUCETICH, M.G.
Lugar:
Mendoza
Reunión:
Congreso; 4th International Palaeontological Congress; 2014
Resumen:
The Brochero Formation ("Horizonte Brocherense" of Castellanos) was created on the basis of a mammal assemblage from its type locality Valle de Traslasierra (San Alberto Department), and from Valle de Los Reartes (Calamuchita Department), both in Córdoba Province, Central Argentina. The list of taxa included: Nonotherium and Paedotherium (Notungulata); Plaina, Propanochthus, Nopachthus and Plohophorus (Xenarthra, Cingulata); Orthomyctera, Ctenomys and Paleocavia (Rodentia), and Felidae indet. (Carnivora). In 1944, this mammal association was assigned by Castellanos to his "Uquian Stage" (early Pliocene for Castellanos). Later, different authors considered this association either Montehermosan Stage/Age (early Pliocene) or Huayquerian Stage/Age (late Miocene). Here we present new vertebrates from the Brochero Formation, recovered in recent field trips to the type locality, and discuss the age of the fauna and its bearing sediments. This stratigraphic unit crops out along the Valle de Traslasierra and is composed by two red beds facies normally graded, with discontinuous laminate and nodular calcretes. The basal facies is a very fine matrix-supported conglomerate; the grain size is sabulitic and the matrix is sandy silt. The upper facies is a fine sandy to clayed silt with paleosoils. The vertebrates recovered include the following taxa: the anurans Rhinella cf. R. arenarum and R. cf. R. spinulosa (Bufonidae); squamate reptiles represented by snakes (?Colubridae? indet.) and different lizards: Teius sp. (Teiidae), Iguanidae indet. and Tropidurinae indet. Within mammals, Rodentia are represented by "Akodon (Abrothrix)" magnus and a new, still unnamed, genus (Cricetidae), Phugatherium cf. P. novum (Hydrochoeridae), and an Echimyidae indet; xenarthrans include the cingulates Doellotatus cf. D. chapadmalensis (Dasypodidae) and Panochthidae indet. Snakes, lizards, Rhinella cf. R. spinulosa, the rodents, and the dasypodid are first records for the Brochero Formation. Phugatherium novum is recorded in the Chapadmalalan (late Zanclian-early Piacenzian), whereas "Akodon (Abrothrix)" magnus is recorded in the Vorohuean (Piacenzian) in the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province. These new records suggest that the Brochero Formation would have been deposited in the late Zanclean-Piacenzian interval. However, in order to refine its age further analyses and field works are needed.