Background for a paleoecological study of the Santa Cruz Formation (late Early Miocene) on the Atlantic Coast of Patagonia

VIZCAÍNO S. F.; KAY, R.F.; BARGO M. S.

Early Miocene Paleobiology in Patagonia: high-latitude paleocommunities of the Santa Cruz Formation

Cambridge University Press

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2012; p. 1 - 22

The coastal exposures of the Santa Cruz Formation have been fertile ground for recovery of late Early Miocene (~ 18 to 16 Ma) vertebrates for more than 120 years. Captain Bartholomew Sulivan collected fossils in the 1840s, sent them to Charles Darwin, who passed them to Richard Owen. Carlos Ameghino undertook several explorations of the region starting in the late 1880s. Carlos? specimens were described by his brother Florentino, who believed that many of the species were more ancient than now understood and represented the ancestors of many Holarctic mammalian orders. Ameghino?s novel claims prompted William B. Scott to organize fossil collecting expeditions in the Santa Cruz beds led by John B. Hatcher. The fossils were described in a series of exhaustive monographs with the conclusion that the fauna was much younger than Ameghino thought. Several brief expeditions took place during the 20th century leaded by researchers from different institutions. Since 2003, we have undertaken the collection of over 1600 specimens, including large series of relatively complete skeletons. In this edited volume we have gathered together a group of researchers to study the coastal Santa Cruz Formation and its associated flora and fauna to provide a paleobiological reconstruction of the Santacrucian vertebrate community and to place it in its biotic and physical environment.