Marine reptiles from the Late Cretaceous of northern Patagonia

GASPARINI, Z., CAADÍO, S., FERNÁNDEZ, M., SALGADO, L.

JOURNAL OF SOUTH AMERICAN EARTH SCIENCES

Elsevier

Lugar: Estados Unidos; Año: 2001 vol. 14 p. 51 - 60

0895-9811

During the Campanian- Maastrichtian, Patagonia was flooded by the Atlantic and reduced to an archipielago. Several localities of northern Patagonia have yielded marine reptiles. Analysis of several assemblages suggests that the diversity and abundance of pelagic marine reptiles in northern Patagonia was higer by the end of the Cretaceous than previously thought. Several plesiosauroids, including Aristonectes parvidens and the polycotylid Sulcusuchus, and the first remains of mosasaurinae have been found. The Cretaceous marine reptile record from South America is scanty. Nevertheless, material described here suggest that Tethyan and Weddelian forms converged in northern Patagonia, as seen with invertebrates.