Late Cretaceous/Paleogene West Antarctica Terrestrial Biota and its Intercontinental Affinities

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

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2. Introduction

   • Marcelo Reguero, Francisco Goin, Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche, Sergio Marenssi, Tania Dutra

   Pages 1-7

3. West Antarctica: Tectonics and Paleogeography

   • Marcelo Reguero, Francisco Goin, Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche, Sergio Marenssi, Tania Dutra

   Pages 9-17

4. Late Cretaceous/Paleogene Stratigraphy in the James Ross Basin

   • Marcelo Reguero, Francisco Goin, Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche, Sergio Marenssi, Tania Dutra

   Pages 19-25

5. South America/West Antarctica: Pacific Affinities of the Weddellian Marine/Coastal Vertebrates

   • Marcelo Reguero, Francisco Goin, Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche, Sergio Marenssi, Tania Dutra

   Pages 27-54

6. The Terrestrial Biotic Dimension of West Antarctica (WANT)

   • Marcelo Reguero, Francisco Goin, Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche, Sergio Marenssi, Tania Dutra

   Pages 55-110

7. Back Matter

   Pages 111-120

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One of the most intriguing paleobiogeographical phenomena involving the origins and gradual sundering of Gondwana concerns the close similarities and, in most cases, inferred sister-group relationships of a number of terrestrial and freshwater vertebrate taxa, e.g., dinosaurs, flying birds, mammals, etc., recovered from uppermost Cretaceous/ Paleogene deposits of West Antarctica, South America, and NewZealand/Australia.
For some twenty five extensive and productive investigations in the field of vertebrate paleontology has been carried out in latest Cretaceous and Paleogene deposits in the James Ross Basin, northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula (AP), West Antarctica, on the exposed sequences on James Ross, Vega, Seymour (=Marambio) and Snow Hill islands respectively.
The available geological, geophysical and marine faunistic evidence indicates that the peninsular (AP) part of West Antarctica and the western part of the tip of South America (Magallanic Region, southern Chile) were positioned very close in the latest Cretaceous and early Paleogene favoring the “Overlapping” model of South America-Antarctic Peninsula paleogeographic reconstruction.
Late Cretaceous deposits from Vega, James Ross, Seymour and Snow Hill islands have produced a discrete number of dinosaur taxa and a number of advanced birds together with four mosasaur and three plesiosaur taxa, and a few shark and teleostean taxa.

• Antarctic Peninsula
• Early Paleogene
• Late Cretaceous
• Paleobiogeography
• West Antarctica

• , División Paleontología de Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina

  Marcelo Reguero, Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche

• , División Paleontología Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina

  Francisco Goin

• SINOS — UNISINOS, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos, S'alo Leopoldo, Brazil

  Tania Dutra

• Instituto Antártico Argentino, Buenos Aires, Argentina

  Sergio Marenssi

Marcelo Reguero has studied at the University of Buenos Aires where he received his PhD in Biological Sciences. He is a Researcher for the Instituto Antártico Argentino. He has received the Antarctic Service Medal of the United States of America. His fields of interest include vertebrate paleontology, biogeography, biostratigraphy and high latitude faunas.

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